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What was his cause of anger?

In Hector's wrath.

Cres.

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 Argus3, 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.

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or PURBLIND Argus,] The folio has "purblinded Argus."

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 Ilium1?

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'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.

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Pan. Condition, I had gone bare-foot to India.
Cres. He is not Hector.

at ILIUM?] Ilium, the citadel of Troy, was, according to Lydgate, the name of Priam's palace, which is said, by those who founded their histories upon Dares Phrygius, to have been built upon a high rock.

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. Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale, when th' other's come to't.

not have his wit this year.

Hector shall

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 th' 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.

5

Cres. Then she's a merry Greek, indeed.

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his wir-] The old copies, quarto and folio, have will for "wit." Corrected by Rowe.

6 Then she's a merry Greek, indeed.]

66 The expression merry Greek" is

Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window';-and, you 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 lifters? 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.

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.

very common in old writers. One of the characters in the oldest comedy, properly so called, in our language, "Ralph Roister Doister," is called Mathew Merrygreek. He is the Jester of the play.

7 - into the COMPASSED window,] i. e. a bay or bow-window.

8 — and so old a LIFTER?] i. e. so old a thief: the word is frequently met with in this sense.

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

Pan. But, there was such laughing: queen Hecuba laughed, that her eyes ran o'er.

Cres. With mill-stones.

Pan. And Cassandra laughed.

Cres. But there was more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too?

Pan. And Hector laughed.

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 laughed too.

Pan. They laughed 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.

"Two

Pan. That's true; make no question of that. 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't out, and give it him." But there was such laughing, and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.

Cres. So let it now, for it has been a great while going by1.

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

9—

- and all the rest are his sons.] Priam having fifty sons, the one white hair for Troilus' father would make fifty-one, and not "two and fifty," as it stands in the old copies, quarto and folio. Theobald altered it to fifty-one, but with this note, pointing out the discrepancy, we leave the text as it stands twice repeated in the ancient authorities.

So let it now, for it has been a great while going by.] When Pandarus said "that it passed," he meant, in the phraseology of the time, that it surpassed; but Cressida takes the word "passed" in its ordinary sense.

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