Paris from the prince Troilus: I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seeths. Serv. Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase, indeed!

Pan. At whose pleasure, friend?
Serv. At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.

Pan. Command, I mean, friend.
Serv. Who shall I command, sir?

Pan. Friend, we understand not one another; I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning: At whose request do these men play?

Serv. That's to't, indeed, sir: Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who is there in person; with him, the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul,

Pan. Who, my cousin Cressida ?

Serv. No, sir, Helen; Could you not find out that by her attributes?

Pan. It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the lady Cressida. I come to speak with

(1) Titles.

(2) Stream, rivulet. (3) Boils.

Enter Paris and Helen, attended.

Pan. Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen! fair thoughts be your fair pillow!

Helen. Dear lord, you are full of fair words. Pan. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen.~Fair prince, here is good broken music.

Par. You have broke it, cousin and, by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance :-Nell, he is full of harmony. Pan. Truly, lady, no. Helen. O, sir,

Pan. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude. Par. Well said, my lord! well, you say so in fits.4 Pan. I have business to my lord, dear queen:My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?

Helen. Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we'll hear you sing, certainly.

Pan. Well, sweet queen, you are pleasant with me.- -But (marry) thus, my lord,-My dear lord, and most esteemed friend, your brother TroilusHelen. My lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord,himself most affectionately to you. Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to:-commends

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 says my sweet queen,-my very very sweet queen?

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

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;5 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.

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

(4) Parts of a song. (5) Wide of your mark.

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 addition1 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
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:

(1) Titles. (2) Ever. (3) Met with and equalled.

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.

You cannot shun

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 will presume in you,)
To feed for aye2 her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy 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,4
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 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.

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 end after my name, call them all-Pandars; let all inconstant men be Troiluses, all false

(4) Comparison. (5) Conclude it.

Tro. Amen.
Cres. Amen.

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!

[Exeunt. 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 possession,
Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; séquest'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 behalf.
my
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 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. [Exe. Dio. and Cal. Enter Achilles and Patroclus, before their tent. Ulyss. Achilles stands i'the entrance of his

tent :

Please it our general to pass strangely2 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,
Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on
him:
I have derision med'cinable,

If so,

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 ;—

(1) An instrument for tuning harps, &c.

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?

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

No.

Achil.

Nest. Nothing, my lord. Agam.

The better.

Achil.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor. Good day, good day. Men. How do you? how do you? [Exit Men. Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me? Ajax. How now, Patroclus?

Achil.

Good morrow, Ajax.

Ajax.

Achil. Good morrow. Ajax.

Ha?

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:
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,3
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.
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.
Ulyss. I do not strain at the position,
It is familiar; but at the author's drift:

(2) Shyly.

(3) Excellently endowed,