Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to those fields,
Where I may wallow in the lily beds

Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid!

Pan. Walk here i' the orchard; I'll 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 watery palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed nectar? death, I fear me;
Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtile-potent, tuned 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 frayed with a sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the

¡ Affrighted.

prettiest villain :-she fetches her breath as short as [Exit Pandarus. Troi. Even such a passion doth embrace my

a new-ta'en sparrow.

bosom:

My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encountering
The eye of majesty.

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 watched ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we 'll put you i' the fills. 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 daylight! an 'twere dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in feefarm! build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel,2 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

1 Shafts.

The tercel is the male, and the falcon the female hawk.

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 wished me thus!

Cres. Wished, my lord?-the gods grant!-0, 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?

Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have

eyes.

Troi. Fears make devils cherubins; they 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 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 tigers; 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 confined; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.

Cres. 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 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, nis addition 1 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; 2 and what truth can speak truest, not truer than Troilus.

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 flinch, chide me for it.

1 Titles.

2 i. e. Shall be able to attack him in no other way, but by ridiculing his constancy.

Troi. You know now your hostages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her tco: our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant, being won: they are burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown.

Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.

Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day,
For many weary months.

Troi. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cres. 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 ourselves?

But, though I loved 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 music issues thence.
Pan. Pretty, i' faith.