Troilus and Cressida

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 drowned,
Reply not how many fathoms deep
They lie indrenched. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid’s love. Thou answer’st she is fair;
Pourist in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice;
[…]
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 […] 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 ho she tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvelous 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 […] 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.

PANDARUS You are such a woman a man 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.

CRESSIDA 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.
I love you now, but till now not 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 blabbed? Who shall be true to us
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But though I loved you well, I wooed you not;
And yet, good faith, I wished 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.

CRESSIDA I will not, uncle. I have forgot my father.
I know no touch of consanguinity,
No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me
As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine,
Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death
Do to this body what extremes you can,
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very center of the earth,
Drawing all things to it. I’ll go in and weep—

PANDARUS Do, do.

CRESSIDA Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praisèd cheeks,
Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart
With sounding “Troilus.” I will not go from Troy.

PATROCLUS The first was Menelaus’ kiss; this mine
Patroclus kisses you.

MENELAUS O, this is trim!

PATROCLUS Paris and I kiss evermore for him.

MENELAUS I’ll have my kiss, sir.—Lady, by your leave.

CRESSIDA In kissing, do you render or receive?

MENELAUS Both take and give.

CRESSIDA I’ll make my match to live,
The kiss you take is better than you give.
Therefore no kiss.

MENELAUS I’ll give you boot: I’ll give you three for one.

CRESSIDA You are an odd man. Give even, or give none.

MENELAUS An odd man, lady? Every man is odd.

CRESSIDA No, Paris is not, for you know ’tis true
That you are odd, and he is even with you.

MENELAUS You fillip me o’ th’ head.

CRESSIDA No, I’ll be sworn.

ULYSSES It were no match, your nail against his horn.
May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

CRESSIDA You may.

ULYSSES I do desire it.

CRESSIDA Why, beg two.

PANDARUS Why should our endeavor be so loved and the performance so loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it? Let me see:

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
And being once subdued in armed tail,
Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.

Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths:
As many as be here of panders’ hall,
Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar’s fall;
Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be made.
It should be now, but that my fear is this:
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.
Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeath you my diseases.