Troilus And Cressida

1 Enter Troilus armed, and Pandarus.
2 TROILUS.
3 Call here my varlet; I’ll unarm again.
4 Why should I war without the walls of Troy
5 That find such cruel battle here within?
6 Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
7 Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
8 PANDARUS.
9 Will this gear ne’er be mended?
10 TROILUS.
11 The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
12 Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
13 But I am weaker than a woman’s tear,
14 Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
15 Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
16 And skilless as unpractis’d infancy.
17 PANDARUS.
18 Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part, I’ll not meddle nor
19 make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry
20 the grinding.
21 TROILUS.
22 Have I not tarried?
23 PANDARUS.
24 Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.
25 TROILUS.
26 Have I not tarried?
27 PANDARUS.
28 Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.
29 TROILUS.
30 Still have I tarried.
31 PANDARUS.
32 Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet in the word ‘hereafter’ the
33 kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the
34 baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance burn your
35 lips.
36 TROILUS.
37 Patience herself, what goddess e’er she be,
38 Doth lesser blench at suff’rance than I do.
39 At Priam’s royal table do I sit;
40 And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,
41 So, traitor! ‘when she comes’! when she is thence?
42 PANDARUS.
43 Well, she look’d yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any
44 woman else.
45 TROILUS.
46 I was about to tell thee: when my heart,
47 As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
48 Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
49 I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
50 Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.
51 But sorrow that is couch’d in seeming gladness
52 Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
53 PANDARUS.
54 An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen’s, well, go to, there
55 were no more comparison between the women. But, for my part, she is my
56 kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would
57 somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise
58 your sister Cassandra’s wit; but—
59 TROILUS.
60 O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,
61 When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown’d,
62 Reply not in how many fathoms deep
63 They lie indrench’d. I tell thee I am mad
64 In Cressid’s love. Thou answer’st ‘She is fair’;
65 Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart
66 Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
67 Handlest in thy discourse. O! that her hand,
68 In whose comparison all whites are ink
69 Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
70 The cygnet’s down is harsh, and spirit of sense
71 Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell’st me,
72 As true thou tell’st me, when I say I love her;
73 But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
74 Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me
75 The knife that made it.
76 PANDARUS.
77 I speak no more than truth.
78 TROILUS.
79 Thou dost not speak so much.
80 PANDARUS.
81 Faith, I’ll not meddle in’t. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, ’tis
82 the better for her; and she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.
83 TROILUS.
84 Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus!
85 PANDARUS.
86 I have had my labour for my travail, ill thought on of her and ill
87 thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my
88 labour.
89 TROILUS.
90 What! art thou angry, Pandarus? What! with me?
91 PANDARUS.
92 Because she’s kin to me, therefore she’s not so fair as Helen. And she
93 were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on
94 Sunday. But what care I? I care not and she were a blackamoor; ’tis all
95 one to me.
96 TROILUS.
97 Say I she is not fair?
98 PANDARUS.
99 I do not care whether you do or no. She’s a fool to stay behind her
100 father. Let her to the Greeks; and so I’ll tell her the next time I see
101 her. For my part, I’ll meddle nor make no more i’ the matter.
102 TROILUS.
103 Pandarus—
104 PANDARUS.
105 Not I.
106 TROILUS.
107 Sweet Pandarus—
108 PANDARUS.
109 Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and
110 there an end.
111 [_Exit Pandarus. An alarum._]
112 TROILUS.
113 Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!
114 Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
115 When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
116 I cannot fight upon this argument;
117 It is too starv’d a subject for my sword.
118 But Pandarus, O gods! how do you plague me!
119 I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
120 And he’s as tetchy to be woo’d to woo
121 As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
122 Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love,
123 What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
124 Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl;
125 Between our Ilium and where she resides
126 Let it be call’d the wild and wandering flood;
127 Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
128 Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
129 Alarum. Enter Aeneas.
130 AENEAS.
131 How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?
132 TROILUS.
133 Because not there. This woman’s answer sorts,
134 For womanish it is to be from thence.
135 What news, Aeneas, from the field today?
136 AENEAS.
137 That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
138 TROILUS.
139 By whom, Aeneas?
140 AENEAS.
141 Troilus, by Menelaus.
142 TROILUS.
143 Let Paris bleed: ’tis but a scar to scorn;
144 Paris is gor’d with Menelaus’ horn.
145 [_Alarum._]
146 AENEAS.
147 Hark what good sport is out of town today!
148 TROILUS.
149 Better at home, if ‘would I might’ were ‘may.’
150 But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?
151 AENEAS.
152 In all swift haste.
153 TROILUS.
154 Come, go we then together.
155 [_Exeunt._]