Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pan. What were you talking of, when I came ? Was Hector arm'd, 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's 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?

Pan. 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 I ever 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 witR 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 compass'd 10 window,-and, you

The old copies erroneously read will, Rowe made the correction.

9 See vol. iii. p. 426, note 2.

10 A compass'd window is a circular bow window. The same epithet is applied to the cape of a woman's gown in the Taming of the Shrew:-"A small compassed cape." A coved ceiling is yet in some places called a compassed ceiling.

know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin. Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetick 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 man, and so old a lifter11! 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.

Cres. O, he smiles valiantly 12.

Pan. Does he not?

Cres. O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn.

Pan. Why, go to then. But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus,

Cres. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove

it so.

Pan. Troilus? why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.

Cres. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell.

Pan. I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin: Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess.

Cres. Without the rack.

Pan. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

Cres. Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer.

11 Lifter, a term for a thief; from the Gothic hliftus. Thus in Holland's Leaguer, 1638:-" Broker or pander, cheater or lifter." Dryden uses the verb to lift for to rob. Shop-lifter is still used for one who robs a shop.

12 Although valiantly is the reading of the old copies, I have no doubt that daintily was the poet's word.

Pan. But there was such laughing; Queen Hecuba laugh'd, that her eyes ran o'er.

Cres. With mill-stones 13.

Pan. And Cassandra laugh'd.

Cres. But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too? Pan. And Hector laugh'd.

Cres. At what was all this laughing?

Pan. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin.

Cres. An't had been a green hair, I should have laugh'd too.

Pan. They laugh'd not so much at the hair, as at his pretty answer.

Cres. What was his answer?

Pan. Quoth she, Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.

Cres. This is her question.

Pan. That's true; make no question of that. Two and fifty hairs, quoth he, and one white: That white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons. Jupiter! quoth she, which of these hairs is Paris my husband? The forked one, quoth he; pluck it out, and give it him. But, there was such laughing! and Helen so blush'd, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laugh'd, that it pass'd 14.

Cres. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.

Pan. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't.

13 So in King Richard III.—

'Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fool's eyes drop tears."

a Theobald substituted "one and fifty," observing, "How else

could the number make out Priam and his fifty sons ?"

14 i. e. passed all expression. See Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. Sc. 1, note 28. Cressida plays on the word as used by Pandarus, by employing it herself in its common acceptation.

Cres. So I do.

Pan. I'll be sworn, 'tis true; he will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April.

Cres. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle against May. [A Retreat sounded. Pan. Hark, they are coming from the field: Shall we stand up here, and see them, as they pass toward Ilium? good niece, do; sweet niece Cressida.

Cres. At your pleasure.

Pan. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by their names, as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest.

Cres. Speak not so loud.

ENEAS passes over the Stage.

Pan. That's Eneas; Is not that a brave man ? he's one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you: But mark Troilus; you shall see anon.

Cres. Who's that?

ANTENOR passes over.

Pan. That's Antenor: he has a shrewd wit 15, I can tell you; and he's a man good enough: he's one o' the soundest judgments in Troy, whosoever, and a 15 According to Lydgate :

"Anthenor was .

Copious in words, and one that much time spent
To jest, when as he was in companie,

So driely, that no man could it espie;
And therewith held his countenance so well,
That every man received great content
To heare him speake, and pretty jests to tell,
When he was pleasant and in merriment:

For tho' that he most commonly was sad,

Yet in his speech some jest he always had."

Such, in the hands of a rude English poet, is the grave Antenor; to whose wisdom it was thought necessary that the art of Ulysses should be opposed :

"Et moveo Priamum, Priamoque Antenora junctum."