PANDARUS. 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.

PANDARUS. He! No, she'll none of him; they two are twain.

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

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

HELEN. Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.

PANDARUS. Ay, you may, you may.

HELEN. Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

PANDARUS. Love! Ay, that it shall, i' faith.

PARIS. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.

PANDARUS. In good troth, it begins so. [Sings]

Love, love, nothing but love, still 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, O ho, they die!

Yet that which seems the wound to kill Doth turn O ho! to ha! ha! he!

So dying love lives still.

O ho! a while, but ha! ha! ha!

O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!-hey ho!

HELEN. In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose.

PARIS. 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.

PANDARUS. 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 a-field today?

PARIS. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have arm'd to-day, 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.

PANDARUS. Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend to-day. You'll remember your brother's excuse?

PARIS. To a hair.

PANDARUS. Farewell, sweet queen.

HELEN. Commend me to your niece.

PANDARUS. I will, sweet queen. Exit. Sound a retreat PARIS. They're come from the 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 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, overs.h.i.+nes ourself.

PARIS. Sweet, above thought I love thee. Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 2.

Troy. PANDARUS' orchard

Enter PANDARUS and TROILUS' 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.

Enter TROILUS

PANDARUS. O, here he comes. 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 these fields Where I may wallow in the lily beds Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandar, From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings, And fly with me to Cressid!

PANDARUS. Walk here i' th' orchard, I'll bring her straight.

Exit TROILUS. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.

Th' imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense; what will it be When that the wat'ry palate tastes indeed Love's thrice-repured 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

PANDARUS. 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 fray'd 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 TROILUS. Even such a pa.s.sion doth embrace my bosom.

My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse, And all my powers do their bestowing lose, Like va.s.salage at unawares encount'ring 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? You must be watch'd ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you i' th' 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 '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 i' th' 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' th' deeds too, if she call your activity in question.

What, billing again? Here's '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 Cressid, how often have I wish'd me thus!

CRESSIDA. Wish'd, my lord! The G.o.ds 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.

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 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, cat 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 confin'd; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.

CRESSIDA. 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?

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 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?

Re-enter PANDARUS

PANDARUS. What, blus.h.i.+ng 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 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 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 lov'd you night and day 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.

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 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.

TROILUS. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

PANDARUS. Pretty, i' faith.

CRESSIDA. 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?