William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (341 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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CRESSIDA
’Twould not become him; his own’s better.
PANDARUS You have no judgement, niece. Helen herself swore th‘other day that Troilus for a brown favour, for so ’tis, I must confess—not brown neither—
CRESSIDA No, but brown.
PANDARUS Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.
CRESSIDA To say the truth, true and not true.
PANDARUS She praised his complexion above Paris’.
CRESSIDA Why, Paris hath colour enough.
PANDARUS So he has.
CRESSIDA Then Troilus should have too much. If she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen’s golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.
PANDARUS I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.
CRESSIDA Then she’s a merry Greek indeed.
PANDARUS Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th’other day into the compassed window, and you know he has not past three or four hairs on his chin—
CRESSIDA Indeed, a tapster’s arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. no
PANDARUS Why, he is very young—and yet will he within three pound lift as much as his brother Hector.
CRESSIDA Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?
PANDARUS But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin.
CRESSIDA Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?
PANDARUS Why, you know, ’tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.
CRESSIDA O he smiles valiantly.
PANDARUS Does he not?
CRESSIDA O yes, an’t were a cloud in autumn.
PANDARUS Why, go to then. But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus—
CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof if you’ll prove it so.
PANDARUS Troilus? Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.
CRESSIDA If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head you would eat chickens i’th’ shell.
PANDARUS I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess—
CRESSIDA Without the rack.
PANDARUS And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.
CRESSIDA Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.
PANDARUS But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o’er.
CRESSIDA With millstones.
PANDARUS And Cassandra laughed.
CRESSIDA But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes—or did her eyes run o’er too?
PINDARUS And Hector laughed.
CRESSIDA At what was all this laughing?
PANDARUS Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on
Troilus’ chin.
CRESSIDA An’t had been a green hair I should have laughed too.
PANDARUS They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.
CRESSIDA What was his answer?
PANDARUS Quoth she, ‘Here’s but two-and-fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.’
CRESSIDA This is her question.
PINDARUS That’s true, make no question of that. ‘Two-and-fifty hairs,’ quoth he, ‘and one white? That white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.’ ‘Jupiter!’ quoth she, ‘which of these hairs is Paris my husband?’ ‘The forked one,’ quoth he, ‘pluck’t out and give it him.’ But there was such laughing, and Helen so blushed and Paris so chafed and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.
CRESSIDA So let it now, for it has been a great while going by.
PANDARUS Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday.
Think on’t.
CRESSIDA So I do.
PANDARUS I’ll be sworn ’tis true. He will weep you an’t were a man born in April.
CRESSIDA And I’ll spring up in his tears an’t were a nettle against May.
A retreat is sounded
 
PANDARUS Hark, they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.
CRESSIDA At your pleasure.
PANDARUS Here, here, here’s an excellent place, here we may see most bravely. I’ll tell you them all by their names as they pass by, but mark Troilus above the rest.
Enter Aeneas passing by
⌈
below
⌉
 
CRESSIDA Speak not so loud.
PANDARUS That’s Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He’s one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see anon.
Enter Antenor passing by
⌈
below
⌉
 
CRESSIDA Who’s that?
PANDARUS That’s Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you, and he’s a man good enough. He’s one o’th’ soundest judgements in Troy whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I’ll show you Troilus anon. If he see me you shall see him nod at me.
CRESSIDA Will he give you the nod?
PANDARUS You shall see.
CRESSIDA If he do, the rich shall have more.
Enter Hector passing by
⌈
below
⌉
 
PANDARUS That’s Hector, that, that, look you, that. There’s a fellow!—Go thy way, Hector!—There’s a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks. There’s a countenance. Is’t not a brave man?
CRESSIDA O a brave man.
PANDARUS Is a not? It does a man’s heart good. Look you what hacks are on his helmet. Look you yonder, do you see? Look you there. There’s no jesting. There’s laying on, take’t off who will, as they say. There be hacks.
CRESSIDA Be those with swords?
Enter Paris passing by
⌈
below
⌉
 
PANDARUS Swords, anything, he cares not. An the devil come to him it’s all one. By’God’s lid it does one’s heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris. Look ye yonder, niece. Is’t not a gallant man too? Is’t not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home today? He’s not hurt. Why, this will do Helen’s heart good now, hal Would I could see Troilus now. You shall see Troilus anon.
Enter Helenus passing by
⌈
below
⌉
 
CRESSIDA Who’s that?
PANDARUS That’s Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That’s Helenus. I think he went not forth today. That’s Helenus.
CRESSIDA Can Helenus fight, uncle?
PANDARUS Helenus? No—yes, he’ll fight indifferent well.
I marvel where Troilus is.
⌈
A Shout
⌉
 
Hark, do you not hear the people cry ‘Troilus’? Helenus is a priest.
Enter Troilus passing by
⌈
below
⌉
 
CRESSIDA What sneaking fellow comes yonder?
PANDARUS Where? Yonder? That’s Deiphobus.—’Tis Troilus! There’s a man, niece, h’m? Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!
CRESSIDA Peace, for shame, peace.
PANDARUS Mark him, note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece. Look you how his sword is bloodied and his helm more hacked than Hector‘s, and how he looks and how he goes. O admirable youth! He ne’er saw three-and-twenty.—Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way!—Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him, and I warrant Helen to change would give an eye to boot.
Enter common soldiers passing by
⌈
below
⌉
 
CRESSIDA Here comes more.
PANDARUS Asses, fools, dolts. Chaff and bran, chaff and bran. Porridge after meat. I could live and die i‘th’ eyes of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er look, the eagles are gone. Crows and daws, crows and daws. I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.
CRESSIDA There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.
PANDARUS Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel.
CRESSIDA Well, well.
PANDARUS Well, well? Why, have you any discretion? Have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and so forth, the spice and salt that season a man?
CRESSIDA Ay, a minced man—and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man’s date is out.
PANDARUS You are such another woman! One knows not at what ward you lie.
CRESSIDA Upon my back to defend my belly, upon my wit to defend my wiles, upon my secrecy to defend mine honesty, my mask to defend my beauty, and you to defend all these—and at all these wards I lie at a thousand watches.
PANDARUS Say one of your watches.
CRESSIDA ‘Nay, I’ll watch you for that’—and that’s one of the chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow—unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s past watching.
PANDARUS You are such another!
Enter Boy
 
BOY Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
PANDARUS Where?
BOY At your own house.
PANDARUS Good boy, tell him I come.
Exit Boy
I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.
CRESSIDA Adieu, uncle.
PANDARUS I’ll be with you, niece, by and by.
CRESSIDA To bring, uncle?
PANDARUS Ay, a token from Troilus.
CRESSIDA By the same token, you are a bawd.
Exeunt Pandarus
⌈
and Alexander
⌉
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice
He offers in another’s enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousandfold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be.
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done. Joy’s soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows naught that knows not this:
Men price the thing ungained more than it is.
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command; ungained, beseech.
Then though my heart’s contents firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.
Exit
1.3
Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, and Menelaus, with others
 
AGAMEMNON
Princes, what grief hath set the jaundice on your
cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promised largeness. Checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest reared,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infects the sound pine and diverts his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand,
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave’t surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works,
And think them shames, which are indeed naught else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which mettle is not found
In fortune’s love—for then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin.
But in the wind and tempest of her frown
Distinction with a loud and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away,
And what hath mass or matter by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unminglèd.
NESTOR
With due observance of thy godly seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble-boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribbed barque through liquid mountains
cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements
Like Perseus’ horse. Where’s then the saucy boat
Whose weak untimbered sides but even now
Co-rivalled greatness? Either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide
In storms of fortune. For in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks
And flies flee under shade, why then the thing of
courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in selfsame key
Retorts to chiding fortune.

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