Part 191

TROILUS. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus, 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 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 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.

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; and she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

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?

PANDARUS. Because she’s kin to me, therefore she’s not so fair as Helen. And 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 and she were a blackamoor; ’tis all one to me.

TROILUS. Say I she is not fair?

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—

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! 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 starv’d a subject for my sword. But Pandarus, O gods! how do you plague me! 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? 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.

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 today?

AENEAS. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.

TROILUS. By whom, Aeneas?

AENEAS. Troilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUS. Let Paris bleed: ’tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor’d with Menelaus’ horn.

[_Alarum._]

AENEAS. Hark what good sport is out of town today!

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._]

SCENE II. Troy. A street.

Enter Cressida and her man Alexander.

CRESSIDA. Who were those went by?

ALEXANDER. Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA. And whither go they?

ALEXANDER. Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, To see the battle. Hector, whose patience Is as a virtue fix’d, today was mov’d. He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer; And, like as there were husbandry in war, Before the sun rose he was harness’d light, And to the field goes he; where every flower Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw In Hector’s wrath.

CRESSIDA. What was his cause of anger?

ALEXANDER. The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDA. Good; and what of him?

ALEXANDER. They say he is a very man _per se_ And stands alone.

CRESSIDA. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDER. This man, lady, hath robb’d 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 crush’d 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 everything; but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDA. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

ALEXANDER. They say he yesterday cop’d Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter Pandarus.

CRESSIDA. Who comes here?

ALEXANDER. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

CRESSIDA. Hector’s a gallant man.

ALEXANDER. As may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUS. What’s that? What’s that?

CRESSIDA. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS. Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?—Good morrow, Alexander.—How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDA. This morning, uncle.

PANDARUS. What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm’d and gone ere you came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

CRESSIDA. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.

PANDARUS. E’en so. Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDA. That were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUS. Was he angry?

CRESSIDA. So he says here.

PANDARUS. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he’ll lay about him today, 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.

CRESSIDA. What, is he angry too?

PANDARUS. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

CRESSIDA. O Jupiter! there’s no comparison.

PANDARUS. What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him?

CRESSIDA. Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

PANDARUS. Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

CRESSIDA. Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.

PANDARUS. No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.

CRESSIDA. ’Tis just to each of them: he is himself.

PANDARUS. Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were!

CRESSIDA. So he is.

PANDARUS. Condition I had gone barefoot to India.

CRESSIDA. He is not Hector.

PANDARUS. 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.

CRESSIDA. Excuse me.

PANDARUS. He is elder.

CRESSIDA. Pardon me, pardon me.

PANDARUS. Th’other’s not come to’t; you shall tell me another tale when th’other’s come to’t. Hector shall not have his wit this year.

CRESSIDA. He shall not need it if he have his own.

ANDARUS. Nor his qualities.

CRESSIDA. No matter.

PANDARUS. Nor his beauty.

CRESSIDA. ’Twould not become him: his own’s better.

PANDARUS. You have no judgement, niece. Helen herself swore th’other day that Troilus, for a brown favour, for so ’tis, I must confess—not brown neither—

CRESSIDA. No, but brown.

PANDARUS. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

CRESSIDA. To say the truth, true and not true.

PANDARUS. She prais’d his complexion above Paris.

CRESSIDA. Why, Paris hath colour enough.

PANDARUS. So he has.

CRESSIDA. Then Troilus should have too much. If she prais’d 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.

PANDARUS. I swear to you I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

CRESSIDA. Then she’s a merry Greek indeed.

PANDARUS. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th’other day into the compass’d window—and you know he has not past three or four hairs on his chin—

CRESSIDA. Indeed a tapster’s arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.

PANDARUS. Why, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound lift as much as his brother Hector.

CRESSIDA. Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?

PANDARUS. But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin—

CRESSIDA. Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?

PANDARUS. Why, you know, ’tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.

CRESSIDA. O, he smiles valiantly!

PANDARUS. Does he not?

CRESSIDA. O yes, an ’twere a cloud in autumn!

PANDARUS. Why, go to, then! But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus—

CRESSIDA. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you’ll prove it so.

PANDARUS. Troilus! Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.

CRESSIDA. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i’ th’ shell.

PANDARUS. I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvell’s white hand, I must needs confess.

CRESSIDA. Without the rack.

PANDARUS. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

CRESSIDA. Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.

PANDARUS. But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laugh’d that her eyes ran o’er.

CRESSIDA. With millstones.

PANDARUS. And Cassandra laugh’d.

CRESSIDA. But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes. Did her eyes run o’er too?

PANDARUS. And Hector laugh’d.

CRESSIDA. At what was all this laughing?

PANDARUS. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus’ chin.

CRESSIDA. And’t had been a green hair I should have laugh’d too.

PANDARUS. They laugh’d not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.

CRESSIDA. What was his answer?

PANDARUS. Quoth she ‘Here’s but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.’

CRESSIDA. This is her question.

PANDARUS. That’s true; make no question of that. ‘Two 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 blush’d, and Paris so chaf’d; and all the rest so laugh’d that it pass’d.

CRESSIDA. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.

PANDARUS. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on’t.

CRESSIDA. So I do.

PANDARUS. I’ll be sworn ’tis true; he will weep you, and ’twere a man born in April.

CRESSIDA. And I’ll spring up in his tears, an ’twere a nettle against May.

[_Sound a retreat._]

PANDARUS. Hark! they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.

CRESSIDA. At your pleasure.

PANDARUS. Here, here, here’s an excellent place; here we may see most bravely. I’ll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest.

[Aeneas _passes_.]

CRESSIDA. Speak not so loud.

PANDARUS. That’s Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He’s one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see anon.

[Antenor _passes_.]

CRESSIDA. Who’s that?

PANDARUS. That’s Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and he’s a man good enough; he’s one o’ th’ soundest judgements in Troy, whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I’ll show you Troilus anon. If he see me, you shall see him nod at me.

CRESSIDA. Will he give you the nod?

PANDARUS. You shall see.

CRESSIDA. If he do, the rich shall have more.

[Hector _passes_.]

PANDARUS. That’s Hector, that, that, look you, that; there’s a fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There’s a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks. There’s a countenance! Is’t not a brave man?

CRESSIDA. O, a brave man!

PANDARUS. Is a’ not? It does a man’s heart good. Look you what hacks are on his helmet! Look you yonder, do you see? Look you there. There’s no jesting; there’s laying on; take’t off who will, as they say. There be hacks.

CRESSIDA. Be those with swords?

PANDARUS. Swords! anything, he cares not; and the devil come to him, it’s all one. By God’s lid, it does one’s heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.

[Paris _passes_.]

Look ye yonder, niece; is’t not a gallant man too, is’t not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home today? He’s not hurt. Why, this will do Helen’s heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.

[Helenus _passes_.]

CRESSIDA. Who’s that?

PANDARUS. That’s Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That’s Helenus. I think he went not forth today. That’s Helenus.

CRESSIDA. Can Helenus fight, uncle?

PANDARUS. Helenus! no. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry ‘Troilus’?—Helenus is a priest.

CRESSIDA. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

[Troilus _passes_.]

PANDARUS. Where? yonder? That’s Deiphobus. ’Tis Troilus. There’s a man, niece. Hem! Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!

CRESSIDA. Peace, for shame, peace!

PANDARUS. Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece; look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hack’d than Hector’s; and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he never saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were a grace or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot.

CRESSIDA. Here comes more.

[_Common soldiers pass_.]

PANDARUS. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.

CRESSIDA. There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.

PANDARUS. Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel!

CRESSIDA. Well, well.

PANDARUS. Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?

CRESSIDA. Ay, a minc’d man; and then to be bak’d with no date in the pie, for then the man’s date is out.

PANDARUS. You are such a woman! A man knows not at what ward you lie.

CRESSIDA. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

PANDARUS. Say one of your watches.

CRESSIDA. Nay, I’ll watch you for that; and that’s one of the chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s past watching.

PANDARUS. You are such another!

Enter Troilus' Boy.

BOY. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

PANDARUS. Where?

BOY. At your own house; there he unarms him.

PANDARUS. Good boy, tell him I come. [_Exit_ Boy.] I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.

CRESSIDA. Adieu, uncle.

PANDARUS. I will be with you, niece, by and by.

CRESSIDA. To bring, uncle.

PANDARUS. Ay, a token from Troilus.

[_Exit_ Pandarus.]

CRESSIDA. By the same token, you are a bawd. Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice, He offers in another’s enterprise; But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be, Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing. That she belov’d knows naught that knows not this: Men prize the thing ungain’d more than it is. That she was never yet that ever knew Love got so sweet as when desire did sue; Therefore this maxim out of love I teach: ‘Achievement is command; ungain’d, beseech.’ Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear, Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

[_Exit_.]

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Agamemnon’s tent.

Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, Menelaus and others.

AGAMEMNON. Princes, What grief hath set these jaundies o’er your cheeks? The ample proposition that hope makes In all designs begun on earth below Fails in the promis’d largeness; checks and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear’d, As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, Infects the sound pine, and diverts his grain Tortive and errant from his course of growth. Nor, princes, is it matter new to us That we come short of our suppose so far That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand; Sith every action that hath gone before, Whereof we have record, trial did draw Bias and thwart, not answering the aim, And that unbodied figure of the thought That gave’t surmised shape. Why then, you princes, Do you with cheeks abash’d behold our works And call them shames, which are, indeed, naught else But the protractive trials of great Jove To find persistive constancy in men; The fineness of which metal is not found In fortune’s love? For then the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft, seem all affin’d and kin. But in the wind and tempest of her frown Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away; And what hath mass or matter by itself Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

NESTOR. With due observance of thy godlike seat, Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth, How many shallow bauble boats dare sail Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of nobler bulk! But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and anon behold The strong-ribb’d bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between the two moist elements Like Perseus’ horse. Where’s then the saucy boat, Whose weak untimber’d sides but even now Co-rivall’d greatness? Either to harbour fled Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies fled under shade—why, then the thing of courage, As rous’d with rage, with rage doth sympathise, And with an accent tun’d in self-same key Retorts to chiding fortune.

ULYSSES. Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit In whom the tempers and the minds of all Should be shut up—hear what Ulysses speaks. Besides th’applause and approbation The which, [_To Agamemnon_] most mighty, for thy place and sway, [_To Nestor_] And, thou most reverend, for thy stretch’d-out life, I give to both your speeches—which were such As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece Should hold up high in brass; and such again As venerable Nestor, hatch’d in silver, Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears To his experienc’d tongue—yet let it please both, Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

AGAMEMNON. Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be’t of less expect That matter needless, of importless burden, Divide thy lips than we are confident, When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws, We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

ULYSSES. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector’s sword had lack’d a master, But for these instances: The specialty of rule hath been neglected; And look how many Grecian tents do stand Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. When that the general is not like the hive, To whom the foragers shall all repair, What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, Th’unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthron’d and spher’d Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye Corrects the influence of evil planets, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents, what mutiny, What raging of the sea, shaking of earth, Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate, The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak’d, Which is the ladder of all high designs, The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenity and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, And make a sop of all this solid globe; Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead; Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong— Between whose endless jar justice resides— Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It hath to climb. The general’s disdain’d By him one step below, he by the next, That next by him beneath; so every step, Exampl’d by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation. And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

NESTOR. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover’d The fever whereof all our power is sick.

AGAMEMNON. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy?