Ir 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.

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music 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 ashamed;-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. You cannot shun Yourself.

Cres. Let me go and try:

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,
Exceeds 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
Of such a winnow'd purity in love;

How were I then uplifted! but, alas,

I am as true as truth's simplicity,

And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.

Tro. O virtuous fight,

When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall, in the world to come,

Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,+

Want similes, truth tir'd with iteration,-
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,

As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,

Yet, after all comparisons of truth,

As truth's authentic author to be cited,

As true as Troilus shall crown up* the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

Cres. Prophet may you be!

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,

And mighty states characterless are grated

To dusty nothing; yet let memory,

From false to false, among false maids in love,

Upbraid my falsehood! when they have said-as false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,

Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son;

Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
As false as Cressid.

Pan. Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the witness. Here I hold your hand: here my cousin's. If ever you prove false one to 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 constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen.

Tro. Amen.

Cres. Amen.

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed, which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death: away.

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,

Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this geer!

SCENE III.-The Grecian Camp.

[Exeunt.

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX,
MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind,
That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove
I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; séquest'ring from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,
Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,

To give me now a little benefit,

Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.

*Conclude it.

Agam. What woulds't thou of us, Trojan ? make demand.
Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,
Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore),
Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied: But this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest* in their affairs,
That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,

In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
In most accepted pain.

Agam. Let Diomedes bear him, ́

And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
What he requests of us.-Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear. [Exeunt DIOMEDES and

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Ten
Ulyss. Achilles stands i'the entrance of his tent:-
Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, princes all,

Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:

I will come last: "Tis like, he'll question me,

Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on him:
If so, I have derision med'cinable,

To use between your strangeness and his pride,

Which his own will shall have desire to drink;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Agam. We'll'execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along;-
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.
Agam. What says Achilles? would he ought with us?
Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?
Achil. No.

Nest. Nothing, my lord.
Agam. The better.

[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR.

Achil. Good day, good day.

Men. How do you? how do you?

Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me?
Ajax. How now, Patroclus?

* An instrument for tuning harps.

[Exit MENELAUS.

† Shyly.

Achil. Good morrow, Ajax.

Ajax. Ha?

Achil. Good morrow.

Ajax. Ay, and good next day too.

[Exit AJAX

Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

Patr. They pass by strangely: they were used to bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles;

To come as humbly, as they used to creep

To holy altars.

Achil. What, am I poor of late?

"Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too: What the declined is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honour: but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess,

Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.-

How now, Ulysses?

Ulyss. Now, great Thetis' son?
Achil. What are you reading?

Ulyss. A strange fellow here

Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,*
How much in having, or without, or in,-
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself

(That most pure spirit of sense), behold itself
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
Salutes each other with each other's form.
For speculation turns not to itself,

Till it hath travelled, and is married there
Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all.
Ulyss. I do not strain at the position,

It is familiar; but at the author's drift:

* Excellently endowed.

Who, in his circumstance,* expressly proves-
That no man is the lord of anything

(Though in and of him there be much consisting),
Till he communicate his parts to others:

Nor doth he of himself know them for aught

Till he behold them form'd in the applause

Where they are extended; which, like an arch, reverberates

The voice again; or like a gate of steel

Fronting the sun, receives and renders back

His figure and his heat. I was much wrapt in this;

And apprehended here immediately

The unknown Ajax.†

Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse;

That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are,

Most abject in regard, and dear in use!

What things again most dear in the esteem,

And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow,

An act that very chance doth throw upon him,

Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do!
While some men leave to do!

How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
While others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!-why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder;
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
And great Troy shrinking.

Achil. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me,
As misers do by beggars: neither gave to me
Good word, nor look: What, are my deeds forgot?
Ulyss. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done: Perséverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;-

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,

O'errun and trampled on: Then what they do in presen
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:

For time is like a fashionable host,

* Detail of argument.

† Ajax not hitherto appreciated.