SCENE II. The same. Pandarus' Orchard. Enter PANDARUS and a Servant, meeting. Pan. How now? where's thy master? at my cousin Cressida's? Serv. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither. Enter TROILUS. Pan. O, here he comes.-How now, how now ·? Tro. Sirrah, walk off. Pan. Have you seen my cousin? [Exit Servant. Tro. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus, Pan. Walk here i'the orchard, I'll bring her straight. [Exit PANDARus. Tro. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense; What will it be, I fear it much; and I do fear besides, 16 ubi jam amborum fuerat confusa voluptas.' Sappho's Epistle to Phaon. As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps Re-enter PANDARUS. if she were frayed It is the prettiest Pan. 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 with a sprite; I'll fetch her. villain: she fetches her breath as short as a new[Exit PANDArus. Tro. 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. ta'en sparrow. Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA. Pan. 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 watched2 ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you i' the fills3.-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 2 Hawks were tamed by keeping them from sleep; and thus Pandarus meant that Cressida should be tamed. See Taming of the Shrew, Act iv. Sc. 1, p. 411. 3 i. e. the shafts. Phills or fills is the term in the midland counties for the shafts of a cart or waggon. See vol. iii. p. 28, note 8. 4 The allusion is to bowling; what is now called the jack was formerly termed the mistress. A bowl that kisses the jack or mistress is in the most advantageous situation. Rub on is a term in the game. See Cymbeline, Act ii. Sc. 1. 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' the river: go to, go to. Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady. Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you of the deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here's -In witness whereof the parties interchangeably— Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire. [Exit PANDARus. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Tro. O, Cressida, how often have I wished me thus? Cres. Wished, my lord?-The gods grant!-O my lord! 5A kiss in fee-farm' is a kiss of duration, that has bounds, a fee-farm being a grant of lands in fee; that is, for ever reserving a certain rent. The same idea is expressed much more poetically in Coriolanus, when the jargon of law was absent from the poet's thoughts: - O, a kiss Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!' 6 The tercel is the male and the falcon the female hawk. Pandarus appears to mean that he will back the falcon against the tercel, or match his niece against her lover for any bet. 7 Shakspeare had here an idea in his thoughts that he has elsewhere often expressed. Thus in a future page: Go to, a bargain made; seal it.' So in Measure for Measure: But my kisses bring again Seals of love, but seal'd in vain.' Thus also in King John: Upon thy cheek I lay this zealous kiss, As seal to the indenture of my love.' And in Venus and Adonis : 'Pure lips sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, Green has a similar thought in his Arcadia : : Even with that kiss, as once my father did, Tro. What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love? Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. Tro. Fears make devils cherubins; they never see truly. Cres. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: To fear the worst, oft cures the worst. Tro. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster3. Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither? Tro. Nothing, but our undertakings; when we Vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat 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 confined; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit. Cres. 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? 8 From this passage a Fear appears to have been a personage in other pageants, or perhaps in our ancient moralities. To this circumstance Aspatia alludes in The Maid's Tragedy: and then a Fear Do that Fear bravely, wench.' So in Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 3: In the Sacred Writings Fear is also a person:-'I will put a Fear in the land of Egypt.'-Exodus. Spenser has personified Fear in the twelfth canto of the third book of his Fairy Queen. VOL. VII. L L Tro. 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. to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid, as what envy can say worst, shall be a mock for his truth 10; and what truth can speak truest, not truer than Troilus. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Re-enter PANDARUS. Few words Par. What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet? Cres. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you. Pan. 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. Tro. You know now your hostages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith. Pan. 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 thrown11. Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart: Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win? 9 i. e. we will give him no high or pompous titles. 10 Even malice (i. e. envy) shall not be able to impeach his truth, or attach him in any other way, except by ridiculing him for his constancy. See vol. iii. p. 72, note 1. We have this allusion in Measure for Measure:- Nay, friar, I am a kind of bur, I shall stick.' |