Tro. Fears make devils cherubins; they never see truly.

Cres. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to fear the worst, oft cures the worst.

Tro. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster. Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither.

Tro. 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.

Cres, 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?

Tro. Are there such? Such are not we: praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our heads 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.

Cres. Will you walk in, my lord?

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pan. What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

Cres. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dediate to you.

Pan. 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.

Tro. You know now your hostages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too; our kindred, though they be long ere they are woo'd, they are constant, being won: they are burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown.

* Titles.

Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me

heart:

Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day, For many weary months.

Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cres. 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.

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
Pan. Pretty, i' faith.

Cres. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;

'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss:

I am ashamed; -0 heavens! what have I done?-
For this time I will take my leave, my lord.
Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid?

Pan. Leave! An you take leave till to-morrow morning,-

Cres. Pray you, content you.

Tro. What offends you, lady?
Cres. Sir, mine own company.
Tro. You cannot shuu

Yourself.

Cres. 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.1

Tro. Well know they what they speak, that

speak so wisely.

Cres. Perchance, my lord. I shew 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.

Tro. 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 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.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.
Tro. 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.

Cres. Prophet may you be!

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old, and hath forgot itself,
When water-drops 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 have 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.

Pan. 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,

† Met with and equalled. Conclude it.

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.

Tro. Amen.

Cres. Amen.

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will shew you a chamber and a bed, which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death: away.

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

[Exeunt.

SCENE III-The Grecian Camp. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done

you,

The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompence. Appear it to your mind,
That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove
I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
Incurr'd a traitor's name: exposed myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; séquest'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 the way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit,
Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.
Agam. What wouldst thod of us, Trojan? Make

demand.

Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore,) Desired 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

• An instrument for tuning harps, &c..

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.

Agam. Let Diomedes hear 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 to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.

Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden Which I am proud to bear.

[Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent.
Ulyss. Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent :-
Please it our general to 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 shew itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Agam. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along ;-
So do each lora; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind, I'll fight no more against Troy. Agam. What says achilles? Would he aught

with us?

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general? Achil. No.

Nest. Nothing, my lord.

Agam. The better.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor.

Achil. Good day, good day.

Men. How do you? How do you? [Erit Menelaus.

Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me?

* Shyly.