Troi. You know now your hostages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her tco: 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 loved you night and day,
For many weary months.

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

Troi. 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.

Troi. Your leave, sweet Cressid?

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

Cres. Pray you, content you.

Troi.

What offends you, lady?

Cres. Sir, mine own company.

Troi.

Yourself.

Cres. Let me go and try.

You cannot shun

I have a kind of self resides with you;
But an u kind self, that itself will leave,
To be at ther's fool. I would be gone.-
Where i my wit? I know not what I speak.
Troi. 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.
Troi. 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 affronted1 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.
Troi.

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 tired 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 water drops have worn the stones of Troy, And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,

1 Met with and equalled.

2 Comparison.

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.

Troi. 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!

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

The Grecian camp.

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; sequestering 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.

Aga. What wouldst 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,