Pan. Will this gear ne'er be mended? Tro. The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength,

Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant;

But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, 10
Less valiant than the virgin in the night
And skilless as unpractised infancy.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.

Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

Tro.

Pan.

Tro.

Have I not tarried?

Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening.

Still have I tarried.

20

day, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but

Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,— When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,

50

Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid's love thou answer'st 'she is
fair;'

Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her
voice,

Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure

The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me,

As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her; 60

But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given

me

The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth. Tro. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

Tro. Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus! Pan. I have had my labor for my travail; ill-thought on of her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labor.

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

Pan. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me.

Tro. Say I she is not fair?

80

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her for my part, I'l meddle nor make no more i' the matter.

Tro. Pandarus,

Pan. Not I.

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit Pandarus. An alarum. 91 Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamors! peace, rude sounds!

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be

fair,

When with your blood you daily paint her thus.

I cannot fight upon this argument;

It is too starved a su ject for my sword. But Pandarus, O gods, how do you plague me!

I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo,
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit. 100
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl :
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.
Alarum. Enter ÆNEAS.

Ene. How now, Prince Troilus! where. fore not afield ?

Tro. Because not there: this woman's an swer sorts,

110

For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?
Ene. That Paris is returned home and

But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither ?

Ene. in all swift haste.
Tro.

Come, go we then together. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. A street. Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER, Cres. Who were those went by? Alex.

Queen Hecuba and Helen.
Cres. And whither go they?
Alex.
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the
vale,

To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was moved:
He chid Andromache and struck his armorer,
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw 10
In Hector's wrath.

Cres.
What was his cause of anger?
Alex. The noise goes, this: there is among
the Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.

Cres. Good; and what of him? Alex. They say he is a very man per se, And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humors that his valor is

Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus. Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of? Good morrow, Alexander. How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium ?

Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pan. What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she? Cres. Hector was gone, but Helen was not up. Pan. Even so: Hector was stirring early. Cres. That were we talking of, and of his

Pan. Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale, when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this year. He shall not need it, if he have his

Cres.

Cres. "Twould not become him; his own's better.

Pan. You have no judgment, niece: Helen herself swore th' other day, that Troilus, for a brown favor-for so 'tis, I must confess,not brown neither,

Cres. No, but brown.

Pan. 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

Cres. To say the truth, true and not true Pan. She praised his complexion above Paris.

Cres. Why, Paris hath color enough.

So he has.

109

Pan. Cres. Then Troilus should have too much : if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having color enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper

nose.

Pan. I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

Cres. Then she's a merry Greek indeed. Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window,--and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin,—

Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.

Pan. Why, he is very young and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector.

Cres. Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?

129

Pan. But to prove to you that Helen loves him she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin

Cres.

cloven?

Juno have mercy! how came it

I

Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.

Cres. O, he smiles valiantly.

Cres. O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn. Pan. Why, go to, then: but to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus,-

141

Cres. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so.

Pan. Troilus! why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.

Cres. What was his answer? Pan. Quoth she, 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.' Cres. This is her question.

Pan. That's true; make no question of that. Two and fifty hairs,' quoth he, and one white that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter quoth she, which of these hairs is Paris, my husband ? ' "The forked one,' quoth he,' pluck't out, and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.

Cres. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.

Pan. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't.

Cres. So I do.

Pan. That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There's a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks! there's a countenance ! is't not a brave man ?

Cres. O, a brave man!

220

Pan. Is a' not? it does a man's heart good. Look you what hacks are on his helmet! look you yonder, do you see? look you there: there's no jesting; there's laying on, take't off who will, as they say: there be hacks!

Cres. Be those with swords?

Pan. Swords! any thing, he cares not; an the devil come to him, it's all one: by God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.

PARIS passes.

230

Pan. That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus. Cres. Can Helenus fight, uncle? Pan. Helenus ? no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry Troilus'? Helenus is a priest.

Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

TROILUS passes.

Pan. Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! Hem! Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry! Cres. Peace, for shame, peace! 250 Pan. Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's, and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he ne'er saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris ?

Cres. Well, well.

Pan. Well, well!' Why, have you any discretion? have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?

Cres. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man's date's out. 281 Pan. You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie.

Cres. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty, my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

Pan. Say one of your watches.

290

Cres. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past watching.

Pan. You are such another!

Enter TROILUS'S Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

Pan.

Where?

That she was never yet that ever knew Love got so sweet as when desire did sue. Therefore this maxim out of love I teach: Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech: Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear, 320

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear. [Exeunt

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before
Agamemnon's tent.”

Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYS
SES, MENELAUS, and others.
Agam. Princes, DS PLAN
What grief hath set the jaundice on your
cheeks?

The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below

Fails in the promised largeness: checks and disasters

Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls

stand;

10

The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft seem all affined and kin :
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter, by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

30

Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat,

Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: the sea being
smooth,

How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk !

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid moun-

tains cut,

40 Bounding between the two moist elements, Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat