Cressida.
Pan.
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; if
you draw backward, we'll put you i'th' files:(24) note
Why
do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain, and
-- 60 --
let's see your picture. Alas the day, how loth you are
to offend day-light? 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 faulcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i'th' river:
(25) note go to, go to.
Troi.
You have bereft me of all words, lady.
Pan.
Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll
bereave you of 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 Pandarus.
Cre.
Will you walk in, my lord?
Troi.
O Cressida, how often have I wisht me thus?
Cre.
Wisht, my lord! the Gods grant—O my lord.
Troi.
What should they grant? what makes this pretty
abruption? what too curious dreg espies my sweet lady
in the fountain of our love?
Cre.
More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.
Troi.
Fears make devils of cherubins, they never see
truly.
Cre.
Blind fear, which seeing reason leads, finds safer
footing than blind reason stumbling without fear. To
fear the worst, oft cures the worse.
-- 61 --
Troi.
O, let my lady apprehend no fear; in all Cupid's
Pageant there is presented no monster.
Cre.
Nor nothing monstrous neither?
Troi.
Nothing, but our Undertakings; when we vow
to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tygers;
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.
Cre.
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 monstrous?
Troi.
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 Cressida, as what envy can say worst, shall be a mock
for his truth; and what truth can speak truest, not truer
than Troilus.
Cre.
Will you walk in, my lord?
Enter Pandarus.
Pan.
What, blushing still? have you not done talking
yet?
Cre.
Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to
you.
Pan.
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.
Troi.
You know now your hostages; your uncle's word
and my firm faith.
Pan.
Nay, I'll give my word for her too; our kindred,
though they be long ere they are woo'd, they are constant,
-- 62 --
being won: they are burrs, I can tell you, they'll
stick where they are thrown.
Cre.
Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart:
Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day,
For many weary months.
Troi.
Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cre.
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
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 our selves?
But though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;
And yet, good faith, I wisht my self a man:
Or that We women had mens 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.
Troi.
And shall, albeit sweet musick issues thence.
[Kissing.
Pan.
Pretty, i'faith.
Cre.
My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;
'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss:
I am asham'd;—O heav'ns, what have I done!—
For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
Troi.
Your leave, sweet Cressid?
Pan.
Leave! an you take leave till to morrow morning—
Cre.
Pray you, content you.
Troi.
What offends you, lady?
Cre.
Sir, mine own company.
Troi.
You cannot shun your self.
Cre.
Let me go try:
I have a kind of self resides with you:
But an unkind self, that it self will leave,
-- 63 --
To be another's fool. Where is my wit?
I would be gone: I speak, I know not what.
Troi.
Well know they what they speak, that speak so wisely.
Cre.
Perchance, my lord, I shew 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: To be wise and love,(26) note
Exceeds man's might, and dwells with Gods above.
Troi.
O, that I thought it could be in a woman,
(As, if it can, I will presume in you,)
To feed for ay her lamp and flames of love,
To keep her constancy in plight and youth
Out-living Beauties outward; with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
-- 64 --
Or, that perswasion 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 up-lifted! but alas,
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cre.
In that I'll war with you.
Troi.
O virtuous fight!
When Right with Right warrs who shall be most right.
True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truths by Troilus; when their rhimes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Want similies: truth, tired with iteration,
As true as steel, as Planets to their Moons,(27) note
As Sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to th' center:
Yet after all comparisons of truth,
(As truth's authentick author to be cited)
-- 65 --
As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse,
And sanctifie the numbers.
Cre.
Prophet may you be!
If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot it self,
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've said, as false
As air, as water, as wind, as sandy earth;
As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf;
Pard to the hind, or step-dame 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 to one 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 all Pandars: let all constant men be
Troilus's, all false women Cressida's, and all brokers-between
Pandars: say, Amen.
Troi.
Amen.
Cre.
Amen.
Pan.
Amen. Whereupon I will shew you a bed-chamber;
which bed, because it shall not speak of your
pretty encounters, press it to death: away.
And Cupid grant all tongue-ty'd maidens here,
Bed, chamber, and Pandar to provide this Geer!
[Exeunt.
-- 66 --
Lewis Theobald [1733], The works of Shakespeare: in seven volumes. Collated with the Oldest Copies, and Corrected; With notes, Explanatory and Critical; By Mr. Theobald (Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch [and] J. Tonson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11201].
