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Troilus and Cressida

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Act III, Scene 2

The same. Pandarus’ orchard.

       

[Enter PANDARUS and Troilus's Boy, meeting]

  • Pandarus. How now! where's thy master? at my cousin
    Cressida's?
  • Boy. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither. 1650
  • Pandarus. O, here he comes.
    [Enter TROILUS]
    How now, how now!
  • Troilus. Sirrah, walk off.

[Exit Boy]

  • 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,
    And give me swift transportance to those fields 1660
    Where I may wallow in the lily-beds
    Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
    From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
    And fly with me to Cressid!
  • Pandarus. Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight. 1665

[Exit]

  • Troilus. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
    The imaginary relish is so sweet
    That it enchants my sense: what will it be,
    When that the watery palate tastes indeed 1670
    Love's thrice repured 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:
    I fear it much; and I do fear besides, 1675
    That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
    As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
    The enemy flying.

[Re-enter PANDARUS]

  • Pandarus. She's making her ready, she'll come straight: you 1680
    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. 1685

[Exit]

  • Troilus. 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 encountering 1690
    The eye of majesty.

[Re-enter PANDARUS with CRESSIDA]

  • Pandarus. 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? 1695
    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 1700
    daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld 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 1705
    ducks i' the river: go to, go to.
  • Troilus. You have bereft me of all words, lady.
  • Pandarus. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll
    bereave you o' the deeds too, if she call your
    activity in question. What, billing again? Here's 1710
    'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably'—
    Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire.

[Exit]

  • Cressida. Will you walk in, my lord?
  • Troilus. O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus! 1715
  • Cressida. Wished, my lord! The gods grant,—O my lord!
  • Troilus. What 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. 1720
  • Troilus. Fears make devils of cherubims; they never 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 all Cupid's 1725
    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 imposition 1730
    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 performance than they 1735
    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? 1740
  • Troilus. 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 1745
    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? 1750

[Re-enter PANDARUS]

  • Pandarus. What, 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 of you,
    you'll give him me. Be true to my lord: if he 1755
    flinch, chide me for it.
  • Troilus. 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,
    though they be long ere they are wooed, they are 1760
    constant being won: they are burs, 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 day
    For many weary months. 1765
  • 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.
    I love you now; but not, till now, so much 1770
    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? 1775
    But, though I loved 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 1780
    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.
  • Pandarus. Pretty, i' faith. 1785
  • Cressida. 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. Your leave, sweet Cressid! 1790
  • Pandarus. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning,—
  • Cressida. Pray you, content you.
  • Troilus. What offends you, lady?
  • Cressida. Sir, mine own company.
  • Troilus. You cannot shun Yourself. 1795
  • Cressida. 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. 1800
  • 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 confession,
    To angle for your thoughts: but you are wise,
    Or else you love not, for to be wise and love 1805
    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—
    To feed for aye her ramp and flames of love;
    To keep her constancy in plight and youth, 1810
    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 1815
    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.
  • Cressida. In that I'll war with you. 1820
  • Troilus. 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, 1825
    Want similes, truth tired 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, 1830
    As truth's authentic author to be cited,
    'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse,
    And sanctify the numbers.
  • Cressida. Prophet may you be!
    If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, 1835
    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, 1840
    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,
    As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
    Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,' 1845
    '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 be the
    witness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin's.
    If ever you prove false one to another, since I have 1850
    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
    constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids,
    and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen. 1855
  • Troilus. Amen.
  • Cressida. Amen.
  • Pandarus. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a
    bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your
    pretty encounters, press it to death: away! 1860
    And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here
    Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear!

[Exeunt]