Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida

ACT III SCENE II	The same. Pandarus' orchard.
	Enter PANDARUS and Troilus's Boy, meeting
PANDARUS	How now! where's thy master? at my cousin
	Cressida's?
Boy	No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.
PANDARUS	O, here he comes.	5
	Enter TROILUS
	How now, how now!
TROILUS	Sirrah, walk off.
	Exit Boy
PANDARUS	Have you seen my cousin?
TROILUS	No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
	Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks	10
	Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
	And give me swift transportance to those fields
	Where I may wallow in the lily-beds
	Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
	From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings	15
	And fly with me to Cressid!
PANDARUS	Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight.
	Exit
TROILUS	I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
	The imaginary relish is so sweet
	That it enchants my sense: what will it be,	20
	When that the watery palate tastes indeed
	Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me,
	Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
	Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,
	For the capacity of my ruder powers:	25
	I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
	That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
	As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
	The enemy flying.
	Re-enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS	She's making her ready, she'll come straight: you	30
	must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches
	her wind so short, as if she were frayed with a
	sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest
	villain: she fetches her breath as short as a
	new-ta'en sparrow.	35
	Exit
TROILUS	Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom:
	My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
	And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
	Like vassalage at unawares encountering
	The eye of majesty.	40
	Re-enter PANDARUS with CRESSIDA
PANDARUS	Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby.
	Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her that
	you have sworn to me. What, are you gone again?
	you must be watched ere you be made tame, must you?
	Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward,	45
	we'll put you i' the fills. Why do you not speak to
	her? Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your
	picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend
	daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld close sooner.
	So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now!	50
	a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air
	is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere
	I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the
	ducks i' the river: go to, go to.
TROILUS	You have bereft me of all words, lady.	55
PANDARUS	Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll
	bereave you o' the deeds too, if she call your
	activity in question. What, billing again? Here's
	'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably'--
	Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire.	60
	Exit
CRESSIDA	Will you walk in, my lord?
TROILUS	O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!
CRESSIDA	Wished, my lord! The gods grant,--O my lord!
TROILUS	What should they grant? what makes this pretty
	abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet	65
	lady in the fountain of our love?
CRESSIDA	More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.
TROILUS	Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.
CRESSIDA	Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer
	footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to	70
	fear the worst oft cures the worse.
TROILUS	O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's
	pageant there is presented no monster.
CRESSIDA	Nor nothing monstrous neither?
TROILUS	Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep	75
	seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking
	it harder for our mistress to devise imposition
	enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed.
	This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will
	is infinite and the execution confined, that the	80
	desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.
CRESSIDA	They say all lovers swear more performance than they
	are able and yet reserve an ability that they never
	perform, vowing more than the perfection of ten and
	discharging less than the tenth part of one. They	85
	that have the voice of lions and the act of hares,
	are they not monsters?
TROILUS	Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we
	are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go
	bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion	90
	shall have a praise in present: we will not name
	desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition
	shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus
	shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst
	shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can	95
	speak truest not truer than Troilus.
CRESSIDA	Will you walk in, my lord?
	Re-enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS	What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet?
CRESSIDA	Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.
PANDARUS	I thank you for that: if my lord get a boy of you,	100
	you'll give him me. Be true to my lord: if he
	flinch, chide me for it.
TROILUS	You know now your hostages; your uncle's word and my
	firm faith.
PANDARUS	Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our kindred,	105
	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.
CRESSIDA	Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.
	Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day	110
	For many weary months.
TROILUS	Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
CRESSIDA	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.	115
	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,	120
	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,	125
	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.
TROILUS	And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.	130
PANDARUS	Pretty, i' faith.
CRESSIDA	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.	135
TROILUS	Your leave, sweet Cressid!
PANDARUS	Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning,--
CRESSIDA	Pray you, content you.
TROILUS	What offends you, lady?
CRESSIDA	Sir, mine own company.	140
TROILUS	You cannot shun Yourself.
CRESSIDA	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:	145
	Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
TROILUS	Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
CRESSIDA	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,	150
	Or else you love not, for to be wise and love
	Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
TROILUS	O that I thought it could be in a woman--
	As, if it can, I will presume in you--
	To feed for aye her ramp and flames of love;	155
	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	160
	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.	165
CRESSIDA	In that I'll war with you.
TROILUS	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,	170
	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,	175
	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.
CRESSIDA	Prophet may you be!	180
	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	185
	To dusty nothing, yet let memory,
	From false to false, among false maids in love,
	Upbraid my falsehood! when they've said 'as false
	As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
	As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,	190
	Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,'
	'Yea,' let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
	'As false as Cressid.'
PANDARUS	Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the
	witness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin's.	195
	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,	200
	and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen.
TROILUS	Amen.
CRESSIDA	Amen.
PANDARUS	Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a
	bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your	205
	pretty encounters, press it to death: away!
	And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here
	Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear!
	Exeunt