Cressida. Ay, a minced man; and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man's date 's out.

Pandarus. You are such another woman! one knows not at what ward you lie.

Cressida. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

Pandarus. Say one of your watches.

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Cressida. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past watching. Pandarus. You are such another!

Enter TROILUS's Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
Pandarus. Where?

Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him.
Pandarus. Good boy, tell him I come.

I doubt he be hurt.-Fare ye well, good niece.
Cressida. Adieu, uncle.

Pandarus. I'll be with you, niece, by and by.
Cressida. To bring, uncle?

Pandarus. Ay, a token from Troilus.

Cressida. By the same token, you are a bawd.—

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[Exit Boy.

[Exit Pandarus.

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
He offers in another's enterprise;

But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be.
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she belov'd knows nought that knows not this,—

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Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach,—
Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:

Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

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[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The Grecian Camp. Before Agamemnon's Tent. Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and others.

Agamemnon. Princes,

What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below

Fails in the promis'd largeness; checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,

As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us

That we come short of our suppose so far

That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought

That gave 't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works,
And think them shames, which are indeed nought else
But the protractive trials of great Jove

To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward,

ΤΟ

20

The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin;
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away,
And what hath mass or matter by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

Nestor. With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply

Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance

Lies the true proof of men; the sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,

Like Perseus' horse,-where 's then the saucy boat
Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rivall'd greatness? Either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide
In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind

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40

Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

50

And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of courage

As rous'd with rage with rage doth sympathize,

And with an accent tun'd in selfsame key

Rechides to chiding fortune.

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,

Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit,

In whom the tempers and the minds of all

what hope

Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides the applause and approbation

The which,-[To Agamemnon] most mighty for thy place
and sway,-

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[To Nestor] And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out

life,

I give to both your speeches, which were such

As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass, and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,

Should with a bond of air, strong as the axletree
On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienc'd tongue,-yet let it please both,-
Thou great, and wise,-to hear Ulysses speak.

Agamemnon. Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be 't of less
expect

That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips, than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,

We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

Ulysses. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,
But for these instances.

The specialty of rule hath been neglected;

And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,

What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre
Observe degree, priority, and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol

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80

In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,

And posts, like the commandment of a king,

Sans check to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,

What plagues and what portents, what mutiny!
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,

Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states

ΙΩΟ

Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shak'd,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,

Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,

Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,

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