Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida

	TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
	PROLOGUE
	In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
	The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,
	Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,	5
	Fraught with the ministers and instruments
	Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore
	Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
	Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
	To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures	10
	The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
	With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel.
	To Tenedos they come;
	And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
	Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains	15
	The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
	Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
	Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
	And Antenorides, with massy staples
	And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,	20
	Sperr up the sons of Troy.
	Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
	On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
	Sets all on hazard: and hither am I come
	A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence	25
	Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
	In like conditions as our argument,
	To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
	Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
	Beginning in the middle, starting thence away	30
	To what may be digested in a play.
	Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are:
	Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.
ACT I SCENE I	Troy. Before Priam's palace.
	Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS
TROILUS	Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again:	35
	Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
	That find such cruel battle here within?
	Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
	Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
PANDARUS	Will this gear ne'er be mended?	40
TROILUS	The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength,
	Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant;
	But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
	Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
	Less valiant than the virgin in the night	45
	And skilless as unpractised infancy.
PANDARUS	Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part,
	I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will
	have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
TROILUS	Have I not tarried?	50
PANDARUS	Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry
	the bolting.
TROILUS	Have I not tarried?
PANDARUS	Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening.
TROILUS	Still have I tarried.	55
PANDARUS	Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word
	'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the
	heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must
	stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.
TROILUS	Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,	60
	Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.
	At Priam's royal table do I sit;
	And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,--
	So, traitor! 'When she comes!' When is she thence?
PANDARUS	Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw	65
	her look, or any woman else.
TROILUS	I was about to tell thee:--when my heart,
	As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
	Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
	I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,	70
	Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:
	But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness,
	Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
PANDARUS	An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's--
	well, go to--there were no more comparison between	75
	the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I
	would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would
	somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I
	will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but--
TROILUS	O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,--	80
	When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
	Reply not in how many fathoms deep
	They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
	In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'she is fair;'
	Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart	85
	Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
	Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
	In whose comparison all whites are ink,
	Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
	The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense	90
	Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me,
	As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;
	But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
	Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
	The knife that made it.	95
PANDARUS	I speak no more than truth.
TROILUS	Thou dost not speak so much.
PANDARUS	Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is:
	if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be
	not, she has the mends in her own hands.	100
TROILUS	Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus!
PANDARUS	I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of
	her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and
	between, but small thanks for my labour.
TROILUS	What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?	105
PANDARUS	Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair
	as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as
	fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care
	I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me.
TROILUS	Say I she is not fair?	110
PANDARUS	I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to
	stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so
	I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part,
	I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter.
TROILUS	Pandarus,--	115
PANDARUS	Not I.
TROILUS	Sweet Pandarus,--
PANDARUS	Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I
	found it, and there an end.
	Exit PANDARUS. An alarum
TROILUS	Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!	120
	Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
	When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
	I cannot fight upon this argument;
	It is too starved a subject for my sword.
	But Pandarus,--O gods, how do you plague me!	125
	I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
	And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo.
	As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
	Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
	What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?	130
	Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
	Between our Ilium and where she resides,
	Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood,
	Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
	Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.	135
	Alarum. Enter AENEAS
AENEAS	How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield?
TROILUS	Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,
	For womanish it is to be from thence.
	What news, AEneas, from the field to-day?
AENEAS	That Paris is returned home and hurt.	140
TROILUS	By whom, AEneas?
AENEAS	Troilus, by Menelaus.
TROILUS	Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn;
	Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn.
	Alarum
AENEAS	Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day!	145
TROILUS	Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'
	But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?
AENEAS	In all swift haste.
TROILUS	Come, go we then together.
	Exeunt