Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  Serv. Sodden business: there’s a stewed phrase, indeed. 30

  Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended.

  Pan. Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! fair desires, in all fair measures, fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen! fair thoughts be your fair pillow!

  Helen. Dear lord, you are full of fair words.

  Pan. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken music.

  Par. You have broke it, cousin; and, by my life, you shall make it whole again: you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance. Nell, he is full of harmony. 35

  Pan. Truly, lady, no.

  Helen. O, sir!

  Pan. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.

  Par. Well said, my lord! Well, you say so in fits.

  Pan. I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word? 40

  Helen. Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we’ll hear you sing, certainly.

  Pan. Well, sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord. My dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus —

  Helen. My Lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord, —

  Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to: commends himself most affectionately to you.

  Helen. You shall not bob us out of our melody: if you do, our melancholy upon your head! 45

  Pan. Sweet queen, sweet queen! that’s a sweet queen, i’ faith.

  Helen. And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.

  Pan. Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la! Nay, I care not for such words: no, no. And, my lord, he desires you, that if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

  Helen. My Lord Pandarus, —

  Pan. What says my sweet queen, my very sweet queen? 50

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

  Helen. Nay, but my lord, —

  Pan. What says my sweet queen! My cousin will fall out with you. You must know where he sups.

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

  Pan. No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer is sick. 55

  Par. Well, I’ll make excuse.

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

  Par. I spy.

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

  Helen. Why, this is kindly done. 60

  Pan. 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.

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

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

  Pan. Come, come, I’ll hear no more of this. I’ll sing you a song now. 65

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

  Pan. Ay, you may, you may.

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

  Pan. Love! ay, that it shall, i’ faith.

  Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love. 70

  Pan. In good troth, it begins so:

  [Sings.]

  Love, love, nothing but love, still more!

  For, oh! love’s bow

  Shoots buck and doe:

  The shaft confounds,

  Not that it wounds,

  But tickles still the sore.

  These lovers cry O! O! they die!

  Yet that which seems the wound to kill,

  Doth turn O! O! to ha! ha! he!

  So dying love lives still:

  O! O! a while, but ha! ha! ha!

  O! O! groans out for ha! ha! ha!

  Heigh-ho!

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

  Par. 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.

  Pan. 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? 75

  Par. 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.

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

  Par. To a hair.

  Pan. Farewell, sweet queen. 80

  Helen. Commend me to your niece.

  Pan. I will, sweet queen. [Exit. A retreat sounded.

  Par. 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, 85

  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; 90

  Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty

  Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,

  Yea, overshines ourself.

  Par. Sweet, above thought I love thee. [Exeunt.

  Act III. Scene II.

  The Same. PANDARUS’ Orchard.

  Enter PANDARUS and TROILUS’ Boy, meeting.

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

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

  Enter TROILUS. 5

  Pan. O! here he comes. How now, how now!

  Tro. Sirrah, walk off. [Exit Boy.

  Pan. Have you seen my cousin?

  Tro. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,

  Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks 10

  Staying for waftage. O! be thou my Charon,

  And give me swift transportance to those fields

  Where I may wallow in the lily-beds

  Propos’d for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus!

  From Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings, 15

  And fly with me to Cressid.

  Pan. Walk here i’ the orchard. I’ll bring her straight. [Exit.

  Tro. I am giddy, expectation whirls me round.

  The imaginary relish is so sweet

  That it enchants my sense. What will it be 20

  When that the watery palate tastes indeed

  Love’s thrice-repured nectar? death, I fear me,

  Swounding destruction, or some joy too fine,

  Too subtle-potent, tun’d too sharp in sweetness

  For the capacity of my ruder powers: 25

  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. 30

  Pan. 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.

  Tro. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom;

  My heart beats thicker than a fev’rous pulse;

  And all my powers do their bestowing lose,

  Like vassalage at unawares encountering 35

  The eye of majesty.

  Re-enter PANDARUS with CRESSIDA.

  Pan. 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 s
ee your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend day-light! an ‘twere dark, you’d 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.

  Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady.

  Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she’ll bereave you of 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. 40

  Cres. Will you walk in, my lord?

  Tro. O Cressida! how often have I wished me thus!

  Cres. Wished, my lord! The gods grant, — O my lord!

  Tro. What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

  Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. 45

  Tro. Fears make devils of 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 worse.

  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. 50

  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 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.

  Cres. Will you walk in, my lord?

  Re-enter PANDARUS.

  Pan. What! blushing still? have you not done talking yet? 55

  Cres. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate 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 wooed, they are constant being won: they are burrs, I can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.

  Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart: 60

  Prince Troilus, I have lov’d 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 — 65

  If I confess much you will play the tyrant.

  I love you now; but, till now, not 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! 70

  Why have I blabb’d? who shall be true to us

  When we are so unsecret to ourselves?

  But, though I lov’d 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 75

  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. 80

  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 asham’d: O heavens! what have I done? 85

  For this time will I 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? 90

  Cres. Sir, mine own company.

  Tro. You cannot shun yourself.

  Cres. Let me go and try:

  I have a kind of self resides with you;

  But an unkind self, that itself will leave, 95

  To be another’s fool. I would be gone:

  Where is my wit? I speak I know not what.

  Tro. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.

  Cres. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;

  And fell so roundly to a large confession, 100

  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 — 105

  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, 110

  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, 115

  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 120

  Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rimes,

  Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,

  Want similes, truth tir’d with iteration,

  As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,

  As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, 125

  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. 130

  Cres. 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, 135

  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, 140

  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, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called 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. 145

  Tro. Amen.

  Cres. Amen.

  Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show 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 gear! [Exeunt. 150

  Act III. 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 recompense. Appear it to your mind 5

  That through the sight I bear in things to come,

  I have abandon’d Troy, left my possession,

  Incurr’d a traitor’s name; expos’d myself,

  From certain and possess’d conveniences,

  To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all 10

  That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition

  Made tame and most familiar to my nature;

  And here, to do you service, have become

  As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:

  I do beseech you, as in way of taste, 15

  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 thou of us, Trojan? make demand.

  Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call’d Antenor, 20

  Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.

  Oft have you — often have you thanks therefore —

  Desir’d my Cressid in right great exchange,

  Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor

  I know is such a wrest in their affairs 25

  That their negociations all must slack,

  Wanting his manage; and they will almost

  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 30

  Shall quite strike off all service I have done,

  In most accepted pain.

  Agam. Let Diomedes bear him,

  And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have

  What he requests of us. Good Diomed, 35

  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