The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

  PANDARUS Love? Ay, that it shall, i’faith.

  PARIS Ay, good now, ‘Love, love, nothing but love’.

  PANDARUS In good truth, it begins so.

  (Sings)

  Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!

  For O 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—ay, faith, to the very tip of the nose.

  PARIS 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.

  PANDARUS Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers?

  ⌈Alarum⌉

  Sweet lord, who’s afield today?

  PARIS Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have armed today, 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.

  PANDARUS Not I, honey-sweet Queen. I long to hear how they sped today.—You’ll remember your brother’s excuse?

  PARIS To a hair.

  PANDARUS Farewell, sweet Queen.

  HELEN Commend me to your niece.

  PANDARUS I will, sweet Queen. Exit

  Sound a retreat

  PARIS

  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,

  With these your white enchanting fingers touched,

  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;

  Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty

  Gives us more palm in beauty than we have—

  Yea, overshines ourself.

  PARIS Sweet above thought, I love thee!

  Exeunt

  3.2 Enter Pandarus ⌈at one door⌉ and Troilus’ man ⌈at another door⌉

  PANDARUS How now, where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?

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

  Enter Troilus

  PANDARUS O here he comes.—How now, how now?

  TROILUS Sirrah, walk off. Exit Man

  PANDARUS Have you seen my cousin?

  TROILUS

  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

  Proposed for the deserver. O gentle Pandar,

  From Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings

  And fly with me to Cressid.

  PANDARUS Walk here i’th’ orchard. I’ll bring her straight.

  Exit

  TROILUS

  I am giddy. Expectation whirls me round.

  Th‘imaginary relish is so sweet

  That it enchants my sense. What will it be

  When that the wat’ry palates taste indeed

  Love’s thrice-repurèd nectar? Death, I fear me,

  Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,

  Too subtle-potent, tuned 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.

  Enter Pandarus

  PANDARUS 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 spirit. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain! She fetches her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.

  Exit

  TROILUS

  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.

  Enter Pandarus, with Cressida ⌈veiled⌉

  PANDARUS (to Cressida) Come, come, what need you blush? Shame’s a baby. (To Troilus) Here she is now. Swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me. (To Cressida) 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‘th’ thills. (To Troilus) Why do you not speak to her? (To Cressida) Come, draw this curtain, and let’s see your picture. ⌈He unveils her⌉ Alas the day! How loath you are to offend daylight! An’t were dark, you’d close sooner. So, so. (To Troilus) Rub on, and kiss the mistress. (They kiss) 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’th’ 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 bereave you o‘th’ deeds too, if she call your activity in question. (They kiss) What, billing again? Here’s ‘in witness whereof the parties interchangeably’. Come in, come in. I’ll go get a fire. Exit

  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 lordl

  TROILUS What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too-curious dreg espies my sweet 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 footing than blind reason, stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.

  TROILUS O let my lady apprehend no fear. In all Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.

  CRESSIDA Nor nothing monstrous neither?

  TROILUS 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.

  CRESSIDA 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?

  TROILUS 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.

  CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord?

  Enter Pandarus

  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, you’ll
give him me. Be true to my lord. If he flinch, chide me for it.

  TROILUS (to Cressida) You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.

  PANDARUS 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.

  CRESSIDA

  Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.

  Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day

  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,

  With the first glance that ever—pardon me:

  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!

  Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us,

  When we are so unsecret to ourselves?

  But though I loved you well, I wooed you not—

  And yet, good faith, I wished 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, in my weakness draws

  My soul of counsel from me. Stop my mouth.

  TROILUS

  And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

  He kisses her

  PANDARUS Pretty, i’ faith.

  CRESSIDA (to Troilus)

  My lord, I do beseech you pardon me.

  ’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.

  I am ashamed. O heavens, what have I done?

  For this time will I take my leave, my lord. TROILUS Your leave, sweet Cressid?

  PANDARUS Leave? An you take leave till tomorrow 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.

  I have a kind of self resides with you—

  But an unkind self, that itself will leave

  To be another’s fool. Where is my wit?

  I would be gone. I speak I know not what.

  TROILUS

  Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.

  CRESSIDA

  Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love,

  And fell so roundly to a large confession

  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.

  TROILUS

  O that I thought it could be in a woman—

  As, if it can, I will presume in you—

  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

  That my integrity and truth to you

  Might be affronted with the match and weight

  Of such a winnowed purity in love.

  How were I then uplifted! But alas,

  I am as true as truth’s simplicity,

  And simpler than the infancy of truth.

  CRESSIDA

  In that I’ll war with you.

  TROILUS

  O virtuous fight,

  When right with right wars who shall be most right.

  True swains in love shall in the world to come

  Approve their truth by Troilus. When their rhymes,

  Full of protest, of oath and big compare,

  Wants similes, truth tired with iteration—

  ‘As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,

  As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,

  As iron to adamant, as earth to th’ 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.

  CRESSIDA

  Prophet may you be!

  If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,

  When time is old and hath forgot itself,

  When water drops have worn the stones of Troy

  And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,

  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’ve said, ‘as false

  As air, as water, wind or sandy earth,

  As fox to lamb, or 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’.

  PANDARUS 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 pain to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name: call them all panders. Let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between panders. Say ‘Amen’.

  TROILUS Amen.

  CRESSIDA Amen.

  PANDARUS Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a bed—which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!

  Exeunt Troilus and Cressida

  And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here

  Bed, chamber, pander to provide this gear. Exit

  3.3 Flourish. Enter Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Ajax, and Calchas

  CALCHAS

  Now, princes, for the service I have done you,

  Th‘advantage of the time prompts me aloud

  To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind

  That through the sight I bear in things to come

  I have abandoned Troy, left my profession,

  Incurred a traitor’s name, exposed myself

  From certain and possessed conveniences

  To doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring from me all

  That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition

  Made tame and most familiar to my nature,

  And here to do you service am become

  As new into the world, strange, unacquainted.

  I do beseech you, as in way of taste,

  To give me now a little benefit

  Out of those many registered in promise

  Which you say live to come in my behalf.

  AGAMEMNON

  What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.

  CALCHAS

  You have a Trojan prisoner called Antenor,

  Yesterday took. Troy holds him very dear.

  Oft have you—often have you thanks therefor—

  Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,

  Whom Troy hath still denied. But this Antenor

  I know is such a wrest in their affairs

  That their negotiations 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

  Shall quite strike off all service I have done

  In most accepted pain.

  AGAMEMNON

  Let Diomedes bear him,

  And bring us Cressid hither; Calchas shall have

  What he requests of us. Good Diomed,

&nbs
p; Furnish you fairly for this interchange;

  Withal bring word if Hector will tomorrow

  Be answered in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

  DIOMEDES

  This shall I undertake, and ’tis a burden

  Which I am proud to bear. Exit with Calchas

  Enter Achilles and Patroclus in their tent

  ULYSSES

  Achilles stands i‘th’ entrance of his tent.

  Please it our general pass strangely by him,

  As if he were forgot; and, princes all,

  Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.

  I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question me

  Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turned on

  him.

  If so, I have derision medicinable

  To use between your strangeness and his pride,

  Which his own will shall have desire to drink.

  It may do good. Pride hath no other glass

  To show itself but pride; for supple knees

  Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

  AGAMEMNON

  We’ll execute your purpose and put on

  A form of strangeness as we pass along.

  So do each lord, and either greet him not

  Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more

  Than if not looked on. I will lead the way.

  They pass by the tent, in turn

  ACHILLES

  What, comes the general to speak with me?

  You know my mind: I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.

  AGAMEMNON (to Nestor)

  What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

  NESTOR (to Achilles)

  Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

  ACHILLES

  No.

  NESTOR (to Agamemnon)

  Nothing, my lord.

  AGAMEMNON

  The better.

  ⌈Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor⌉

  ACHILLES ⌈to Menelaus⌉ Good day, good day.

  MENELAUS How do you? How do you?

  ⌈Exit⌉

  ACHILLES (to Patroclus)

  What, does the cuckold scorn me?

  AJAX

  How now, Patroclus?

  ACHILLES

  Good morrow, Ajax.

  AJAX

  Ha?

  ACHILLES

  Good morrow.

  AJAX Ay, and good next day too.