The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen, With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel. And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits To tell you, fair beholders, that our play Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are; ACT I. SCENE I. Troy. Before PRIAM's Palace. Enter TROILUS armed, and PANdarus. Tro. Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again: Tro. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant; But I am weaker than a woman's tear, And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy. Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He, that will have a cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding. Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. Pan. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening. Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating the oven, and the baking: nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance burn your lips. Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. At Priam's royal table do I sit; And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts, So, traitor!- when she comes! When is she thence? - Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else. Tro. I was about to tell thee, when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have (as when the sun doth light a storm) But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to) there were no more comparison between the women,but, for my part, she is my kinswoman: I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did: I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus, When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad In Cressid's love: thou answer'st, she is fair; Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice; Writing their own reproach: to whose soft seizure This thou tell'st me, But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me Pan. I speak no more than truth. Tro. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in 't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 't is the better for her; an she be not, she has the 'mends in her own hands. 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 Sinall 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; 't is all one to me. 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. Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PANDARUS. An Alarum. Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, It is too starv'd a subject for my sword, But Pandarus- O gods, how do you plague me! Alarum. Enter NEAS. Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? 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. Ene. Troilus, by Menelaus. Tro. Let Paris bleed: 't is but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. Ene. Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day! [Alarum. Tro. Better at home, if "would I might," were "may.". are you bound thither? But to the sport abroad: Ene. In all swift haste. Tro. Ceme; go we, then, together. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The Same. A Street. Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXander. Cres. Who were those went by? Cres. And whither go they? Alex. Queen Hecuba, and Helen. Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer; Cres. Alex. What was his cause of anger? 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. |