Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 2
The same. Pandarus’ orchard.
Pandarus : How now! where's thy master? at my cousin
[p]Cressida's?
Boy : No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.
Pandarus : O, here he comes.
[p][Enter TROILUS]
[p]How now, how now!
Troilus : Sirrah, walk off.
Pandarus : Have you seen my cousin?
Troilus : No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
[p]Like a strange soul upon the
Stygian banks
[p]Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
[p]And
give me swift transportance to those fields
[p]Where I may wallow in
the lily-beds
[p]Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
[p]From
Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
[p]And fly with me to
Cressid!
Pandarus : Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight.
Troilus : I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
[p]The imaginary relish is so
sweet
[p]That it enchants my sense: what will it be,
[p]When that the
watery palate tastes indeed
[p]Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I
fear me,
[p]Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
[p]Too
subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,
[p]For the capacity of my
ruder powers:
[p]I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
[p]That I
shall lose distinction in my joys;
[p]As doth a battle, when they
charge on heaps
[p]The enemy flying.
Pandarus : She's making her ready, she'll come straight: you
[p]must be witty
now. She does so blush, and fetches
[p]her wind so short, as if she
were frayed with a
[p]sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the
prettiest
[p]villain: she fetches her breath as short as
a
[p]new-ta'en sparrow.
Troilus : Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom:
[p]My heart beats thicker
than a feverous pulse;
[p]And all my powers do their bestowing
lose,
[p]Like vassalage at unawares encountering
[p]The eye of
majesty.
Pandarus : Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby.
[p]Here she is now:
swear the oaths now to her that
[p]you have sworn to me. What, are you
gone again?
[p]you must be watched ere you be made tame, must
you?
[p]Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward,
[p]we'll
put you i' the fills. Why do you not speak to
[p]her? Come, draw this
curtain, and let's see your
[p]picture. Alas the day, how loath you
are to offend
[p]daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld close sooner.
[p]So,
so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now!
[p]a kiss in fee-farm!
build there, carpenter; the air
[p]is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your
hearts out ere
[p]I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all
the
[p]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
[p]bereave you o' the
deeds too, if she call your
[p]activity in question. What, billing
again? Here's
[p]'In witness whereof the parties
interchangeably'--
[p]Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire.
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
[p]abruption? What too
curious dreg espies my sweet
[p]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
[p]footing than
blind reason stumbling without fear: to
[p]fear the worst oft cures
the worse.
Troilus : O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's
[p]pageant there is
presented no monster.
Cressida : Nor nothing monstrous neither?
Troilus : Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep
[p]seas, live in
fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking
[p]it harder for our mistress
to devise imposition
[p]enough than for us to undergo any difficulty
imposed.
[p]This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the
will
[p]is infinite and the execution confined, that the
[p]desire is
boundless and the act a slave to limit.
Cressida : They say all lovers swear more performance than they
[p]are able and
yet reserve an ability that they never
[p]perform, vowing more than
the perfection of ten and
[p]discharging less than the tenth part of
one. They
[p]that have the voice of lions and the act of hares,
[p]are
they not monsters?
Troilus : Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we
[p]are tasted, allow
us as we prove; our head shall go
[p]bare till merit crown it: no
perfection in reversion
[p]shall have a praise in present: we will not
name
[p]desert before his birth, and, being born, his
addition
[p]shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus
[p]shall
be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst
[p]shall be a mock for
his truth, and what truth can
[p]speak truest not truer than Troilus.
Cressida : Will you walk in, my lord?
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,
[p]you'll give him
me. Be true to my lord: if he
[p]flinch, chide me for it.
Troilus : You know now your hostages; your uncle's word and my
[p]firm faith.
Pandarus : Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our kindred,
[p]though they be
long ere they are wooed, they are
[p]constant being won: they are
burs, I can tell you;
[p]they'll stick where they are thrown.
Cressida : Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.
[p]Prince Troilus, I
have loved you night and day
[p]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,
[p]With the first glance
that ever--pardon me--
[p]If I confess much, you will play the
tyrant.
[p]I love you now; but not, till now, so much
[p]But I might
master it: in faith, I lie;
[p]My thoughts were like unbridled
children, grown
[p]Too headstrong for their mother. See, we
fools!
[p]Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us,
[p]When we are
so unsecret to ourselves?
[p]But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you
not;
[p]And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man,
[p]Or that we
women had men's privilege
[p]Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my
tongue,
[p]For in this rapture I shall surely speak
[p]The thing I
shall repent. See, see, your silence,
[p]Cunning in dumbness, from my
weakness draws
[p]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;
[p]'Twas not my purpose, thus to
beg a kiss:
[p]I am ashamed. O heavens! what have I done?
[p]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:
[p]I have a kind of self resides with you;
[p]But
an unkind self, that itself will leave,
[p]To be another's fool. I
would be gone:
[p]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;
[p]And fell so
roundly to a large confession,
[p]To angle for your thoughts: but you
are wise,
[p]Or else you love not, for to be wise and love
[p]Exceeds
man's might; that dwells with gods above.
Troilus : O that I thought it could be in a woman--
[p]As, if it can, I will
presume in you--
[p]To feed for aye her ramp and flames of love;
[p]To
keep her constancy in plight and youth,
[p]Outliving beauty's outward,
with a mind
[p]That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
[p]Or that
persuasion could but thus convince me,
[p]That my integrity and truth
to you
[p]Might be affronted with the match and weight
[p]Of such a
winnow'd purity in love;
[p]How were I then uplifted! but, alas!
[p]I
am as true as truth's simplicity
[p]And simpler than the infancy of
truth.
Cressida : In that I'll war with you.
Troilus : O virtuous fight,
[p]When right with right wars who shall be most
right!
[p]True swains in love shall in the world to come
[p]Approve
their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
[p]Full of protest, of
oath and big compare,
[p]Want similes, truth tired with
iteration,
[p]As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
[p]As sun to
day, as turtle to her mate,
[p]As iron to adamant, as earth to the
centre,
[p]Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
[p]As truth's
authentic author to be cited,
[p]'As true as Troilus' shall crown up
the verse,
[p]And sanctify the numbers.
Cressida : Prophet may you be!
[p]If I be false, or swerve a hair from
truth,
[p]When time is old and hath forgot itself,
[p]When waterdrops
have worn the stones of Troy,
[p]And blind oblivion swallow'd cities
up,
[p]And mighty states characterless are grated
[p]To dusty nothing,
yet let memory,
[p]From false to false, among false maids in
love,
[p]Upbraid my falsehood! when they've said 'as false
[p]As air,
as water, wind, or sandy earth,
[p]As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's
calf,
[p]Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,'
[p]'Yea,' let them
say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
[p]'As false as Cressid.'
Pandarus : Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the
[p]witness. Here
I hold your hand, here my cousin's.
[p]If ever you prove false one to
another, since I have
[p]taken such pains to bring you together, let
all
[p]pitiful goers-between be called to the world's end
[p]after my
name; call them all Pandars; let all
[p]constant men be Troiluses, all
false women Cressids,
[p]and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen.
Troilus : Amen.
Cressida : Amen.
Pandarus : Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a
[p]bed; which bed,
because it shall not speak of your
[p]pretty encounters, press it to
death: away!
[p]And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here
[p]Bed,
chamber, Pandar to provide this gear!
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