Quality of Life, Freedom, More time with the ones you Love.
Visit our website: LYFREEDOM.COM
In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard: and hither am I come
A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle, starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are:
Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.
Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS
TROILUS
Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again:
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
PANDARUS
Will this gear ne'er be mended?
TROILUS
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,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night
And skilless as unpractised infancy.
PANDARUS
Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part,
I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will
have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
TROILUS
Have I not tarried?
PANDARUS
Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry
the bolting.
TROILUS
Have I not tarried?
PANDARUS
Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening.
TROILUS
Still have I tarried.
PANDARUS
Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word
'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the
heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must
stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.
TROILUS
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?
PANDARUS
Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw
her look, or any woman else.
TROILUS
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,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:
But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness,
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
PANDARUS
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—
TROILUS
O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,—
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'she is fair;'
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me,
As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.
PANDARUS
I speak no more than truth.
TROILUS
Thou dost not speak so much.
PANDARUS
Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is:
if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be
not, she has the mends in her own hands.
TROILUS
Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus!
PANDARUS
I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of
her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and
between, but small thanks for my labour.
TROILUS
What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?
PANDARUS
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; 'tis all one to me.
TROILUS
Say I she is not fair?
PANDARUS
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.
TROILUS
Pandarus,—
PANDARUS
Not I.
TROILUS
Sweet Pandarus,—
PANDARUS
Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I
found it, and there an end.
Exit PANDARUS. An alarum
TROILUS
Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus,—O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo.
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.
Alarum. Enter AENEAS
AENEAS
How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield?
TROILUS
Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, AEneas, from the field to-day?
AENEAS
That Paris is returned home and hurt.
TROILUS
By whom, AEneas?
AENEAS
Troilus, by Menelaus.
TROILUS
Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn.
Alarum
AENEAS
Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day!
TROILUS
Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'
But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?
AENEAS
In all swift haste.
TROILUS
Come, go we then together.
Exeunt
Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER
CRESSIDA
Who were those went by?
ALEXANDER
Queen Hecuba and Helen.
CRESSIDA
And whither go they?
ALEXANDER
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was moved:
He chid Andromache and struck his armourer,
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.
CRESSIDA
What was his cause of anger?
ALEXANDER
The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.
CRESSIDA
Good; and what of him?
ALEXANDER
They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.
CRESSIDA
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.
ALEXANDER
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 everything so out of joint
that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use,
or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.
CRESSIDA
But how should this man, that makes
me smile, make Hector angry?
ALEXANDER
They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and
struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath
ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.
CRESSIDA
Who comes here?
ALEXANDER
Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Enter PANDARUS
CRESSIDA
Hector's a gallant man.
ALEXANDER
As may be in the world, lady.
PANDARUS
What's that? what's that?
CRESSIDA
Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.
PANDARUS
Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of?
Good morrow, Alexander. How do you, cousin? When
were you at Ilium?
CRESSIDA
This morning, uncle.
PANDARUS
What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector
armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not
up, was she?
CRESSIDA
Hector was gone, but Helen was not up.
PANDARUS
Even so: Hector was stirring early.
CRESSIDA
That were we talking of, and of his anger.
PANDARUS
Was he angry?
CRESSIDA
So he says here.
PANDARUS
True, he was so: I know the cause too: he'll lay
about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there's
Troilus will not come far behind him: let them take
heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.
CRESSIDA
What, is he angry too?
PANDARUS
Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.
CRESSIDA
O Jupiter! there's no comparison.
PANDARUS
What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a
man if you see him?
CRESSIDA
Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.
PANDARUS
Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.
CRESSIDA
Then you say as I say; for, I am sure, he is not Hector.
PANDARUS
No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.
CRESSIDA
'Tis just to each of them; he is himself.
PANDARUS
Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were.
CRESSIDA
So he is.
PANDARUS
Condition, I had gone barefoot to India.
CRESSIDA
He is not Hector.
PANDARUS
Himself! no, he's not himself: would a' were
himself! Well, the gods are above; time must friend
or end: well, Troilus, well: I would my heart were
in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.
CRESSIDA
Excuse me.
PANDARUS
He is elder.
CRESSIDA
Pardon me, pardon me.
PANDARUS
Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another
tale, when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not
have his wit this year.
CRESSIDA
He shall not need it, if he have his own.
PANDARUS
Nor his qualities.
CRESSIDA
No matter.
PANDARUS
Nor his beauty.
CRESSIDA
'Twould not become him; his own's better.
PANDARUS
You have no judgment, 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.
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 'twere 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' the 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 mill-stones.
PANDARUS
And Cassandra laughed.
CRESSIDA
But there was more temperate fire under the pot of
her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too?
PANDARUS
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.
PANDARUS
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, an Paris so chafed, and all the
rest so laughed, that it passed.
CRESSIDA
So let it now; for it has been 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 'twere
a man born in April.
CRESSIDA
And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle
against May.
A retreat 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