Troilus and Cressida
ACT I SCENE I | Troy. Before Priam’s palace. | |
[Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS] | ||
TROILUS | Call here my varlet; I’ll unarm again: | |
Why should I war without the walls of Troy, | ||
That find such cruel battle here within? | ||
Each Trojan that is master of his heart, | ||
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none. | 5 | |
PANDARUS | Will this gear ne’er be mended? | |
TROILUS | The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength, | |
Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant; | ||
But I am weaker than a woman’s tear, | ||
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, | 10 | |
Less valiant than the virgin in the night | ||
And skilless as unpractised infancy. | ||
PANDARUS | Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, | |
I’ll not meddle nor make no further. He that will | ||
have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding. | 15 | |
TROILUS | Have I not tarried? | |
PANDARUS | Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry | |
the bolting. | ||
TROILUS | Have I not tarried? | |
PANDARUS | Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening. | 20 |
TROILUS | Still have I tarried. | |
PANDARUS | Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet in the word | |
‘hereafter’ the kneading, the making of the cake, the | ||
heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must | ||
stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. | 25 | |
TROILUS | Patience herself, what goddess e’er she be, | |
Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. | ||
At Priam’s royal table do I sit; | ||
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,– | ||
So, traitor! ‘When she comes!’ When is she thence? | 30 | |
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, | ||
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, | 35 | |
I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, | ||
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile: | ||
But sorrow, that is couch’d in seeming gladness, | ||
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. | ||
PANDARUS | An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen’s– | 40 |
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. I | ||
will not dispraise your sister Cassandra’s wit, but– | 45 | |
TROILUS | O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,– | |
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown’d, | ||
Reply not in how many fathoms deep | ||
They lie indrench’d. I tell thee I am mad | ||
In Cressid’s love: thou answer’st ‘she is fair;’ | 50 | |
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, | ||
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure | 55 | |
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, | ||
Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me | 60 | |
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’t. Let her be as she is: | |
if she be fair, ’tis the better for her; an she be | 65 | |
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 between and | ||
between, but small thanks for my labour. | 70 | |
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 on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care | ||
I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; ’tis all one to me. | 75 | |
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; and so | ||
I’ll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, | ||
I’ll meddle nor make no more i’ the matter. | 80 | |
TROILUS | Pandarus,– | |
PANDARUS | Not I. | |
TROILUS | Sweet Pandarus,– | |
PANDARUS | Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I | |
found it, and there an end. | 85 | |
[Exit PANDARUS. An 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. | ||
I cannot fight upon this argument; | ||
It is too starved a subject for my sword. | 90 | |
But Pandarus,–O gods, how do you plague me! | ||
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar; | ||
And he’s as tetchy to be woo’d to woo. | ||
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit. | ||
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love, | 95 | |
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we? | ||
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl: | ||
Between our Ilium and where she resides, | ||
Let it be call’d the wild and wandering flood, | ||
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar | 100 | |
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, | |
For womanish it is to be from thence. | ||
What news, AEneas, from the field to-day? | 105 | |
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; | |
Paris is gored with Menelaus’ horn. | 110 | |
[Alarum] | ||
AENEAS | Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day! | |
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. | 115 |
[Exeunt] |
Troilus and Cressida, Act 1, Scene 2