SCENE II.
Pandarus' garden.
Enter Pandarus, and Troilus' man.
Pan.
How now? where's thy master? at my cousin
Cressida's?
Serv.
No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him
thither.
Enter Troilus.
Pan.
O, here he comes.—How now, how now?
Troi.
Sirrah, walk off.
Pan.
Have you seen my cousin?
Troi.
No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
Aud give me swift transportance to those fields,
Where I may wallow in the lily beds
Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
-- 77 --
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid!
Pan.
Walk here i'the orchard, I will bring her straight.
[Exit Pandarus.
Troi.
I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense; What will it be,
When that the watry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed nectar? death, I fear me;
Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, 4 note
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.
Pan.
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 Pandarus.
Troi.
Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom:
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
The eye of majesty5 note
.
-- 78 --
Enter Pandarus, and 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 tame6 note
,
must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you
draw backward, 7 notewe'll put you i'the files.—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 day-light! an 'twere dark, you'd close
sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress.9Q1021 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. 8 note
The faulcon as the tercel, for all
the ducks i'the river: go to, go to.
-- 79 --
Troi.
You have bereft me of all words, lady.
Pan.
Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but
she'll bereave you of the 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 wish'd me thus?
Cre.
Wish'd, 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 cherubims; they never
see truly.
Cre.
Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer
footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: To
fear the worst, oft cures the worst.
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 monsters?
Troi.
Are there such? such are not we: Praise us
as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall
-- 80 --
go bare, 'till merit crown it9 note: no perfection in reversion
shall have a praise in present: we will not name
desert, before his birth; and, being born, 1 notehis 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.
Cre.
Will you walk in, my lord?
Re-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, being won: they are burrs, I can tell
you; they'll stick where they are thrown2 note
.
Cre.
Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart:—
Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day,
For many weary months.
-- 81 --
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 lye;
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.
Troi.
And shall, albeit sweet musick issues thence.
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 heavens! 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 yourself.
Cre.
Let me go and try:
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 speak I know not what.
Troi.
Well know they what they speak, that speak
so wisely.
-- 82 --
Cre.
Perchance, my lord, I shew more craft than love;
And fell so roundly to a large confession,
To angle for your thoughts: 1 note
But you are wise;
Or else you love not; 2 note
For to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might; that 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 aye 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!
Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me,—
That my integrity and truth to you
3 noteMight 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,
-- 83 --
4 noteAnd simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cre.
In that I'll war with you.
Troi.
O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
5 note
True swains in love shall, in the world come,
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Want similies, truth tir'd with iteration,—
As true as steel,9Q1022 as 6 note
plantage to the moon,
-- 84 --
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant,9Q1023 as earth to the center,—
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
7 noteAs truth's authentic author to be cited,
As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.
Cre.
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 step-dame to her son;
-- 85 --
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falshood,
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 called to the world's
end after my name, call them all—Pandars; let
all 8 note
inconstant men be Troilus's, all false women
Cressids, 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, Pandar to provide this geer!
[Exeunt.
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
