Tro. Good Pandarus,-how now, Pandarus!

Pan. 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.

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with

me ?

Pan. 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.

Tro. Say I she is not fair?

Pan. 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.

Tro. Pandarus,

Pan. Not I.

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit Pandarus. Alarum. Tro. 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 starv'd a subject for my sword.

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,
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,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

Alarum. Enter ÆNEAS.

Ene. How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not a-field? Tro. Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,

For womanish it is to be from thence.

What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?

Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Tro. By whom, Æneas?

Ene.

Troilus, by Menelaus.

Tro. Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.

[Alarum. Ene. Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day ! Tro. Better at home, if "would I might" were "may."But to the sport abroad :— are you bound thither? Ene. In all swift haste. Tro.

Come, go we, then, together. [Exeunt.

Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd:
He chid Andromache, and struck his armorer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light,(8)
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

(8) harness'd light,] i.e. armed lightly,-whether we choose to understand "lightly" in its usual sense, or in that of quickly, soon ("Lightly or sone." Prompt. Parv. ed. 1499).-Theobald substituted (most vilely) "harness-dight."-Heath understands "lightly" to mean "ready for

action."

Cres.

What was his cause of anger?

Alex. The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;

They call him Ajax.

Cres.

Good; and what of him?

Alex. They say he is a very man per se,

And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men,-unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing; but every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

Alex. They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Cres. Who comes here?

Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

Enter PANDARUS.

Cres. Hector's a gallant man.

Alex. As may be in the world, lady.

Pan. What's that? what's that?

Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of?

were you at Ilium?

When

-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin?

Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pan. What were you talking of when I came ?

Was

Hector armed and gone, ere ye came to Ilium?
not up, was she?

Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.
Pan. E'en so: Hector was stirring early.

Cres. That were we talking of, and of his anger.
Pan. Was he angry?

Cres. So he says here.

Helen was

Pan. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there's Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

Cres. What, is he angry too?

Pan. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two. Cres. O Jupiter! there's no comparison.

Pan. What, not between Troilus and Hector ?

know a man if you see him?

Cres. Ay, if I ever saw him before, and knew him.

Pan. Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

Do you

Cres. Then you say as I say: for, I am sure, he is not Hector.

Pan. No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.

Cres. 'Tis just to each of them; he is himself.

Pan. Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were,Cres. So he is.

Pan. Condition, I had gone barefoot to India.

Cres. He is not Hector.

Pan. Himself! no, he's not himself:-would 'a were himself! Well, the gods are above; time must friend or end: well, Troilus, well,-I would my heart were in her body!-No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

Cres. Excuse me.

Pan. He is elder.

Cres. Pardon me, pardon me.

Pan. Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale, when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit (9) this year,

Cres. He shall not need it, if he have his own.

(9) wit] Rowe's correction.-The old eds. have "will."

Pan. Nor his qualities,

Cres. No matter.

Pan. Nor his beauty

Cres. "Twould not become him,-his own's better.

Pan. You have no judgment, niece: Helen herself swore th' other day, that Troilus, for a brown favour—for so 'tis, I must confess, not brown neither,

Cres. No, but brown.

Pan. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

Cres. To say the truth, true and not true.

Pan. She praised his complexion above Paris.
Cres. Why, Paris hath colour enough.

Pan. So he has.

Cres. Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

Pan. I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

Cres. Then she's a merry Greek indeed.

Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window,—and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin

Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.

Pan. Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector.

Cres. Is he so young a man, and so old a lifter?

Pan. But, to prove to you that Helen loves him,—she came, and puts me her white hand to his cloven chinCres. Juno have mercy! how came it cloven?

Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled: I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.

Cres. O, he smiles valiantly.

Pan. Does he not?

Cres O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn.

Pan. Why, go to, then :-but to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus,