The History of Troilus and Cressida

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. Exit. Sound
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 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 wand'ring flood;
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
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?
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 gor'd with Menelaus' horn.
[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.

Exeunt

ACT I. SCENE 2. Troy. A street

Enter CRESSIDA and her man ALEXANDER

CRESSIDA. Who were those went by?
ALEXANDER. Queen Hecuba and Helen.
CRESSIDA. And whither go they?
ALEXANDER. Up to the eastern tower,
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 armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.
CRESSIDA. What was his cause of anger?
ALEXANDER. The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Troyan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.
CRESSIDA. Good; and what of him?
ALEXANDER. They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.
CRESSIDA. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have
no
legs.
ALEXANDER. This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their
particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as
the
bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so
crowded
humours that his valour is crush'd 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 everything so out of
joint
that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or
purblind
Argus, all eyes and no sight.
CRESSIDA. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make
Hector
angry?
ALEXANDER. They say he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battle and
struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever
since
kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter PANDARUS

CRESSIDA. Who comes here?
ALEXANDER. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
CRESSIDA. Hector's a gallant man.