Tro. O Cressida, how often have I wish'd me

thus?

Cres. Wish'd, my Lord?

O my Lord!

The gods grant!

Tro. What should they grant? what makes

this

pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

な

Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.

Tro. Fears make devils of 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 's pageant there is presented no monster. Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Tro. Nothing; but our undertakings; when we Yow 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.

-

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 imonsters?

1

1

Tro. 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 per fection in reversion shall have a praise in present:

we will not name desert, before his birth; and, being boru, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Crèssid, as what envy can say worst, shall be a mock for his

truer than and what truth can speak truest, not

Cres

Troilus.

• Will you walk in, my Lord?

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

Crés.

dedicate Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I

yon.

Pan. 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.

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

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too our kindred, though they be long ere they are woo'd, they are constant, being won: they are burs, Í can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown. Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings

me heart:

Y Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you"night and day, For many weary inonths.

Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cres. Hard to seem won; but I was won my
" * W Lord,

With the first glance that ever Pardon me;
If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but not, till now, 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 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 musick 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, →→→→→

bisonCres. Pray you, content you.

Tro. What offends you, Lady?
Cres. Sir mine own company,
Tro. You cannot shun
Yourself...

མཡཱ

Cres. 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. I would be gone:
Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
Tro. Well know they what they speak,that
speak so wisely.

Cres. Perchance, my Lord, I show more craft
than love;

8

aw And fell so roundly to a large confession, FloToo angle for your thoughts: But you are wise;

Or else you love not; For to be wise, and love, A Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.

Tros O, that I thought it could be in a woman, (As,lif it can, I will presume in you,) dyd 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

A

That doth renew swifter than blood decays! brī
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 winnow'd purity in love; id fl
How were I then uplifted! but, alas,

1 am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.
Tro. 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 rhy

mes,

Full of protest, of bath and big compare,
Want similes, truth tir'd with iteration,

As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, qe for
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,

As iron to

2

as

all ter, th
comparisons of truth,
authentick autor to be cited,

Yet,

As truth

As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

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,og bala 10
And mighty states characterless are grated ex
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, g
As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf bo©
Pard to the hind, or step-dame to her songɔb Jedn
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,"
As false as Cressid.

Part. 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 call'd to the world's end after my name call them all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all bro kers-between Pandars! say, amen.

Tro. 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, pressit 10 death away.

And Cupid grant all tongue-ty'd maidens here,
Bed, chamber, Paudar to provide this geer??