Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,

Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'st me,
As true thou tell'st me, when I say-I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me,
The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth.
Tro. Thou dost not speak so much.
Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't.

Let her be as she

is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

Tro. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus?

Pan. I have had my labour for my travel; ill-thought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore, she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an she were a black-a-moor, 'tis all one to me.

Tro. Say I, she is not fair?

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter.

Tro. Pandarus,

Pan. Not I.

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,—

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as 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-O 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 Ilium, and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself, the merchant; and this sailing Pandar,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
Alarum. Enter ENEAS.

Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? Tro. Because not there; This woman's answer sorts, 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. 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 11. 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.
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:

Up to the eastern tower,

He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;

And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

Cres.

What was his cause of anger?

Alex. The noise goes this: There is among the Greeks 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 se,
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 additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded 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.

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?

Pun. 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 Greek, indeed.

Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him the other day into a compassed window, and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin.

Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.

Pan. Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector.

Cres. Is he so young a mau, and so old a lifter? Pan. But, to prove to you that Helen loves him ;she came, and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin,

Cres. Juno have mercy!-How came it cloven?

Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled: I think, his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.