Act III · Scene II
The same. Pandarus' orchard.
Hover a speech to translate it — or press play to hear it performed.
Enter PANDARUS and Troilus's Boy, meeting
PANDARUS
How now! where's thy master? at my cousinCressida's?
Boy
No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.
PANDARUS
O, here he comes.
Enter TROILUS
PANDARUS
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 banksStaying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,And give me swift transportance to those fieldsWhere I may wallow in the lily-bedsProposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wingsAnd 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 sweetThat it enchants my sense: what will it be,When that the watery palate tastes indeedLove'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: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 heapsThe enemy flying.
Re-enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS
She's making her ready, she'll come straight: youmust be witty now. She does so blush, and fetchesher wind so short, as if she were frayed with asprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiestvillain: she fetches her breath as short as anew-ta'en sparrow.
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 encounteringThe eye of majesty.
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 thatyou 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,we'll put you i' the fills. Why do you not speak toher? Come, draw this curtain, and let's see yourpicture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offenddaylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld close sooner.So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now!a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the airis sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ereI part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all theducks i' the river: go to, go to.
TROILUS
You have bereft me of all words, lady.
PANDARUS
Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'llbereave you o' the deeds too, if she call youractivity in question. What, billing again? Here's'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably'--Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire.
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 prettyabruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweetlady 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 saferfooting than blind reason stumbling without fear: tofear the worst oft cures the worse.
TROILUS
O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid'spageant there is presented no monster.
CRESSIDA
Nor nothing monstrous neither?
TROILUS
Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weepseas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinkingit harder for our mistress to devise impositionenough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed.This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the willis infinite and the execution confined, that thedesire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.
CRESSIDA
They say all lovers swear more performance than theyare able and yet reserve an ability that they neverperform, vowing more than the perfection of ten anddischarging less than the tenth part of one. Theythat 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 weare tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall gobare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversionshall have a praise in present: we will not namedesert before his birth, and, being born, his additionshall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilusshall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worstshall be a mock for his truth, and what truth canspeak 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 heflinch, chide me for it.
TROILUS
You know now your hostages; your uncle's word and myfirm faith.
PANDARUS
Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our kindred,though they be long ere they are wooed, they areconstant 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 dayFor 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 not, till now, so muchBut I might master it: in faith, I lie;My thoughts were like unbridled children, grownToo 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 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 privilegeOf speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,For in this rapture I shall surely speakThe thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness drawsMy 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 ashamed. O heavens! what have I done?For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
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.
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 loveExceeds 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;To keep her constancy in plight and youth,Outliving beauty's outward, with a mindThat doth renew swifter than blood decays!Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,That my integrity and truth to youMight be affronted with the match and weightOf such a winnow'd purity in love;How were I then uplifted! but, alas!I am as true as truth's simplicityAnd 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 comeApprove their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,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,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 gratedTo dusty nothing, yet let memory,From false to false, among false maids in love,Upbraid my falsehood! when they've said 'as falseAs air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,As fox to lamb, as 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 thewitness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin's.If ever you prove false one to another, since I havetaken such pains to bring you together, let allpitiful goers-between be called to the world's endafter my name; call them all Pandars; let allconstant 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 with abed; which bed, because it shall not speak of yourpretty encounters, press it to death: away!And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens hereBed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear!
Exeunt