Enter Pandarus ⟨and⟩ Troilus’s Man, ⌜meeting.⌝PANDARUS How now? Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?MAN No, sir, ⟨he⟩ stays for you to conduct him thither.⟨Enter Troilus.⟩PANDARUS O, here he comes.—How now, how now?TROILUS, ⌜to his Man⌝ 5Sirrah, walk off.⌜Man exits.⌝PANDARUS Have you seen my cousin?TROILUS No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,10 And give me swift transportance to ⟨those⟩ fields Where I may wallow in the lily beds Proposed for the deserver! O, gentle Pandar, From Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings And fly with me to Cressid!PANDARUS 15Walk here i’ th’ orchard. I’ll bring her straight.⟨Pandarus exits.⟩TROILUS I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. Th’ imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense. What will it be20 When that the wat’ry ⌜palate⌝ taste indeed Love’s thrice-repurèd nectar? Death, I fear me, Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine, Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness For the capacity of my ruder powers.25 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.
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⟨Enter Pandarus.⟩PANDARUS She’s making her ready; she’ll come straight.30 You must be witty now. She does so blush and fetches her wind so short as if she were frayed with a spirit. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain. She fetches her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.⟨Pandarus exits.⟩TROILUS Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.35 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 ⌜veiled.⌝PANDARUS, ⌜to Cressida⌝ Come, come, what need you40 blush? Shame’s a baby.—Here she is now. Swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me. ⌜Cressida offers to leave.⌝ What, are you gone again? You must be watched ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways; come your ways. An you45 draw backward, we’ll put you i’ th’ ⌜thills.⌝—Why do you not speak to her?—Come, draw this curtain and let’s see your picture. ⌜He draws back her veil.⌝ Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! An ’twere dark, you’d close sooner.—So, so, rub on,50 and kiss the mistress. (⌜They kiss.⌝) 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 i’ th’ river. Go to, go to.TROILUS 55You have bereft me of all words, lady.PANDARUS Words pay no debts; give her deeds. But she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds too, if she call your activity in question. (⌜They kiss.⌝) What, billing
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again? Here’s “In witness whereof the parties60 interchangeably—.” Come in, come in. I’ll go get a fire.⌜Pandarus exits.⌝CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord?TROILUS O Cressid, how often have I wished me thus!CRESSIDA “Wished,” my lord? The gods grant—O, my lord!TROILUS 65What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too-curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?CRESSIDA More dregs than water, if my ⌜fears⌝ have eyes.TROILUS Fears make devils of cherubins; they never70 see truly.CRESSIDA Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason, stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.TROILUS O, let my lady apprehend no fear. In all75 Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.CRESSIDA Nor nothing monstrous neither?TROILUS 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 imposition80 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.CRESSIDA They say all lovers swear more performance85 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?TROILUS 90Are 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
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name desert before his birth, and, being born, his95 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.CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord?⟨Enter Pandarus.⟩PANDARUS 100What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?CRESSIDA Well, uncle, what folly I commit I dedicate to you.PANDARUS I thank you for that. If my lord get a boy of105 you, you’ll give him me. Be true to my lord. If he flinch, chide me for it.TROILUS, ⌜to Cressida⌝ You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.PANDARUS Nay, I’ll give my word for her too. Our kindred,110 though they be long ere they be wooed, they are constant being won. They are burrs, I can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.CRESSIDA Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart. Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day115 For many weary months.TROILUS Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?CRESSIDA 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.120 I love you now, but till now not 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 blabbed? Who shall be true to us
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125 When we are so unsecret to ourselves? But though I loved you well, I wooed you not; And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man; Or that we women had men’s privilege Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,130 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.TROILUS And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.⌜They kiss.⌝PANDARUS 135Pretty, i’ faith!CRESSIDA, ⌜to Troilus⌝ My lord, I do beseech you pardon me. ’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss. I am ashamed. O heavens, what have I done! For this time will I take my leave, my lord.TROILUS 140Your leave, sweet Cressid?PANDARUS Leave? An you take leave till tomorrow morning—CRESSIDA Pray you, content you.TROILUS What offends you, lady?CRESSIDA 145Sir, mine own company.TROILUS You cannot shun yourself.CRESSIDA Let me go and try. I have a kind of self resides with you, But an unkind self that itself will leave150 To be another’s fool. I would be gone. Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.TROILUS Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.CRESSIDA Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love And fell so roundly to a large confession155 To angle for your thoughts. But you are wise,
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Or else you love not; for to be wise and love Exceeds man’s might. That dwells with gods above.TROILUS O, that I thought it could be in a woman— As, if it can, I will presume in you—160 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 me165 That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnowed purity in love; How were I then uplifted! But, alas, I am as true as truth’s simplicity170 And simpler than the infancy of truth.CRESSIDA In that I’ll war with you.TROILUS O virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most right! True swains in love shall in the world to come175 Approve their truth by Troilus. When their rhymes, Full of protest, of oath and big compare, Wants similes, truth tired with iteration— “As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,180 As iron to adamant, as Earth to th’ center”— ⟨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.CRESSIDA 185 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 swallowed cities up,
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190 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’ve said “as false As air, as water, wind or sandy earth,195 As fox to lamb, or 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.”PANDARUS Go to, a bargain made. Seal it, seal it. I’ll be200 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 panders. Let all205 constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between panders. Say “Amen.”TROILUS Amen.CRESSIDA Amen.PANDARUS Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber210 ⌜with a bed,⌝ which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away.⌜Troilus and Cressida⌝ exit. And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here Bed, chamber, pander to provide this gear.He exits.