The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

traitor, then she comes when she is thence.

PANDARUS. Well, she look’d yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

TROILUS. I was about to tell thee: when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.

But sorrow that is couch’d in seeming gladness Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

PANDARUS. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen’s-well, go to-there were no more comparison between the women. But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra’s wit; but-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’-

Pourest in the open ulcer of my heartHer 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 it. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, ‘tis the better for her; an 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. An she were not kin to me, she would be as fair a Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an 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’ th’ 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. Sound 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 wand’ring 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 to-day?

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 to-day!

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

ACT I. SCENE 2.

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, to-day 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 Troyan 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 a 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 every thing; 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.

PANDARUS. Nor his qualities.

CRESSIDA. No matter.

PANDARUS. Nor his beauty.

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

PANDARUS. YOU have no judgment, 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 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. An’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