Part 194

CRESSIDA. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear. To 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 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 confin’d; that the 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 lov’d you night and day 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. I love you now; but till now not 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 lov’d 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.

TROILUS. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

PANDARUS. Pretty, i’ faith.

CRESSIDA. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me; ’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss. I am asham’d. O heavens! what have I done? For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

TROILUS. Your leave, sweet Cressid!

PANDARUS. Leave! And you take leave till tomorrow morning—

CRESSIDA. Pray you, content you.

TROILUS. What offends you, lady?

CRESSIDA. Sir, mine own company.

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. 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— 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 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 affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnowed 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.

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 truth by Troilus, when their rhymes, Full of protest, of oath, and big compare, Want similes, truth tir’d 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 th’ 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.

CRESSIDA. Prophet may you be! 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 To dusty nothing—yet let memory From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood when th’ have said ‘As false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, As fox to lamb, or 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.’

PANDARUS. 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 call’d 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.’

TROILUS. Amen.

CRESSIDA. Amen.

PANDARUS. 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!

[_Exeunt Troilus and Cressida_.]

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here, Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!

[_Exit_.]

SCENE III. The Greek camp.

Flourish. Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Ajax, Menelaus and Calchas.

CALCHAS. Now, Princes, for the service I have done, Th’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 come, I have abandon’d Troy, left my possession, Incurr’d a traitor’s name, expos’d myself From certain and possess’d conveniences To doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring 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 regist’red in promise, Which you say live to come in my behalf.

AGAMEMNON. What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.

CALCHAS. You have a Trojan prisoner call’d Antenor, Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you—often have you thanks therefore— Desir’d my Cressid in right great exchange, Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest in their affairs That their negotiations all must slack Wanting his manage; and they will almost Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes, And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence Shall quite strike off all service I have done In most accepted pain.

AGAMEMNON. Let Diomedes bear him, And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall have What he requests of us. Good Diomed, Furnish you fairly for this interchange; Withal, bring word if Hector will tomorrow Be answer’d in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

DIOMEDES. This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burden Which I am proud to bear.

[_Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas_.]

[_Achilles and Patroclus stand in their tent_.]

ULYSSES. Achilles stands i’ th’entrance of his tent. Please it our general pass strangely by him, As if he were forgot; and, Princes all, Lay negligent and loose regard upon him. I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question me Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn’d on him. If so, I have derision med’cinable To use between your strangeness and his pride, Which his own will shall have desire to drink. It may do good. Pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride; for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

AGAMEMNON. We’ll execute your purpose, and put on A form of strangeness as we pass along. So do each lord; and either greet him not, Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more Than if not look’d on. I will lead the way.

ACHILLES. What comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind. I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.

AGAMEMNON. What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

NESTOR. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

ACHILLES. No.

NESTOR. Nothing, my lord.

AGAMEMNON. The better.

[_Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor_.]

ACHILLES. Good day, good day.

MENELAUS. How do you? How do you?

[_Exit_.]

ACHILLES. What, does the cuckold scorn me?

AJAX. How now, Patroclus?

ACHILLES. Good morrow, Ajax.

AJAX. Ha?

ACHILLES. Good morrow.

AJAX. Ay, and good next day too.

[_Exit_.]

ACHILLES. What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

PATROCLUS. They pass by strangely. They were us’d to bend, To send their smiles before them to Achilles, To come as humbly as they us’d to creep To holy altars.

ACHILLES. What, am I poor of late? ’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune, Must fall out with men too. What the declin’d is, He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer; And not a man for being simply man Hath any honour, but honour for those honours That are without him, as place, riches, and favour, Prizes of accident, as oft as merit; Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, The love that lean’d on them as slippery too, Doth one pluck down another, and together Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me: Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy At ample point all that I did possess Save these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find out Something not worth in me such rich beholding As they have often given. Here is Ulysses. I’ll interrupt his reading. How now, Ulysses!

ULYSSES. Now, great Thetis’ son!

ACHILLES. What are you reading?

ULYSSES. A strange fellow here Writes me that man—how dearly ever parted, How much in having, or without or in— Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; As when his virtues shining upon others Heat them, and they retort that heat again To the first giver.

ACHILLES. This is not strange, Ulysses. The beauty that is borne here in the face The bearer knows not, but commends itself To others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself— That most pure spirit of sense—behold itself, Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed Salutes each other with each other’s form; For speculation turns not to itself Till it hath travell’d, and is mirror’d there Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

ULYSSES. I do not strain at the position— It is familiar—but at the author’s drift; Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves That no man is the lord of anything, Though in and of him there be much consisting, Till he communicate his parts to others; Nor doth he of himself know them for aught Till he behold them formed in the applause Where th’are extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rate The voice again; or, like a gate of steel Fronting the sun, receives and renders back His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this; And apprehended here immediately Th’unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there! A very horse that has he knows not what! Nature, what things there are Most abject in regard and dear in use! What things again most dear in the esteem And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow— An act that very chance doth throw upon him— Ajax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do, While some men leave to do! How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall, Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes! How one man eats into another’s pride, While pride is fasting in his wantonness! To see these Grecian lords!—why, even already They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder, As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast, And great Troy shrieking.

ACHILLES. I do believe it; for they pass’d by me As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?

ULYSSES. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes. Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done. Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow— Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path, For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue; if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an ent’red tide they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours; For Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand; And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating Time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin— That all with one consent praise new-born gauds, Though they are made and moulded of things past, And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o’er-dusted. The present eye praises the present object. Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax, Since things in motion sooner catch the eye Than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive And case thy reputation in thy tent, Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves, And drave great Mars to faction.

ACHILLES. Of this my privacy I have strong reasons.

ULYSSES. But ’gainst your privacy The reasons are more potent and heroical. ’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam’s daughters.

ACHILLES. Ha! known!

ULYSSES. Is that a wonder? The providence that’s in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold; Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps; Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods, Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. There is a mystery—with whom relation Durst never meddle—in the soul of state, Which hath an operation more divine Than breath or pen can give expressure to. All the commerce that you have had with Troy As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord; And better would it fit Achilles much To throw down Hector than Polyxena. But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home, When fame shall in our island sound her trump, And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing ‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win; But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.’ Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak. The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.

[_Exit_.]

PATROCLUS. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov’d you. A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loath’d than an effeminate man In time of action. I stand condemn’d for this; They think my little stomach to the war And your great love to me restrains you thus. Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane, Be shook to air.

ACHILLES. Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

PATROCLUS. Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

ACHILLES. I see my reputation is at stake; My fame is shrewdly gor’d.

PATROCLUS. O, then, beware: Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves; Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger; And danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when they sit idly in the sun.

ACHILLES. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus. I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him T’invite the Trojan lords, after the combat, To see us here unarm’d. I have a woman’s longing, An appetite that I am sick withal, To see great Hector in his weeds of peace; To talk with him, and to behold his visage, Even to my full of view.

Enter Thersites.

A labour sav’d!

THERSITES. A wonder!

ACHILLES. What?

THERSITES. Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.

ACHILLES. How so?

THERSITES. He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.

ACHILLES. How can that be?

THERSITES. Why, a’ stalks up and down like a peacock—a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say ‘There were wit in this head, and ’twould out’; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man’s undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i’ th’ combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said ‘Good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’ What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.

ACHILLES. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

THERSITES. Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering. Speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

ACHILLES. To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm’d to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honour’d Captain General of the Grecian army, Agamemnon. Do this.

PATROCLUS. Jove bless great Ajax!

THERSITES. Hum!

PATROCLUS. I come from the worthy Achilles—

THERSITES. Ha!

PATROCLUS. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—

THERSITES. Hum!

PATROCLUS. And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.

THERSITES. Agamemnon?

PATROCLUS. Ay, my lord.

THERSITES. Ha!

PATROCLUS. What you say to’t?

THERSITES. God buy you, with all my heart.

PATROCLUS. Your answer, sir.

THERSITES. If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it will go one way or other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.

PATROCLUS. Your answer, sir.

THERSITES. Fare ye well, with all my heart.

ACHILLES. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

THERSITES. No, but out of tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knock’d out his brains, I know not; but, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.

ACHILLES. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

THERSITES. Let me bear another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.

ACHILLES. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d; And I myself see not the bottom of it.

[_Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus_.]

THERSITES. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.

[_Exit_.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. Troy. A street.

Enter, at one side, Aeneas and servant with a torch; at another Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, Diomedes the Grecian, and others, with torches.

PARIS. See, ho! Who is that there?

DEIPHOBUS. It is the Lord Aeneas.

AENEAS. Is the Prince there in person? Had I so good occasion to lie long As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

DIOMEDES. That’s my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.

PARIS. A valiant Greek, Aeneas—take his hand: Witness the process of your speech, wherein You told how Diomed, a whole week by days, Did haunt you in the field.

AENEAS. Health to you, valiant sir, During all question of the gentle truce; But when I meet you arm’d, as black defiance As heart can think or courage execute.

DIOMEDES. The one and other Diomed embraces. Our bloods are now in calm; and so long health! But when contention and occasion meet, By Jove, I’ll play the hunter for thy life With all my force, pursuit, and policy.

AENEAS. And thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly With his face backward. In humane gentleness, Welcome to Troy! Now, by Anchises’ life, Welcome indeed! By Venus’ hand I swear No man alive can love in such a sort The thing he means to kill, more excellently.

DIOMEDES. We sympathise. Jove let Aeneas live, If to my sword his fate be not the glory, A thousand complete courses of the sun! But in mine emulous honour let him die With every joint a wound, and that tomorrow!

AENEAS. We know each other well.

DIOMEDES. We do; and long to know each other worse.

PARIS. This is the most despiteful gentle greeting, The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of. What business, lord, so early?

AENEAS. I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.

PARIS. His purpose meets you: ’twas to bring this Greek To Calchas’ house, and there to render him, For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid. Let’s have your company; or, if you please, Haste there before us. I constantly believe— Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge— My brother Troilus lodges there tonight. Rouse him and give him note of our approach, With the whole quality wherefore; I fear We shall be much unwelcome.

AENEAS. That I assure you: Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece Than Cressid borne from Troy.

PARIS. There is no help; The bitter disposition of the time Will have it so. On, lord; we’ll follow you.

AENEAS. Good morrow, all.

[_Exit with servant_.]

PARIS. And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true, Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship, Who in your thoughts deserves fair Helen best, Myself, or Menelaus?

DIOMEDES. Both alike: He merits well to have her that doth seek her, Not making any scruple of her soilure, With such a hell of pain and world of charge; And you as well to keep her that defend her, Not palating the taste of her dishonour, With such a costly loss of wealth and friends. He like a puling cuckold would drink up The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece; You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins Are pleas’d to breed out your inheritors. Both merits pois’d, each weighs nor less nor more, But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

PARIS. You are too bitter to your country-woman.

DIOMEDES. She’s bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris: For every false drop in her bawdy veins A Grecian’s life hath sunk; for every scruple Of her contaminated carrion weight A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak, She hath not given so many good words breath As for her Greeks and Trojans suff’red death.

PARIS. Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy; But we in silence hold this virtue well, We’ll not commend what we intend to sell. Here lies our way.

[_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. The court of Pandarus’ house.

Enter Troilus and Cressida.

TROILUS. Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold.