Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as 1 found it, and there an end.

[Exit PANDARUS. An Alarum. Tro. 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.
I cannot fight upon this argument;

It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
But, Pandarus-0 gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid, but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy 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 Ilium9, and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself, the merchant; and this sailing Pandar10,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

Alarum. Enter ENEAS.

Ene. How now, Prince Troilus11? wherefore not afield?

Tro. Because not there; This woman's answer sorts12,

For womanish it is to be from thence.

What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?

Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Tro. By whom, Æneas?
Ene.

Troilus, by Menelaus.

9 Ilium, properly speaking, is the name of the city; Troy that of the country. But Shakspeare, following the Troy Book, gives that name to Priam's palace, said to have been built upon a high rock. This punk is one of Cupid's carriers; Clap on more sails,' &c.

10

Merry Wives of Windsor.

11 Troilus was pronounced by Shakspeare and his contemporaries as a dissyllable. Pope has once or twice fallen into the same error, 12 i. e. fits, suits, is congruous. So in King Henry V. :

It sorts well with thy fierceness.'

Tro. 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!

Tro. Better at home, if would I might, were

may.

But, to the sport abroad;-Are you bound thither? Ene. In all swift haste.

Tro.

Come, go we then together. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. A Street.

Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER.

Cres. Who were those went by?
Alex.

Queen Hecuba, and Helen.

Cres. And whither go they?
Alex.
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a virtue, 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 light2,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep3 what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

Cres.

What was his cause of anger? Alex. The noise goes, this: There is among the Greeks

1 Husbandry is thrift. Thus in King Henry V. :

-- our bad neighbours make us early stirrers, Which is both healthful and good husbandry.'

2 The commentators have all taken light here as referring to armour. Poor Theobald, who seems to have had a suspicion that it did not, falls under the lash of Warburton for his temerity. Light, however, here has no reference to the mode in which Hector was armed, but to the legerity or alacrity with which he armed himself before sunrise. Light and lightly are often used for nimbly, quickly, readily, by our old writers. No expression is more common than light of foot." And Shakspeare has even used light of ear.' And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting,' &c. Midsummer Night's Dream.

3

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him, Ajax.
Cres.
Good; And what of him?
Alex. They say he is a very man per se1,

And stands alone.

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

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions5; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant, a man into whom nature hath so crouded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly 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 every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

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

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

4 i. e. an extraordinary or incomparable person, like the letter A by itself. The usual mode of this old expression is A per se. Thus in Henrysoun's Testament of Cresseid, wrongly attributed by Steevens to Chaucer:

Of faire Cresseide, the floure and a per se of Troy and

Greece.'

And in Blurt Master Constable, 1602 :

That is the a per se and creame of all.'

5 Their titles, marks of distinction or denominations.

in this sense is originally forensic.

Whereby he doth receive

Particular additions from the bill
That writes them all alike.'

The term

Macbeth.

6 i. e. confused and mingled with folly. So in Cymbeline :Crush him together, rather than unfold

His measure duly.'

Equivalent to a phrase still in use-Against the grain. The

French say, à contre poil.

Enter PANDARUS.

Cres. Who comes here?

Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Cres. Hector's a gallant man.

Alex. 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?-Good morrow, Alexander. - How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pan. What were you talking of, when I came? Was Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up. Pan. E'en so; Hector was stirring early.

Cres. That were we talking of, and of his anger. Pan. Was he angry?

Cres. So he says here.

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

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?

Cres. Ay; if ever I saw him before, and knew him.
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. Himself? Alas, poor Troilus! I would, he were,

Cres. So he is,

Pan.--Condition, I had gone barefoot to India. Cres. He is not Hector.

Pan. Himself? no, he's not himself-'Would 'a were himself! Well, the gods are above; Time must friend, or end: Well, Troilus, well, I would, my heart were in her body!-No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

Cres. Excuse me.
Pan. He is elder.

Cres. Pardon me, pardon me.

Pan. The other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale when the other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this year.

Cres. He shall not need it, if he have his own. Pan. Nor his qualities;

Cres. No matter.

Pan. Nor his beauty.

Cres. "Twould not become him, his own's better. Pan. You have no judgment, niece: Helen herself swore the other day, that Troilus, for a brown favour (for so 'tis, I must confess),-Not brown

neither.

Cres. No, but brown.

Pan. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.
Cres. To say the truth, true and not true.
Pan. She prais'd his complexion above Paris.
Cres. Why, Paris hath colour enough.
Pan. So he has.

Cres. Then, Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief, Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

Pan. I swear to you, I think, Helen loves him better than Paris.

Cres. Then she's a merry Greeks, indeed.

8 See vol. i. p. 345, note 1.