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 musick issues thence. Pan. Pretty, i'faith.
Cres. 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?---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.
Cres. Sir, mine own company.
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 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 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.
O virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most
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,
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 authentick 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 call'd to the world's end after my name, call them allPandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, 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 grand 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 my behalf.
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 negociations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of the 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 acccepted pain.
Let Diomedes bear him,
Agam.
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.
[Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas.
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their
Ulyss. Achilles stands i'the entrance of his tent:-
Please it our general to pass strangely 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:
If so, I have derision med'cinable,
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;-
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.
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?
Achil.
[Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor. Good day, good day.
Men. How do you? how do you?
What, does the cuckold scorn me?
Ajar. How now, Patroclus?
Ay, and good next day too.
Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they
Patr. They pass by strangely: they were us'd
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.-
Achil. What are you reading?
Ulyss.
A strange fellow here
Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,
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,
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