Imatges de pàgina
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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!

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 very sweet queen?

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 not know where he sups.

PAR. [I'll lay my life, a] with my disposer, Cressida.

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

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.

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.

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.

PAN. In good troth, it begins so:

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.

a The words in brackets are not in the folio.

Hey ho!

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!

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 afield to-day?

How

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. 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.

HELEN. Commend me to your niece.

PAN. I will, sweet queen.

PAR. They are 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. T will 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.

[Exit.

[A retreat sounded.

PAR. Sweet, above thought I love thee.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Troy. Pandarus' Orchard.

Enter PANDARUS and a Servant, meeting.

PAN. How now? where 's thy master? at my cousin Cressida's?

To-day. So the folio and the quarto. To-night is the reading of all the modern editions. The reading of the quarto is, “Sweet, above thought I love her,” and the speech is there correctly given to Paris. Thee is the reading of the folio, and the words incorrectly conclude the speech of Helen.

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

Enter TROILUS.

PAN. O, here he comes.-How now, how now ?
TRO. Sirrah, walk off.

PAN. Have you seen my cousin?

TRO. 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

Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid!

PAN. Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight.
TRO. 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 wat'ry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed nectar? death, I fear me;
Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, and 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.

[Exit Servant.

[Exit PANDARUS.

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 so short as a new-ta'en sparrow,

TRO. 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 encount'ring
The eye of majesty.

[Exit PANDARUS.

Enter PANDARUS and 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 see your picture. Alas the day, how loth you are to offend daylight! an 't were dark you I'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 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.

shall

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—

66

'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably "—Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.

CRES. Will you walk in, my lord?

TRO. O Cressida, how often have I wish'd me thus !

CRES. Wish'd, my lord?-The gods grant!-0 my lord!

[Exit PANDARUS.

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.

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 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.

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?

a Fills-thills-shafts.

Re-enter PANDARUS.

PAN. What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet?

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 burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown.

CRES, Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart:

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 :-
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 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

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 soul of counsel from me: Stop my mouth.
TRO. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
PAN. Pretty, i' faith.

CRES. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me:

T was not my purpose thus to beg a kiss:

I am asham'd;-O heavens! what have I done?

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PAN. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning,—

CRES. Pray you, content you.

TRO.

What offends you, lady?

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