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Pan. You spy! what do you spy?-Come, give me Cressida's?
an instrument!-Now, sweet queen!
Helen. Why, this is kindly done.

Pan. My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen!

Helen. She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my lord Paris.

Pan. He! no, she'll none of him; they two are

twain.

Helen. Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.

Pan. Come, come, I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing you a song now.

Helen. Ay, ay, pr'ythee now! By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead. 'Pan. Ay, you may, you may!

Helen. Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all. O, Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

Pan. Love! ay, that it shall, i'faith!

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?

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[Exit Servant.

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Tro. 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 those fields,
Where I may wallow in the lily beds
Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid!

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,

Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love! That it enchants my sense. What will it be,

Pan. In good troth, it begins so:

Love, love, nothing but love, still more!
For, oh, love's bow
Shoots buck and doe:

The shaft confounds,
Not that it wounds,

But tickles still the sore.

Oh! oh! they die!

These lovers cry ·
Yet that, which seems the wound to kill,
Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!

So dying love lives still:

Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha! Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha! Hey ho!

Helen. In love, i'faith, to the very tip of the nose. Par. 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. Pan. 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 afield to-day?

When that the watʼry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed 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:

Par. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed today, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?

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.

Helen. He hangs the lip at something; - you know all, lord Pandarus.

Pan. Not I, honey-sweet queen!-I long to hear how they sped to-day.-You'll remember your bro

ther's excuse?

Par. To a hair.

Pan Farewell, sweet queen!
Helen. Commend me to your niece.
Pan. I will, sweet queen!

Re-enter PANDARUS.

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 if she were frayed 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 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.

[Exit.

[A retreat sounded.
Par. They are come from 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,

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 watched ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you i'the 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 of fend day-light! 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 the river: go to, go to!

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.

Par. Sweet, above thought I love thee. [Exeunt.

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 interchangeablyCome 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! — 0 my lord!

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!

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Tro. Fears make devils cherubims; 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 monster. 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?

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. 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. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord?

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pan. What, blushing still? have yon 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 thrown. Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart:

Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day
For many weary months.

Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cres. 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 not, till now, 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!

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
Pan. Pretty, i'faith.

Cres. 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!

Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid?

Pan. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning!

Cres. Pray you, content you! Tro. What offends you, lady? Cres. Sir, mine own company. Tro. You cannot shun Yourself.

Cres. 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.
Tro. Well know they what they speak, that speak
so wisely.

Cres. 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.
Tro. O, that I thought it could be in a woman,
(As, if it can, I well 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 miud
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 winnow'd 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.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.
Tro. 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 truths 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,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentic author to be cited,
As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

Cres. Prophet may you be!

-

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,
And mighty states charácterless are grated
To dusty nothing; yet let memory,

From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood! when they have said-as false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son;
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
As false as Cressid.

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Pan. Amen! Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed, which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death: away!

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,
Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this geer!

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the ge

neral?

Achil. No.

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Nest. Nothing, my
Agam. The better.

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[Exeunt.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor.
Achil. Good day, good day!
Men. How do you? how do you?

TH

M

[Exit Menelaus.

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An

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SCENE III.-The Grecian camp.
Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX,
MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind,
That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove
I have abandon'd Troy, left my possessions,
Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,

To doubtful fortunes; sequest'ring from me all,
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,
Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become

As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit,

Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.
Agam. What would'st thou of us, Trojan? make

demand!

Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,
Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you, (often have you thanks therefore,)
Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied. But this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest in their affairs,
That their negociations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
In most accepted pain.

Agam. Let Diomed bear him,

And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
What he requests of us. - Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me?
Ajax. How now, Patroclus?
Achil. Good morrow, Ajax!
Ajax. Ha?

Achil. Good morrow!

Ajax. Ay, and good next day too! [Exit Ajax.
Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not
Achilles?

Patr. They pass by strangely: they were us'd to
bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly, as they us❜d to creep
To holy altars.

Achil. What, am I poor of late?

'Tis certain, Greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declin'd is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,
Hath any honour; but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

[Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas.
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their tent,
Ulys. Achilles stauds i'the entrance of his tent:-
Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:
I will come last. "Tis like, he'll question me,

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess,
Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they are often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.—

How now, Ulysses?

Ulys. Now, great Thetis' son?
Achil. What are you reading?
Ulys. A strange fellow here

Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without, or in,
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver,

Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face,
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself,

Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on (That most pure spirit of sense,) behold itself

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To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Agam. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along;
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.
Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.
Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

Not going from itself; but eye to eye oppos'd
Salutes each other with each other's form.
For speculation turns not to itself,
Till it hath travell'd, and is married there,
Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all.
Ulys. I do not strain at the position,
It is familiar; but at the author's drift:
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves -
That no man is the lord of any thing,
(Though in and of him there be much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught,
Till he behold them form'd in the applause,
Where they are extended; which, like an arch, re-

verberates

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Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse;
That has he knows not what. Nature, what things
there are,

Most abject in regard, and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem,
And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow
An act that very chance doth throw upon him,
Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!

How some men creep in skittish Fortune's hall,
While others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords! - why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder;
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
And great Troy shrinking.

Achil. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me,
As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me
Good word, nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?
Ulys. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes:

Those scraps are good deeds past, which are de

vour'd

As fast, as they are made, forgot as soon,
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way!
For honour travels in a streight so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path!
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue. If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in
present,

Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps-in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seck
Remuneration for the thing it was!
For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax!
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And till it might; and yet it may again,
If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent;
Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.

Achil. Of this my privacy I have strong reasons.

Ulys. But 'gainst your privacy

The reasons are more potent and heroical. 'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam's daughters.

Achil. Ha! kuown?

Ulys. Is that a wonder?

The providence, that's in a watchful state,
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold,
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps,
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery (with whom relation
Durst never meddle) in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine,
Than breath, or pen, can give expressure to.
All the commerce, that you have had with Troy,
As perfectly is ours, as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much,
To throw down Hector, than Polyxena.
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus, now at home,
When fame shall in our islands sound her trump,
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing:
Great Hector's sister did Achilles win,
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.
Farewell, my lord! I as your lover speak;

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The fool slides o'er the ice, that you should break.
[Exit.
Patr. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd you:
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loath'd, than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this;
They think, my little stomach to the war,
And your great love to me, restrains you thus.
Sweet, rouse yourself! and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck uuloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's name,
Be shook to air.

Achil. Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

Patr. Ay; and, perhaps, receive much honour by him.

Achil. I see, my reputation is at stake;
My fame is shrewdly gor'd.
Patr. O, then beware:

Those wounds heal ill, that men do give themselves.
Omission to do, what is necessary,

Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then, when we sit idly in the sun.

Achil. Go, call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus!
I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
To invite the Trojan lords after the combat,
To see us here unarm'd. I have a woman's longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,

To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full of view. A labour say'd!
Enter THERSITES.

Ther. A wonder! Achil. What?

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Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in saying nothing. Achil. How can that be?

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down, like a peacock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates like an hostess, that hath no arithmetic, but her brain, to set down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say there were wit in this head, an 'twould

Consent upon the order of their fight,
So be it! either to the uttermost,

Or else a breath: the combatants being kin,
Half stints their strife, before their strokes begin.
[Ajax and Hector enter the lists.
Ulys. They are oppos'd already.
Agam. What Trojan is that same, that looks so
heavy?

Ulys. The youngest son of Priam, a true knight; Not yet mature, yet matchless, firm of word, Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue; Not soon provok'd, nor, being provok'd, soon calm'd: His heart and hand both open, and both free; For what he has, he gives, what thinks, he shows; Yet gives he not, till judgment guide his bounty, Nor dignifies an impair thought with breath: Manly as Hector, but more dangerous: For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes To tender objects; but he, in heat of action, Is more vindicative, than jealous love: They call him Troilus, and on him erect A second hope, as fairly built, as Hector. Thus says Aeneas: one, that knows the youth Even to his inches, and, with private soul, Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.

[Alarum. Hector and Ajax fight.

Agam. They are in action.
Nest. Now, Ajax, hold thine own!
Tro. Hector, thou sleep'st;
Awake thee!

|

Agam. His blows are well dispos'd: - there, Ajax!
[Trumpets cease.

Dio. You must no more.
Aene. Princes, enough, so please you!
Ajax. I am not warm yet, let us fight again.
Dio. As Hector pleases.

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And signify this loving interview
To the expecters of our Trojan part!
Desire them home! Give me thy hand, my cousin!
I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.
Ajax. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.
Hect. The worthiest of them tell me name by name;
But for Achilles, my own searching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly size.
Agum. Worthy of arms! as welcome, as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy;

Hect. Why then, will I no more:-
Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son,
A cousin-german to great Priam's seed;
The obligation of our blood forbids
A gory emulation 'twixt us twain:
Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so,
That thou could'st say: This hand is Grecian all,
And this is Trojan, the sinews of this leg
All Greek, and this all Troy, my mother's blood
Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister
Bounds-in my father's: by Jove multipotent,
Thou should'st not bear from me a Greekish member,
Wherein my sword had not impressure made
Of our rank feud. But the just gods gainsay,
That any drop, thou borrow'st from thy mother,
My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword
Be drain'd. Let me embrace thee, Ajax!
By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;
Hector would have them fall upon him thus:
Cousin, all honour to thee!

Ajax. I thank thee, Hector:

Thou art too gentle, and too free a man.
I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence
A great addition earned in thy death.
Hect. Not Neoptolemus so mirable

But that's no welcome. Understand more clear,
What's past, and what's to come, is strew'd with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion;

But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee, with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome!
Hect. I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon!
Agam. My well-fam'd lord of Troy, no less to you!
[To Troilus.

(On whose bright crest Fame with her loud'st O yes
Cries, This is he,) could promise to himself
A thought of added honour torn from Hector.
Aene. There is expectance here from both the sides,
What further you will do.

Hect. We'll answer it;
The issue is embracement:

Ajax, farewell!

Men. Let me confirm my princely brother's greeting!

You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither!
Hect. Whom must we answer?
Men. The noble Menelaus.

Hect. O you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks!
Mock not, that I affect the untreaded oath;
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove:
She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.
Men. Name her not now, sir! she's a deadly theme.
Hect. O, pardon; I offend!

Nest. I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth: and I have seen
thee,

As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i'the air,
Not letting it decline on the declin'd;
That I have said to some my standers-by,
Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!
And I have seen thee pause, and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in,
| Like an Olympian wrestling: this have I seen;
But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel,
I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,
And once fought with him: he was a soldier good;
But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,
Never like thee. Let an old man embrace thee,
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents!
Aene. 'Tis the old Nestor.

Ajax. If I might in entreaties find success,
(As seld I have the chance,) I would desire
My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.
Dio. 'Tis Agamemnon's wish: and great Achilles
Doth long to see unarm'd the valiant Hector.
Ilect. Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me,

Hect. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle! Thou hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time: Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee. Nest. I would, my arms could match thee in con. tention,

As they contend with thee in courtesy.
Hect. I would, they could.

Nest. Ha!

By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow.
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time-
Ulys. I wonder now, how yonder city stands,
When we have here her base and pillar by us.
Hect. I know your favour, lord Ulysses, well.
Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead,
Since first I saw yourself and Diomed
In Ilion, on your Greekish embassy.

Ulys. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
You towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,

Must kiss their own feet.

Hect. I must not believe you:

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