Enter Pandarus and a Servant, meeting.

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 ? Tro. Sirrah, walk off. [Exit Servant.

Pan. Have you seen my cousin?

Tro. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, 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

Propos'd 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. Tro. 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 wat'ry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed nectar? death, I fear me ;
Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, 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 frayed with a sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain :-she fetches her breath as short as a newta'en sparrow. [Exit Pandarus.

Tro. 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 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 day-light! 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‡, for all the ducks i'the river go to, go to.

Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady.

Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you of the deeds to, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here's -In witness whereof the parties interchangeably——

* Shafts of a carriage.

The allusion is to bowling; what is now called the jack was formerly termed the mistress.

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

Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.

[Exit Pandarus.

Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Tro. O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus?

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

Tro. 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.

Tro. Fears make devils cherubims; 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.

Tro. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster. Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Tro. 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?

Tro. 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 Cressid, as what envy can say worst, shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest, not truer than Troilus. 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 flinch, chide me for it.

Tro. 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 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 lov'd you night and day
For many weary months.

Tro. 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 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

* Titles.

The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence, Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws My very soul of counsel: Stop my mouth.

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet musick issues thence. Pan. Pretty, i'faith.

Cres. 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.

Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid?

Pan. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning,

Cres. Pray you, content you.

Tro.

What offends you, lady?

Cres. Sir, mine own company.

Tro.

Yourself.

Cres.

Let me go and try :

You cannot shun

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 know not what I speak.

Tro. Well know they what they speak, that speak so wisely.

Cres. Perchance, my lord, I show 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; For to be wise, and love,
Exceed man's might; that dwells with gods above.
Tro. 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,
Outliving beauty's 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

Might be affronted† with the match and weight

* Ever,

Met with and equalled.