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Em. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,}
And bring our emperor gently in thy hand,
Lucius our emperor; for, well I know,
The common voice do cry, it shall be so.
Marc. Lucius, all hail; Rome's royal emperor! 5
Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house;
And hither hale that misbelieving Moor,
To be adjudg'd some direful slaughtering death,
As punishment for his most wicked life.
Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!

Luc. Thanks, gentle Romans; May I govern so,
To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe!
But, gentle people, give me aim a while,-
For nature puts me to a heavy task;-
Stand all aloof;-but, uncle, draw you near,
To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk:
O, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips,
[Kisses Titus.
These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,
The last true duties of thy noble son!

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'Would I were dead, so you did live again!—
O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;
My tears will choak me, if I ope my mouth.
Enter Romans, with Aaron.

Rom. You sad Andronici, have done with woes;
Give sentence on this execrable wretch,
That hath been breeder of these dire events.

Luc. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish
him;

10 There let him stand, and rave and cry for food: If any one relieves or pities him,

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Marc. Ay, tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss,
Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips:
O, were the sum of these that I should pay
Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!
Luc. Come hither, boy; come, come, and learn 25
of us

To melt in showers: Thy grandsire lov'd thee well:
Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,
Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;
Many a matter hath he told to thee,
Meet, and agreeing with thine infancy;
In that respect then, like a loving child,
Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring,
Because kind nature doth require it so:
Friends should associate friends in grief and woe :
Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;
Do him that kindness, and take leave of him. [heart
Boy, O grandsire, grandsire! even with all my

For the offence he dies. This is our doom:
Some stay to see him fasten'd in the earth.

Aar. O, why should wrath be mute, and fury
dumb?

I am no baby, I, that, with base prayers,
I should repent the evils I have done;
Ten thousand, worse than ever yet I did,
Would I perform, if I might have my will:
If one good deed in all my life I did,

I do repent it from my very soul.

Luc. Some loving friends convey the emperor
hence,

And give him burial in his father's grave:
My father, and Lavinia, shall forthwith
Be closed in our household's monument.
As for that heinous tyger, Tamora,

No funeral rites, nor man in mournful weeds,
No mournful bell shall ring her burial;

30 But throw her forth to beasts, and birds of prey:
Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity;
And, being so, shall have like want of pity.
See justice done on Aaron, that damn'd Moor,
From whom our heavy haps had their beginning:
Then, afterwards, to order well the state;
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.

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[Exeunt omnes.

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INTroy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgillous', their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth towards Phrygia: and their vow is made
To ransack Troy; within whose strong immures
The racish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps: And that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come ;

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage: Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city
(Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilias, Chetus, Troyan,

SCENE I.

Troy. Priam's Palace.
Enter Pandarus and Troilus,

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And Antenoridas) with massy staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperrs up the sons of Troy.-

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard :—And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd,—but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but suited
In like conditions as our argument,-

10 To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
'Ginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.

Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are; 15 Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

ACT I.

Troi. CALL here my varlet, I'll unarm again: 25
Why should I war without the walls

of Troy,

That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan, that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
Pan, Will this geer ne'er be mended?
Troi. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to
their strength,

1 Mr. Pope (after Dryden) informs us, that the story of Troilus and Cressida was originally the work of one Lollius, a Lombard: but Dryden goes yet further; he declares it to have been written in Latin verse, and that Chaucer translated it.-Lollius was a historiographer of Urbino in Italy.— Shakspeare received the greatest part of his materials for the structure of this play from the Troy Boke of Lydgate, printed in 1513.-Lydgate was not much more than a translator of Guido of Columpna, who was of Messina in Sicily, and wrote his History of Troy in Latin, after Dictys Cretensis, and Dares Phrygius, in 1287. On these, as Mr. Warton observes, he engrafted many new romantic inventions, which the taste of his age dictated, and which the connection between Grecian and Gothic fiction easily admitted; at the same time comprehending in his plan the Theban and Argonautic stories from Ovid, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus. 2 i. e. proud, disdainful. To fulfill in this place To sperre, or spar, from the old Teutonic word ' i. e. the acant, what went before. This word

means to fill till there be no room for more.
speren, signifies to shut up, defend by bars, &c.
anciently signified a servant or footinan to a knight or warrior.

Fierce

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Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance;
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He, that will have a cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding.

Troi. Have I not tarry'd?

Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the boulting.

Troi. Have I not tarry'd?

Pan. Ay, the boulting; but you must tarry the leavening.

Troi. Still have I tarry'd.

Pan. I speak no more than truth. Troi. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an 5 she be not, she has the mends in her own hands*, Troi. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? Pan. I have had my labour for ny travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

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Troi. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen; an she were not kin to me, 15she would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. Troi. Say I, she is not fair?

Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word hereafter the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may 20a chance to burn your lips.

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Troi. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,
Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.
At Priam's royal table do I sit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,-|25|
So, traitor!-when she comes!-When is she

thence?

Pan. Well, she look'd yester-night fairer than ever I saw her look; or any woman else.

Troi. I was about to tell thee,-When my heart, 30
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain;
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have (as when the sun doth light a storm)
Bury'd this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's fool, to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her, the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter.

Troi. Pandarus,—
Pan. Not I.

Troi, Sweet Pandarus,

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end.

[Exit Pandarus. [Sound alarum. Troi. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.

But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, 35 cannot fight upon this argument;
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to) there were no more comparison between the women,-But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her,—But I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit: but

Troi. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus!—

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It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid, but by Pandar;
And he's as techy to be woo'd to woo,
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium, and where she resides,

Ourself, the merchant; and this sailing Pandar,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
[Alarum.] Enter Æneas.

When I dc tell thee, There my hopes lie drown'd, 45 Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad
In Cressid's love: Thou answer'st, She is fair;
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait; her voice 50
Handlest in thy discourse:-O that her hand!
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'st 55

me,

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As true thou tell'st me, when I say,-I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

Fonder for more childish.

160

Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore
not afield?
[sorts,
Troi. Because not there; This woman's answer
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Eneas, from the field to-day?
Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Troi. By whom, Eneas?

Ene. Troilus, by Menelaus.

Troi. Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. Ene, Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day!

2 To blench is to shrink, start, or fly off. 3 The meaning is; In comparison with Cressid's hand, the spirit of sense, the utmost degree, the most exquisite power of sensibility, which implies a soft hand, since the sense of touching resides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and insensible palm of the ploughman. Mr, Steevens thinks this phrase means, She may make the best of a bad bargain.

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Enter Cressida, and Alexander her servant,
Cres. Who were those went by?
Serv. Queen Hecuba, and Helen.
Cres. And whither go they?
Serv. Up to the eastern tower,

Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a yirtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd;
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

Cres. What was his cause of anger? [Greeks
Sert, The noise goes this: There is among the
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him, Ajax.

Cres. Good; And what of him?

Serv. They say he is a very man per se, And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

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Pan. True, he was so; I know the cause too 10 he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that and there's Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus; I can tell them that too.

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201

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Serv. This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly 35 sauced with discretion; there is no man hath a ́virtue, that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing; but 40 every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblinded Argus, all eyes and no sight,

Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

Serv. They say, he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter Pandarus.

Cres. Who comes here?

Serv. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Cres. Hector's a gallant man.
Serv. As may be in the world, lady.
Pan. What's that? what's that?
Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of?-Cood morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium 3? Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pan. What were you talking of, when I came?

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Cres. What, is he angry too?
Pan. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man
of the two.

Cres. O, Jupiter! there's no comparison.
Pan. What, not between Troilus and Hector?
Do you know a man, if you see him? {him.

Cres. Ay; if I ever saw him before, and knew
Pan, Well, I say, Troilus is Troilus.

Cres. Then you say as I say; for, I am sure, he is not Hector.

Pan. No, nor Hector is not Troilus, in some degrees.

Cres. 'Tis just to each of them; he is himself. Pan. Hiniself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would, he were,

Cres. So he is.

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Cres. "I would not become him, his own's betPan. You have no judgement, niece: Helen herself swore the other day, that Troilus, for a 50 brown favour, (for so 'tis, I must confess)-Not brown neither.

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Cres. Then Troilus should have too much: if she prais'd him above, his complexion is higher than 60his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good com

1 To be crushed into folly, is to be confused and mingled with folly, so as that they make one mass together. This is a phrase equivalent to another now in use, against the grain. Ilium was the palace of Troy,

plexion,

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