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Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to:-commends how they sped to-day.-You'll remember your brohimself most affectionately to you. ther's excuse?

Helen. You shall not bob us out of our melody;
If you do, our melancholy upon your head!
Pan. Sweet queen, sweet queen; that's a sweet
queen, i' faith."

Helen. And to make a sweet lady sad, is a sour offence.

Pan. Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words: no, no.-And, my lord, he desires you, that, if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

Helen. My lord Pandarus,—

Pan. What say my sweet queen,-my very very sweet queen ?

Par. What exploit's in hand? where sups he tonight ?

Helen. Nay, but my lord,————

Pan. What says my sweet queen ?-My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where he sups.

Par. I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida. Pan. No, no, no such matter, you are wide; come, your disposer is sick.

Par. Well, I'll make excuse.
Pan. Ay, good my lord. Why should you say-
Cressida no, your poor disposer's sick.
Par. I spy.

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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.

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

Pan. You spy! what do you spy ?--Come, give thither. me 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 iny 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.

Enter Troilus.

Pan. O, here he comes.-How now, how now?
Tro. Sirrah, walk off.
[Eait Servant.
Pan. Have you seen my cousin ?
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.
[Erit Pandarus.
Tro. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet

That it enchants my sense; What will it be,

Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love. When that the watry palate tastes indeed

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.

These lovers cry-Oh! oh! they die!
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?

Par. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed to-night, 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.

Pan. Not I, honey-sweet queen.-I long to hear

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:

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.

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 newta'en sparrow. [Exit Pandarus.

Tro. Even such a passion doth embrace my bo

som:

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.

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 offend daylight! an 't were | But I might master it :-in faith, I lie; dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown the mistress. How now, a kiss in fee-farm! build Too headstrong for their mother: See, we fools! there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us, fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The falcon When we are so unsecret to ourselves? as the tercel, for all the ducks i'the river: go to, But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not; go to. 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 musick issues thence.

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?

Pan. Pretty, i'faith.

Cres. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me:

Cres. Wished, my lord?-The gods grant-O'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss: 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.

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 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 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 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 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

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.

Yourself.

Cres. Let me go and try:

You cannot shun

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 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 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 center,-
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentick 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 waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,
And mighty states characterless 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.

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?

Pan. Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the witness.- Here I hold your hand: here, my cousin's. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world's You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst end after my name, call them all-Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen. Tro. Amen.

Cres. Amen.

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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 possession,
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.
Agum. 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 negotiations 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 Diomedes 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.

[Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas. Enter Achilles and Patroclus, before their tent. Ulyss. Achilles stands 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,

Troy.

Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general ?

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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 for

tune,

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:

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 have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.-
How now, Ulysses?
Ulyss.
Now, great Thetis' son?
Achil. What are you reading?
Ulyss.
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
(That most pure spirit of sense,) behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye oppos'd
Salutes each other with each other's form.

Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on For speculation turn's not to itself,

him:

If so, I have derision med'cinable,

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.

Till it hath travell'd, and is married there
Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all.
Ulyss. 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,

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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,
Whiles 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?
Ulyss. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes :

Achil.

I have strong reasons. Ulyss.

Of this my privacy

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.

Ulyss. Is that a wonder?

Ha! known?

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;
The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.

[Brit.

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

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this;

devour'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 strait 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

seek

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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 still 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 them-
selves,

And drave great Mars to faction.

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 unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
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.

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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 sav'd?
Enter Thersites.

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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 arithmetick but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politick regard, as who should say there were wit in this head, an 'twould out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i'the combat, he'll break it himself in vain-glory. He

knows not me: I said, Good-morrow, Ajax; and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He is grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

Achil. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Ther. Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not answering; speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in his arms. I will put on his presence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

Achil. To him, Patroclus: Tell him,-I humbly desire the valiant Ajax, to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person, of the magnanimous, and most illustrious, six-or-seven-times-honoured captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon. Do this.

Patr. Jove bless great Ajax.

Ther. Humph!

Patr. I come from the worthy Achilles,

Ther. Ha!

Patr. Who most humbly desires you, to invite

Hector to his tent!.

Ther. Humph!

But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance,
As heart can think, or courage execute.

Dio. The one and other Diomed embraces.
Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health:
But when contention and occasion meet,
By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life,
With all my force, pursuit, and policy.

Ene. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly
With his face backward.-In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,
Welcome, indeed! By Venus' hand I swear,
No man alive can love, in such a sort,
The thing he means to kill, more excellently.
Dio. We sympathize:-Jove, let Æneas live,
If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
A, thousand complete courses of the sun!
But, in mine emulous honour, let him die,
With every joint a wound; and that to-morrow!
Ene. We know each other well.

Dio. We do; and long to know each other worse.
Par. This is the most despiteful gentle greeting,
The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.-
What business, lord, so early?

Ene. I was sent for to the king; but why, I
know not.

Par. His purpose meets you; 'Twas to bring this
Greek

Patr. And to procure safe conduct from Aga- To Calchas' house; and there to render him,

memnon.

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Patr. Your answer, sir.

Ther. Fare you well, with all my heart. Achil. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? Ther. No, but he's out o'tune thus. What musick will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not: But, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.

Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

Ther. Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more capable creature.

Achil. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;

And I myself see not the bottom of it.

[Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus. Ther. 'Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a valiant ig[Exit.

norance.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-Troy. A Street.

Enter, at one side, Æneas, and Servant with a torch;
at the other, Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, Dio-
medes, and others, with torches.

Par. See, ho! who's that there?
Dei.

Ene. Is the prince there in person?
Had I so good occasion to lie long,
As you, prince Paris, nothing but heavenly

ness

For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid:
Let's have your company; or, if you please,
Haste there before us: I constantly do think,
(Or, rather, call my thought a certain knowledge,)
My brother Troilus lodges there to-night;
Rouse him, and give him note of our approach,
With the whole quality wherefore; I fear,
We shall be much unwelcome.

Ene.
That I assure you;
Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece,
Than Cressid borne from Troy.
Par.
There is no help;

The bitter disposition of the time
Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.
Ene. Good morrow, all.

[Exit.

Par. And tell me, noble Diomed; 'faith, tell me
true,

Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,-
Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen best,
Myself, or Menelaus ?

Both alike:

Dio.
He merits well to have her, that doth seek her
(Not making any scruple of her soilure,)
With such a hell of pain, and world of charge;
And you as well to keep her, that defend her
(Not palating the taste of her dishonour,)
With such a costly loss of wealth and friends:
He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;
You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
Are pleas'd to breed out your inheritors;
Both merits pois'd, each weighs nor less nor more;
But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

Par. You are too bitter to your country woman.
Dio. She's bitter to her country: Hear me,
Paris.-

For every false drop in her bawdy veins

A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight,

A Trojan hath been slain; since she could speak,
'Tis the lord Æneas. She hath not given so many good words breath,
As for her Greeks and Trojans suffer'd death.
Par. Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,
busi-Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy:
But we in silence hold this virtue well,-
We'll not commend what we intend to sell.

Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

Dio. That's my mind too-Good morrow, lord

Eneas.

[blocks in formation]

Here lies our way.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. Court before the House of
Pandarus.

Enter Troilus and Cressida.

Tro. Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is

cold.

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