O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!-hey ho!
HELEN. In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose.
PARIS. He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood,
and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot
deeds, and hot deeds is love.
PANDARUS. Is this the
generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts,
and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a
generation of
vipers? Sweet lord, who's a-field today?
PARIS. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry
of Troy. I would fain have arm'd to-day, but my Nell would not
have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?
HELEN. He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.
PANDARUS. Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend
to-day. You'll remember your brother's excuse?
PARIS. To a hair.
PANDARUS. Farewell, sweet queen.
HELEN. Commend me to your niece.
PANDARUS. I will, sweet queen. Exit. Sound a retreat
PARIS. They're come from the field. Let us to Priam's hall
To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you
To help unarm our Hector. His
stubborn buckles,
With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd,
Shall more obey than to the edge of steel
Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more
Than all the island kings-disarm great Hector.
HELEN. 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;
Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty
Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,
Yea, overshines ourself.
PARIS. Sweet, above thought I love thee. Exeunt
ACT III. SCENE 2.
Troy. PANDARUS'
orchardEnter PANDARUS and TROILUS' BOY, meeting
PANDARUS. How now! Where's thy master? At my cousin Cressida's?
BOY. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.
Enter TROILUS
PANDARUS. O, here he comes. How now, how now!
TROILUS. Sirrah, walk off. Exit Boy
PANDARUS. Have you seen my cousin?
TROILUS. No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to these fields
Where I may
wallow in the lily beds
Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid!
PANDARUS. Walk here i' th'
orchard, I'll bring her straight.
Exit
TROILUS. I am giddy;
expectation whirls me round.
Th'
imaginaryrelish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense; what will it be
When that the wat'ry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;
Swooning
destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tun'd too sharp in sweetness,
For the
capacity of my ruder powers.
I fear it much; and I do fear besides
That I shall lose
distinction in my joys;
As doth a battle, when they
charge on heaps
The enemy flying.
Re-enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS. She's making her ready, she'll come straight; you must be
witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as
if she were fray'd with a
sprite. I'll fetch her. It is the
prettiest
villain; she fetches her
breath as short as a new-ta'en
sparrow. Exit
TROILUS. Even such a
passion doth
embrace my bosom.
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
The eye of majesty.
Re-enter PANDARUS With CRESSIDA
PANDARUS. Come, come, what need you blush? Shame's a baby.-Here she
is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.-
What, are you gone again? You must be watch'd ere you be made
tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw
backward, we'll put you i' th' fills.-Why do you not speak to
her?-Come, draw this curtain and let's see your picture.
Alas the day, how loath you are to
offend daylight! An 'twere
dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress
How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there,
carpenter; the air is
sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The
falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' th' river. Go to, go
to.
TROILUS. You have
bereft me of all words, lady.
PANDARUS. Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she'll bereave
you o' th' deeds too, if she call your activity in question.
What, billing again? Here's 'In
witnesswhereof the parties
interchangeably.' Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.
Exit
CRESSIDA. Will you walk in, my lord?
TROILUS. O Cressid, how often have I wish'd me thus!
CRESSIDA. Wish'd, my lord! The gods grant-O my lord!
TROILUS. What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption?
What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the
fountain of our
love?
CRESSIDA. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.
TROILUS. Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.
CRESSIDA. Blind fear, that
seeing reason leads, finds safer footing
than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft
cures the worse.
TROILUS. O, let my lady
apprehend no fear! In all Cupid's pageant
there is presented no monster.
CRESSIDA. Nor nothing
monstrous neither?
TROILUS. Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas,
live in fire, cat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our
mistress to
devise imposition enough than for us to
undergo any
difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that
the will is
infinite, and the
execution confin'd; that the desire
is
boundless, and the act a slave to limit.
CRESSIDA. They say all lovers swear more
performance than they are
able, and yet reserve an
ability that they never perform; vowing
more than the
perfection of ten, and discharging less than the
tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act
of hares, are they not monsters?
TROILUS. Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are
tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit
crown it. No
perfection in reversion shall have a praise in
present. We will not name desert before his birth; and, being
born, his
addition shall be
humble. Few words to fair faith:
Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall
be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest not
truer than Troilus.
CRESSIDA. Will you walk in, my lord?
Re-enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS. What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?
CRESSIDA. Well, uncle, what folly I
commit, I
dedicate to you.
PANDARUS. I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you'll
give him me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.
TROILUS. You know now your hostages: your uncle's word and my firm
faith.
PANDARUS. Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our
kindred, though
they be long ere they are wooed, they are
constant being won;
they are burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are
thrown.
CRESSIDA. Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.
Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day
For many weary months.
TROILUS. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
CRESSIDA. Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever-
pardon me.
If I
confess much, you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but till now not so much
But I might master it. In faith, I lie;
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabb'd? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;
And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man,
Or that we women had men's privilege
Of
speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
For in this
rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall
repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my
weakness draws
My very soul of
counsel. Stop my mouth.
TROILUS. And shall,
albeit sweet music issues thence.
PANDARUS. Pretty, i' faith.
CRESSIDA. My lord, I do
beseech you,
pardon me;
'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.
I am asham'd. O heavens! what have I done?
For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
TROILUS. Your leave, sweet Cressid!
PANDARUS. Leave! An you take leave till to-morrow morning-
CRESSIDA. Pray you, content you.
TROILUS. What
offends you, lady?
CRESSIDA. Sir, mine own company.
TROILUS. You cannot shun yourself.
CRESSIDA. Let me go and try.
I have a kind of self resides with you;
But an
unkind self, that itself will leave
To be another's fool. I would be gone.
Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
TROILUS. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
CRESSIDA. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;
And fell so roundly to a large
confession
To angle for your thoughts; but you are wise-
Or else you love not; for to be wise and love
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
TROILUS. O that I thought it could be in a woman-
As, if it can, I will
presume in you-
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her
constancy in
plight and youth,
Outliving beauty's
outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or that
persuasion could but thus
convince me
That my
integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnowed
purity in love.
How were I then uplifted! but, alas,
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the
infancy of truth.
CRESSIDA. In that I'll war with you.
TROILUS. O
virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Want similes, truth tir'd with iteration-
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,