blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were] frayed 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 My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse; The eye of majesty. 5 Cres. They say, all lovers swear more perform ance 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 go bare, 'till merit crown it: no per10fection 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 Cressid, as what envy can say worst, shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest, not truer than Troilus. 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 15 ere you be made tame', must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'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 loth 20 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 faul-25 con as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river': 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 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. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Troi. O Cressida, how often have I wish'd me thus? Cres. Wish'd, my lord?-The gods grant !O my lord! 30 135 Troi. What should they grant? what makes this 40 pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love? Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have eves. Troi. Fears make devils of cherubims; they 45 never see truly. Cres. 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 50 Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster. Cres. 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 55 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. 160 Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Re-enter Pandarus. Pan. What, blushing still? have you not done, talking yet? Cres. 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 finch, chide me for it. Trei. 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 thrown. Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings Troi. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win? With the first glance that ever- Troi. And shall, albeit sweet musick issues 'Alluding to the manner of taming hawks. 2 Alluding to the custom of putting men suspected of cowardice in the middle places. 3 Pandarus means, that he'll match his nicce against her lover for any bett.-The tercel is the male hawk; by the faulcon we generally understand the female. We will give him no high or pompous titles. I am I am asham'd;-O heavens! what have I done?- Pan. Leave! an you take leave 'till to-morrow morning, Cres. Pray you, content you. : I have a kind of self resides with you; Cres. Perchance, my lord, I shew more craft And fell so roundly to a large confession, Might be affronted with the match and weight [right! From false to false, among false maids in love, [false 5 Pard to the hind, or step-dame to her son; Pan. Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it : I'll be the witness.- -Here I hold your hand; 10 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 inconstant men be 15 Troilus's, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say amen. Troi. Amen, When right with right wars who shall be most Full of protest, of oath, and big compare, As iron to adamant, as earth to the center,- Cres. Prophet may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy, Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done you, The advantage of the time prompts me aloud 50 Out of those many register'd in promise, demand. Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, I wish, "my integrity might be met and matched with such equality and force of pure unmingled love." This is an ancient proverbial simile. Formerly neither sowing, planting, nor grafting, were ever undertaken without a scrupulous attention to the increase or waning of the moon, as may be proved by the following quotation from Scott's Discoverie of Witchcraft: "The poore husbandman perceiveth that the increase of the moone maketh plants fruitfull: so as in the full moone they are in the best strength; decaieing in the wane; and in the conjunction to utterlic wither and vade." Wanting Wanting his manage; and they will almost Agam. Let Diomedes bear him, And bring us Cressid hither; Calchas shall have [Exit Diomed, and Calchas. [out Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, 15 20 Achil. What are you reading? Ulyss. A strange fellow here Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted, 30 If so, I have derision med'cinable, with us? Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the ge-40 Nest. Nothing, my lord? Agam. The better. Achil. Good day, good day. Men. How do you? how do you? Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me? Achil. Good morrow, Ajax. Ajax. Ha? Achil. Good morrow. Ajax. Ay, and good next day too. [Exeunt. Achil. What mean these fellows? know they not Achilles? [bend, Patr.They pass by strangely: They were us'd to To holy altars. [tune, Achil. What, am I poor of late? 'Tis certain, Greatness, once fallen out with for Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses. Till it hath travell'd, and is marry'd there The voice again; or like a gate of steel Most abject in regard, and dear in use! Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd is, 60 Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do, 1i.e. Her presence shall strike off, or recompence, the service I have done even in these labours which were most accepted, i. e. however excellently endowed, with however dear or precious parts enriched or adorned. i. e. in the detail or circumduction of his argument. Ajax, who has abilities which were never brought into view or use. While While some men leave to do! Achil. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes: [devour'd Or like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. 30 And better would it fit Achilles much, To throw down Hector, than Polyxena: But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home, When Fame shall in our islands sound her trump; 25 And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,"Great Hector's sister did Achilles win; "But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.” Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak; The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break. [Exit. Patr. To this effect, Achilles,have I mov❜à you; A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this: They think, my little stomach to the war, And your great love to me, restrains you thus: Sweet,rouse yourself; and the weak wantonCupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, 40 Be shook to air. 35 Though less than yours in past, must o'er-top The present eye praises the present object: [selves, Those wounds heal ill, that men do give them- Seals a commission to a blank of danger'; Achil. Go call Thersites hither,sweet Patroclus: To see great Hector in his weeds of peace; [ing, To creep is to keep out of sight, from whatever motive.-The meaning is, Some men keep out of notice in the hall of fortune, while others, though they but play the ideot, are always in her eye, in the way of distinction. The meaning of mission, Dr. Johnson says, seems to be dispatches of the gods from heaven about mortal business, such as often happened at the siege of Troy. Polyxena; in the act of marrying whom, he was afterwards killed by Paris. i. e. There is a secret administration of affairs, which no history was ever able to discover. i. e. By neglecting our duty, we commission or enable that danger of dishonour, which could not reach us before, to lay hold upon us. Enter Enter Thersites. Ther. A wonder! Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with 5 Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a pea-10 cock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard', as who should say-there were wit in this head, an 'twould out; and so there is; 15 but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he 'il break it himself in vain-glory. He knows not me: I said, Good-morrow, Ajax 20 and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What think you of this man, that takes me for the general He's grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin. Achil. Thou must be my embassador to him, Thersites. [memnon. Patr. And to procure safe conduct from Aga- Pair. What say you to't? Ther. God be wi' you, with all my heart. Ther. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven Ther. Fare you well, with all my heart. Achil. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? Ther. No, but he's out o' tune thus. What musick will be in him when Hector has knock'd 25 out his brains, I know not: But, I am sure, none; unless the fidler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on. [straight. Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him Ther. Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more capable creature. [stirr'd; Achil. My mind is troubled, like a fountain And I myself see not the bottom of it. Ther. Who, I? why, he'll answer no body; he professes not answering; speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in his arms. I will 30 put on his presence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax. Achil. To him, Patroclus: Tell him,-I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and 35 to procure safe conduct for his person, of the magnanimous, and most illustrious, six-or-seven [Exeunt Achilles, and Patroclus. Ther. 'Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a valiant ignorance. [Exit. SCENE I. A Street in Troy. ACT IV. Enter at one door Æneas, and Servant, with a torch; at another, Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, and Diomed, &c. with torches. Par. SEE, ho! who is that there? Deiph. It is the lord Æneas. Ene. Is the prince there in person?—— Had I so good occasion to lie long, [ness 50 As you, prince Paris, nought but heavenly busi-55 lord Eneas. -Good morrow, Par. A valiant Greek, Æneas; take his hand: Witness the process of your speech, wherein You told-how Diomed, a whole week by days, Did haunt you in the field. 2 Ene, Health to you, valiant sir, Diom. The one and other Diomed embraces. Ene. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly With a sly look. A catling signifies a small lute-string made of catg it. means intercourse, interchange of conversation. |