Complete Plays, The (102 page)

Helen

My Lord Pandarus,—

Pandarus

What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?

Paris

What exploit’s in hand? where sups he to-night?

Helen

Nay, but, my lord,—

Pandarus

What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where he sups.

Paris

I’ll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.

Pandarus

No, no, no such matter; you are wide: come, your disposer is sick.

Paris

Well, I’ll make excuse.

Pandarus

Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida? no, your poor disposer’s sick.

Paris

I spy.

Pandarus

You spy! what do you spy? Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen.

Helen

Why, this is kindly done.

Pandarus

My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

Helen

She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my lord Paris.

Pandarus

He! no, she’ll none of him; they two are twain.

Helen

Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.

Pandarus

Come, come, I’ll hear no more of this; I’ll sing you a song now.

Helen

Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.

Pandarus

Ay, you may, you may.

Helen

Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all.
O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

Pandarus

Love! ay, that it shall, i’ faith.

Paris

Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.

Pandarus

In good troth, it begins so.

Sings

Love, love, nothing but love, still more!
For, O, love’s bow
Shoots buck and doe:
The shaft confounds,
Not that it wounds,
But tickles still the sore.
These lovers cry Oh! oh! they die!
Yet that which seems the wound to kill,
Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!
So dying love lives still:
Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha!
Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha!
Heigh-ho!

Helen

In love, i’ faith, to the very tip of the nose.

Paris

He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.

Pandarus

Is this the generation of love? hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers: is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s a-field to-day?

Paris

Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed to-day, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?

Helen

He hangs the lip at something: you know all, Lord Pandarus.

Pandarus

Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they sped to-day. You’ll remember your brother’s excuse?

Paris

To a hair.

Pandarus

Farewell, sweet queen.

Helen

Commend me to your niece.

Pandarus

I will, sweet queen.

Exit

A retreat sounded

Paris

They’re come from field: let us to Priam’s hall,
To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you
To help unarm our Hector: his stubborn buckles,
With these your white enchanting fingers touch’d,
Shall more obey than to the edge of steel
Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more
Than all the island kings,— disarm great Hector.

Helen

’Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;
Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty
Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,
Yea, overshines ourself.

Paris

Sweet, above thought I love thee.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. T
HE
SAME
. P
ANDARUS
’
ORCHARD
.

Enter Pandarus and Troilus’s Boy, meeting

Pandarus

How now! where’s thy master? at my cousin
Cressida’s?

Boy

No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.

Pandarus

O, here he comes.

Enter Troilus

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 banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to those fields
Where I may wallow in the lily-beds
Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings
And 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 sweet
That it enchants my sense: what will it be,
When that the watery palate tastes indeed
Love’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 heaps
The enemy flying.

Re-enter Pandarus

Pandarus

She’s making her ready, she’ll come straight: you must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were frayed with a sprite: I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain: she fetches her breath as short as a new-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 encountering
The 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 that you 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 to her? Come, draw this curtain, and let’s see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! 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 air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks 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’ll bereave you o’ the deeds too, if she call your activity 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 pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady 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 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 confined, 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 loved 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 not, till now, 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 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 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 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 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 ramp 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 winnow’d 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 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 grated
To dusty nothing, yet let memory,
From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood! when they’ve said ‘as false
As 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.’