Cres. 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. Troi. Your leave, sweet Cressid? Pan. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning, Cres. Pray you, content you. Troi. What offends you, lady? Cres. Sir, mine own company. Troi. Yourself. Cres. Let me go and try. You cannot shun I have a kind of self resides with you; Where i my wit? I know not what I speak. Troi. Well know they what they speak, that speak so wisely. Cres. 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, To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love; Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me,- Might be affronted 1 with the match and weight 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 truths by Troilus: when their rhymes, Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,? As truth's authentic author to be cited, Cres. 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 swallow'd cities up, 1 Met with and equalled. 2 Comparison. 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 have said—as false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son; Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, As false as Cressid. Pan. 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 pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called, to the world's end, after my name; call them all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! Say, Amen. Troi. Amen. Cres. Amen. Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death: away. And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here, Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this geer! [Exeunt. SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS. Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done you, The advantage of the time prompts me aloud As new into the world, strange, unacquainted ;— To give me now a little benefit, behalf. Out of those many register'd in promise, demand. Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore) 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 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.1 Aga. Let Diomedes bear him, Good Diomed, And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shail have What he requests of us. Furnish you fairly for this interchange : Withal, bring word, if Hector will to-morrow [Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas. Enter ACHILLES and patroclus, before their tent. Ulys. Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent.Please it our general to 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 turn'd on him: If so, I have derision medicinable, To use between your strangeness and his pride, i. e. even in those labors which were most accepted. |