the heating the oven, and the baking. Nay, you must
25
stay the cooling too, or ye may chance burn your lips.
TROILUS Patience herself, what goddess e’er she be,
Doth lesser blench at suff ’rance than I do.
At Priam’s royal table do I sit,
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts –
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So, traitor! ‘When she comes’! When is she thence?
PANDARUS Well, she looked 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,
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Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have, as when the sun doth light a-scorn,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile;
But sorrow that is couched in seeming gladness
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
40
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.
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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 drowned,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrenched. I tell thee I am mad
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In Cressid’s love. Thou answer’st ‘She is fair’,
Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice;
Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink
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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,
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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
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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
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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 o’ Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what
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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,
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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 –
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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.
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I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved 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 wooed to woo
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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,
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Let it be called 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,
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For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Aeneas, from the field today?
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;
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Paris is gored with Menelaus’ horn. [Alarum.]
AENEAS Hark, what good sport is out of town today!
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.
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Exeunt.
1.2 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 fixed, today was moved.
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He chid Andromache and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harnessed light,
And to the field goes he, where every flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
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In Hector’s wrath.
CRESSIDA What was his cause of anger?
ALEXANDER
The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.
CRESSIDA Good, and what of him?
ALEXANDER They say he is a very man per se,
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And stands alone.
CRESSIDA So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or
have no legs.
ALEXANDER This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of
their particular additions. He is as valiant as the lion,
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churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant; a man into
whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour
is crushed 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
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it. He is melancholy without cause, and merry against
the hair; he hath the joints of everything, 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
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smile, make Hector ang
ry?
ALEXANDER They say he yesterday coped 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?
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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.
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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
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Hector armed and gone ere ye 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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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PANDARUS Nor his qualities.
CRESSIDA No matter.
PANDARUS Nor his beauty.
CRESSIDA ’Twould not become him; his own’s better.
PANDARUS You have no judgement, niece. Helen herself
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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.
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PANDARUS She praised his complexion above Paris’.
CRESSIDA Why, Paris hath colour enough.
PANDARUS So he has.
CRESSIDA Then Troilus should have too much. If she
praised him above, his complexion is higher than his;
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he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too
flaming a 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
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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 compassed window – and you
know he has not past three or four hairs on his chin –
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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?
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PANDARUS But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she
came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin –
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 506
