As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps The enemy flying.

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Cres. 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?

Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA. Pan. Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby. Here she is now; swear the oaths now to her, that you have sworn to me.-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 the fills.-Why do you not speak to her?Come, draw the curtain, and let's see your picture, Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! an 'twere dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress." 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' the river; go to, go to.

Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady. Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you of the deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here's -In witness whereof the parties interchangeablyCome in, come in; I'll go get a fire.

[Exit PANDARUS. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Tro. O, Cressida, how often have I wished me thus?

Cres. Wished, my lord ?-The gods grant!-0 my lord!

Tro. What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have

eyes.

Tro. Fears make devils cherubins; they never see truly.

Cres. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: To fear the worst, oft cures the worst.

Tro. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster." Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Tro. 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.

1 Hawks were tamed by keeping them from sleep; and thus Pandarus meant that Cressida should be tamed. See Taming of the Shrew, Act iv. Sc. 1.

tion 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.

Cres. Will you walk in, my lord?
Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pan. What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet?

cate to you. Cres. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dediPan. I thank for that; you if my of you, you'll give him me: Be true to my lord: lord get a boy if he flinch, chide me for it.

word, and my firm faith. Tro. You know now your hostages; your uncle's

kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too; our they are constant, being won: they are burs, I can tell you: they'll stick were they are thrown.10

heart::

Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day For many weary months.

Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win? Cres. 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. But I might master it: in faith, I lie; I love you now; but not, till now, so much Too headstrong for their mother: See, we fools! My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us, When we are so unsecret to ourselves? But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not; And yet, good faith, I wish'd 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, from my weakness draws My very soul of counsel: Stop my mouth.

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence. Pan. Pretty, i' faith.

Cres. My lord, I do beseech you pardon me ; 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss: I am asham'd;-O heavens! what have I done?For this time will I take my leave, my lord. Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid?

Pan. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning,

Cres. Pray you, content you.
Tro.
What offends you, lady?
Cres. Sir, mine own company.

hawk. Pandarus appears to mean that he will back the falcon against the tercel, or match his nicce against her lover for any bet.

6 Shakspeare had here an idea in his thoughts that he has elsewhere often expressed. Thus in a future page:-Go to, a bargain made; seal it.'

4 A kiss in fee-farm' is a kiss of duration, that has bounds, a fee-farm being a grant of lands in fee; that is, for ever reserving a certain rent. The same idea is expressed much more poetically in Coriolanus, when the jargon of law was absent from the poet's thoughts :O, a kiss

Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge! 5 The tercel is the male and the falcon the female

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

Agam.

Let Diomedes bear him, And bring us Cressid hither; Calchas shall have What he requests of us.-Good Diomed, Furnish you fairly for this interchange: Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready. Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden Which I am proud to bear.

[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent.

Ulyss. 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 med'cinable,

To use between our 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.
Agam. 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 look'd on. I will lead the way.
Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.
Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught

with us?

Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.-
How now, Ulysses?
Ulyss.

Now, great Thetis' son?
Achil. What are you reading.
Ulyss.
A strange fellow here
Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,2
How much in having, or without, or in,-
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Achil.

This is not strange, Ulysses.

The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself
(That most pure spirit of sense,) behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye oppos'd
Salutes each other with each other's form.
For speculation turns not to itself,
Till it hath travell'd, and is married there
Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all.
Ulyss. I do not strain at the position,
It is familiar; but at the author's drift:
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves-
That no man is the lord of any thing,
(Though in and of him there be much consisting,)
Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them form'd in the applause
Where they are extended; which, like an arch,
reverberates

The voice again; or like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately
The unknown Ajax."

Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse; That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are,

Most abject in regard, and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem,
And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow,
An act that very chance doth throw upon him,—
Ajax renown'd." O heavens, what some men do,

While some men leave to do!

How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!—why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder;
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
And great Troy shrieking.

8

Achil. I do believe it: for they passed by me, As misers do by beggars: neither gave to me Good word, nor look: What, are my deeds forgot?

beth:

"Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with.'

Hark, how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out; How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth; And all cry-Hector, Hector's dead.'

fer oblivion,

ingratitudes:

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost:-

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,2
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'er-run and trampled on : Then what they do in

present,

Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:
For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue
seek

Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,'
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.4

The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might; and yet it may again,
If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive,

And case thy reputation in thy tent;

Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions' 'mongst the gods themselves,

And drave great Mars to faction.

Achil.

I have strong reasons. Ulyss.

Of this my privacy

But 'gainst your privacy The reasons are more potent and heroical: "Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam's daughters."

Achil.

Ulyss. Is that a wonder?

Ha! known?

The providence that's in a watchful state,
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold;
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps;
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery (with whom relation
Durst never meddle) in the soul of state;
Which hath an operation more divine,

1 This image is literally from Spenser :--
'And eeke this wallet at your backe arreare-

And in this bag, which I behinde me don, I put repentaunce for things past and gone.' F. Q. b. vi. c. viii. st. 24. 2 The quarto wholly omits the simile of the horse, and reads thus:

And leave you hindmost, then what they do at present.' 3 New-fashioned toys.

4 Gilt, in this second line, is a substantive. See Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 3. Dust a little gilt means ordinary performances, which have the gloss of novelty. Gill o'er-dusted means splendid actions of preceding ages, the remembrance of which is weakened by time.

5 i. e. the descent of deities to combat on either side. Shakspeare probably followed Chapman's Homer: in the fifth book of the Iliad Diomed wounds Mars, who on

h,

To throw down Hector, than Polyxena:
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When fame shall in our islands sound her trump;
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,-
Great Hector's sister did Achilles win;
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.
Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak;
The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.
[Exit.
Patr. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd you:
A woman impudent and maunish grown,
Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this;
They think, my little stomach to the war,
And your great love to me, restrains you thus:
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air.9
Achil.
Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
Patr. Ay; and, perhaps, receive much honour
by him.

Achil. I see my reputation is at stake;
My fame is shrewdly gor'd.10

Patr.

O, then beware;

Those wounds heal ill, that men do give themselves;
Omission to do what is necessary,
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

Achil. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus;
I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
To invite the Trojan lords, after the combat,
To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,

To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full view. A labour sav'd!
Enter THERSITES,

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say-there were wit in this head, an 'twould out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking.12 The man's undone for ever: for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he'll break it himself in vain-glory. He knows not me; I said, Good-morrow, Ajax; and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What think you of this

his return to heaven is rated by Jupiter for having in. terfered in the battle. This disobedience is the faction alluded to.

6 Polyxena, in the act of marrying whom, he was af terwards killed by Paris.

7 There is in the providence of a state, as in the providence of the universe, a kind of ubiquity. It is possi ble that there may be some allusion to the sublime description of the divine omnipresence in the 139th Psalm 9 There is a secret administration of affairs, which no history was ever able to discover.

9 The folio has 'ayrie air.' 10 So in Hamlet:-

To keep thy name ungor'd.'

11 i. e. a sly look.

12 Thus in Julius Cæsar :

That carries anger, as the flint bears fire, Who much enforced shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again.