The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 507
CRESSIDA Juno have mercy, how came it cloven?
PANDARUS Why, you know ’tis dimpled. I think his
smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.
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CRESSIDA O, he smiles valiantly.
PANDARUS Does he not?
CRESSIDA O, yes, an ’twere a cloud in autumn.
PANDARUS Why, go to, then. But to prove to you that
Helen loves Troilus –
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CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof, if you’ll prove
it so.
PANDARUS Troilus? Why, he esteems her no more than
I esteem an addle egg.
CRESSIDA If you love an addle egg as well as you love an
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idle head, you would eat chickens i’th’ shell.
PANDARUS I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she
tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvellous white
hand, I must needs confess –
CRESSIDA Without the rack.
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PANDARUS And she takes upon her to spy a white hair
on his chin.
CRESSIDA Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.
PANDARUS But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba
laughed that her eyes ran o’er –
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CRESSIDA With millstones.
PANDARUS And Cassandra laughed –
CRESSIDA But there was a more temperate fire under
the pot of her eyes. Did her eyes run o’er too?
PANDARUS And Hector laughed.
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CRESSIDA At what was all this laughing?
PANDARUS Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on
TROILUS’ chin.
CRESSIDA An ’t had been a green hair I should have
laughed too.
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PANDARUS They laughed not so much at the hair as at
his pretty answer.
CRESSIDA What was his answer?
PANDARUS Quoth she, ‘Here’s but two-and-fifty hairs
on your chin, and one of them is white’.
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CRESSIDA This is her question.
PANDARUS That’s true, make no question of that. ’Two-
and-fifty hairs’, quoth he, ‘and one white: that white
hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.’
‘Jupiter!’, quoth she, ‘which of these hairs is Paris, my
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husband?’ ‘The forked one’, quoth he; ‘pluck’t out,
and give it him.’ But there was such laughing, and
Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest
so laughed, that it passed.
CRESSIDA So let it now, for it has been a great while
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going by.
PANDARUS Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday.
Think on’t.
CRESSIDA So I do.
PANDARUS I’ll be sworn ’tis true. He will weep you an
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’twere a man born in April.
CRESSIDA And I’ll spring up in his tears, an ’twere a
nettle against May. [Sound a retreat.]
PANDARUS Hark, they are coming from the field. Shall
we stand up here and see them as they pass toward
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Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.
CRESSIDA At your pleasure.
PANDARUS Here, here, here’s an excellent place; here we
may see most bravely. I’ll tell you them all by their
names as they pass by, but mark Troilus above the rest.
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Enter AENEAS and passes over the stage.
CRESSIDA Speak not so loud.
PANDARUS That’s Aeneas; is not that a brave man? He’s
one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you, but mark
TROILUS; you shall see anon.
Enter Antenor and passes over the stage.
CRESSIDA Who’s that?
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PANDARUS That’s Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can
tell you, and he’s a man good enough; he’s one o’th’
soundest judgements in Troy whosoever, and a proper
man of person. When comes Troilus? I’ll show you
TROILUS anon; if he see me, you shall see him nod at me.
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CRESSIDA Will he give you the nod?
PANDARUS You shall see.
CRESSIDA If he do, the rich shall have more.
Enter HECTOR and passes over the stage.
PANDARUS That’s Hector, that, that, look you, that;
there’s a fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There’s a brave
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man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks!
There’s a countenance! Is’t not a brave man?
CRESSIDA O, a brave man!
PANDARUS Is ’a not? It does a man’s heart good. Look you
what hacks are on his helmet, look you yonder, do you
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see? Look you there, there’s no jesting; there’s laying on,
take’t off who will, as they say; there be hacks.
CRESSIDA Be those with swords?
PANDARUS Swords, anything, he cares not; an the devil
come to him, it’s all one. By God’s lid, it does one’s
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heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris!
Enter PARIS and passes over the stage.
Look ye yonder, niece, is’t not a gallant man too, is’t
not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt
home today? He’s not hurt. Why, this will do Helen’s
heart good now, ha? Would I could see Troilus now.
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You shall see Troilus anon.
Enter HELENUS and passes over the stage.
CRESSIDA Who’s that?
PANDARUS That’s Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is.
That’s Helenus. I think he went not forth today.
That’s Helenus.
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CRESSIDA Can Helenus fight, uncle?
PANDARUS Helenus? No – yes, he’ll fight indifferent
well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark, do you not hear
the people cry ‘Troilus’? Helenus is a priest.
CRESSIDA What sneaking fellow comes yonder?
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Enter TROILUS and passes over the stage.
PANDARUS Where? Yonder? That’s Deiphobus. – ’Tis
TROILUS! There’s a man, niece! Hem! Brave Troilus,
the prince of chivalry!
CRESSIDA Peace, for shame, peace!
PANDARUS Mark him, note him. O brave Troilus! Look
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well upon him, niece, look you how his sword is
bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector’s,
and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable
youth! He ne’er saw three-and-twenty. Go thy way,
TROILUS, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a
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daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O
admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him, and I
warrant Helen, to change, would give money to boot.
Enter common soldiers and pass over the stage.
CRESSIDA Here comes more.
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PANDARUS Asses, fools, dolts; chaff and bran, chaff and
bran; porridge after meat. I could live and die i’th’ eyes
of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er look, the eagles are gone;
crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a
man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.
CRESSIDA There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better
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man than Troilus.
PANDARUS Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel.
CRESSIDA Well, well.
Have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not
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birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood,
learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality and so
forth the spice and salt that season a man?
CRESSIDA Ay, a minced man; and then to be baked with
no date in the pie, for then the man’s date is out.
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PANDARUS You are such another woman! One knows
not at what ward you lie.
CRESSIDA Upon my back to defend my belly, upon my
wit to defend my wiles, upon my secrecy to defend
mine honesty, my mask to defend my beauty, and you
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to defend all these; and at all these wards I lie, at a
thousand watches.
PANDARUS Say one of your watches.
CRESSIDA Nay, I’ll watch you for that; and that’s one of
the chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would
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not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the
blow – unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s past
watching.
PANDARUS You are such another!
Enter Troilus’ Boy.
BOY Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
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PANDARUS Where?
BOY At your own house. There he unarms him.
PANDARUS Good boy, tell him I come. Exit Boy.
I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.
CRESSIDA Adieu, uncle.
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PANDARUS I’ll be with you, niece, by and by.
CRESSIDA To bring, uncle?
PANDARUS Ay, a token from Troilus.
CRESSIDA By the same token, you are a bawd.
Exit Pandarus.
Words, vows, gifts, tears and love’s full sacrifice
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He offers in another’s enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousandfold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be.
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
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That she beloved knows naught that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
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‘Achievement is command; ungained, beseech’.
Then, though my heart’s contents firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.
Exit with Alexander.
1.3 Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, with others.
AGAMEMNON Princes,
What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promised largeness. Checks and disasters
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Grow in the veins of actions highest reared,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infects the sound pine and diverts his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
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That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand,
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim
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And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave’t surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works
And think them shames, which are indeed naught else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
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To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found
In Fortune’s love; for then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin.
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But in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away,
And what hath mass or matter by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.
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NESTOR With due observance of thy godly seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
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Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut,
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Bounding between the two moist elements