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169 And here's a lord,-come knights from east to west, And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best. Agam. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep: Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

[Exeunt.

Ajax.

I will let his humours blood.1 Agam. He'll be the physician, that should be the

patient.

Ajar. An all men my mind,

Weré o'

Ulyss.

[Aside.

Wit would be out of fashion.

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ACT III.

SCENE I. Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace.
Enter PANDARUS and a Servant.

Pan. Friend! you! pray you, a word: Do not
you follow the young lord Paris?
Serv. Ay, sir, when he goes before me.
Pan. You do depend upon him, I mean?
Serv. Sir,
do depend upon the lord.

[Aside.

[Aside. I

:

Ajax. I'll knead him, I will make him supple :-
Nest. He's not yet thorough warm: force him
with praises:
Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.
Ulyss. My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.
[Aside.
[To AGAMEMNON.

Nest. O noble general, do not do so.
Dio. You must prepare to fight without Achilles.
Ulyss. Why, 'tis this naming of him does him
harm.

Here is a man-But 'tis before his face;
I will be silent.

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He is not emulous,3 as Achilles is.
you so?

Ulyss. Know the whole world, he is as valiant.
Ajar. A whoreson dog, that shall palter thus

with us!

I would, he were a Trojan!

Nest.

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What a vice

If he were proud?

Dio. Or covetous of praise?
Ulyss.

Ay, or surly borne?
Dio. Or strange, or self-affected?
Ulyss. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of
sweet composure;

Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck :
Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice-fam'd, beyond all erudition: 5

But he that disciplin'd thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and, for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield

To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn," a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts: Here's Nestor,-
Instructed by the antiquary times,
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise ;-
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax', and your brain so temper'd,

You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

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There is a curious collection of Epigrams, Satires, &c. printed in 1600, with this quaint title :- The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head Vaine. A small reimpression was made at Edinburgh in 1815, with a preface and notes by Sir Walter Scott.

2 Force him, that is stuff him: furcir, Fr. In another place of this play we have 'malice forced with wit.' 3 See the preceding scene.

4 To palter is to shuffle, equivocate.

5 The quarto reads:

'Thrice fam'd beyond all thy erudition.'

6 i. e. yield his titles, his celebrity for strength. See Act i. Sc. 2.

7 A bourn is a boundary, and sometimes a rivulet, W

Pan. You do depend upon a noble gentleman; must needs praise him.

Serv. The lord be praised!

Pan. You know

me, do you not? Serv. 'Faith, sir, superficially.

Pan. Friend, know me better; I am the Lord

Pandarus.

Serv. I hope, I shall know your honour better."
Pan. I do desire it.

Serv. You are in the state of grace.

[Music within. Pan. Grace! not so, friend! honour and lordship are my titles:-What music is this?

Serv. I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.

Pan. Know you the musicians?

Serv. Wholly, sir.

Pan. Who play they to?

Serv. To the hearers, sir.

Pan. At whose pleasure, friend?

Serv. At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.

Pan. Command, I mean, friend.

Serv. Who shall I command, sir?

Pan. Friend, we understand not one another; I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning: At whose request do these men play?

Serv. That's to't, indeed, sir: Marry, sir, at the request of Paris, my lord, who is there in person; with him, the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul,

Pan. Who, my cousin Cressida ?

Serv. No, sir, Helen: Could you not find out that by her attributes?

Pan. It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus: I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seeths. Serv. Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase, indeed!

Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended.

Pan. Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen! fair thoughts be your fair pillow!

Helen. Dear lord, you are full of fair words. Pan. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen.Fair prince, here is good broken music.

Par. You have broke it, cousin: and, by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance :-Nell, he is full of harmony.

Pan. Truly, lady, no.

dividing one place from another.
old ballad Edgar sings in Lear, Act iii. Sc. 6:-
As in the line of the
'Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me.'
8 Shakspeare probably had a custom prevalent about
his own time in his thoughts. Ben Jonson had many
who called themselves his sons.
book on Angling to his father Walton; and Ashmole, in
Cotton dedicates his
his Diary observes, April 3, Mr. William Backhouse
of Swallowfield, in com. Berks, caused me to call him
father thenceforward.'

9 The servant means to quibble. He hopes Pandarus will become a better man than he is at present. In his next speech he chooses to understand Pandarus as if he had said he wished to grow better; and hence the servant affirms that he is in the state of grace.

Helen. O, sir,

So dying love lives still :
Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha!
Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha!

Pan. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude. Par. Well said, my lord! well, you say so in fits.'

Pan. I have business to my lord, dear queen:-
My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?
Helen. Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we'll
hear you sing, certainly.

Hey ho!

Helen. In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose. Par. He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.

Pan. Is this the generation of love? hot blood,

Pan. Well, sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But (marry) thus, my lord,-My dear lord, and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus- hot thoughts, and hot deeds?-Why, they are viHelen. My Lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord,pers: Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to:-commends who's a-field to-day? himself most affectionately to you.

Helen. You shall not bob us out of our melody;
If you do, our melancholy upon your head!
Pan. Sweet queen, sweet queen; that's a sweet

queen, i'faith.

Helen. And to make a sweet lady sad, is a sour

offence.

Pan. Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no.-And, my lord, he desires you, that, if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

Helen. My Lord Pandarus,

Pan. What says my sweet queen,- my very very sweet queen?

Par. What exploit's in hand? where sups he to-night?

Helen. Nay, but my lord,Pan. What says my sweet queen ?-My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where he sups.3

Par. I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida. Pan. No, no, no such matter, you are wide; come, your disposer is sick.

Par. Well, I'll make excuse.

all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed Par. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and to-night, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?

Helen. He hangs the lip at something ;-you know all, Lord Pandarus.

Pan. Not I, honey-sweet queen.-I long to hear how they sped to-day.-You'll remember your bro

ther's excuse?

Par. To a hair.

Pan. Farewell, sweet queen.

Helen. Commend me to your niece.
Pan. I will, sweet queen.

[Exit. [A Retreat sounded. Par. They are come from field; let us to Priam's

hall,

To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you
To nelp unarm our Hector: his stubborn buckles,
With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd,
Shall more obey, than to the edge of steel,
Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more
Than all the island kings, disarm great Hector.

Helen. "Twill make us proud to be his servant,

Paris.

Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty,
Pan. Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Gives us more palm in beauty than we have;
Cressida? no, your poor disposer's sick.

Par. I spy.

Pan. You spy! what do you spy?-Come, give me an instrument.-Now, sweet queen..

Helen. Why, this is kindly done.

Pan. My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

Helen. She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.

Pan. He! no, she'll none of him: they two are twain.

Helen. Falling in, after falling out, may make

them three.

Pan. Come, come, I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing you a song now.

Helen. Ay, ay, pr'ythee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.

Pan. Ay, you may, you may.

Helen. Let thy song be love; this love will undo us all. O, Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

Pan. Love! ay, that it shall, i' faith.

Yea, overshines ourself.

Par. Sweet, above thought I love thee. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. Pandarus' Orchard. Enter PANDARUS and a Servant, meeting.

Pan. How now? where's thy master? at my cousin Cressida's ?

Serv. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.

Enter TROILUS.

Pan. O, here he comes.-How now, how now?
Tro. Sirrah, walk off.
[Exit Servant.

Pan. Have you seen my cousin?

Tro. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks,
And give me swift transportance to those fields,
Where I may wallow in the lily beds

Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,

Pur. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love. And fly with me to Cressid!
Pan. In good troth, it begins so:

Love, love, nothing but love, still more!
For, oh, love's bow

Shoots buck and doe:
The shaft confounds,
Not that it wounds,

But tickles still the sore.

These lovers cry-Oh! ho! they die!

Yet that which seems the wound to kill,
Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!

Pan. Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her
straight.
[Exit PANDARUS.
Tro. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet

That it enchants my sense; What will it be,
When that the watry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed nectar; death, I fear me;
Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle potent, tun'd too sharp in sweetness.
For the capacity of my ruder powers:

I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;"

A quibble is intended. A fit was a part or division deposer instead of disposer. Helen, he thinks, may ad. of a song or tune. The equivoque lies between fits, dress herself to Pandarus; and by her deposer, mean starts, or sudden impulses, and fits in its musical ac-that Cressida had deposed her in the affections of Troiceptation.

2 And, my lord,' &c. Ithink with Johnson, that the speech of Pandarus should begin here; and that the former part should be added to that of Helen.

3 You must not know where he sups.' These words in the old copies are erroneously given to Helen. 4 Steevens would give this speech to Helen, and read

lus.

Disposer appears to have been an equivalent term auciently for steward, or manager. If the speech is to be attributed to Helen, she may mean to call Cressid her hand-maid.

5'

ubi jam amborum fuerat confusa voluptas.' Sappho's Epistle to l'haon

As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

Re-enter PANDARUS.

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 Pan. She's making her ready, she'll come straight: part of one. They that have the voice of lions, you must be witty now. She does so blush, and aud the act of hares, are they not monsters? fetches her wind so short, as if she were fray'd Tro. Are there such? such are not we: Praise with a sprite; I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our villain: she fetches her breath as short as a new-head shall go bare, till merit crown it: no perfec[Exit PANDARUS. tion in reversion shall have a praise in present: we Tro. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom: will not name desert, before his birth; and, being My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse; born, his addition shall be humble. Few words And all my powers do their bestowing lose, to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid, as Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring what envy can say worst, shall be a mock for his The eye of majesty. truth; and what truth can speak truest, not truer than Troilus.

ta'en sparrow.

Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA. Pan. Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby. Here she is now; swear the oaths now to her, that you have sworn to me.-What, are you gone again? you must be watched' ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you the fills.-Why do you not speak to her?Come, draw the curtain, and let's see your picture, Alas the day, how loath you are to offend dayhight! an 'twere dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks the river; go to, go to.

Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady. Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you of the deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here's -In witness whereof the parties interchangeably — Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.

[Exit PANDARUS. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Tro. O, Cressida, how often have I wished me

thus ?

Cres. Wished, my lord ?-The gods grant!-0 my lord!

Tro. What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have

eyes.

Tre. Fears make devils 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 pageant there is presented no monster." Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Tro. Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow 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 difficuity 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.

1 Hawks were tamed by keeping them from sleep; an 1 thus Pandarus meant that Cressida should be tamed. See Taming of the Sarew, Activ. Sc. 1.

2. e. the shafts. Pills or fills is the term in the midland counties for the shafts of a cart or wagon.

3 The allusion is to bowling; what is now called the jack was formerly termed the mistress. A bowl that kisses the jack or mistress is in the most advantageous situation. Rub on is a term in the game. See Cymbeline, Act ii. Sc. 1.

4 A kiss in fee-farm' is a kiss of duration, that has
bounds, a fee-farm being a grant of lands in fee; that is,
for ever reserving a certain rent. The same idea is ex-
pressed much more poetically in Coriolanus, when the
Jargon of law was absent from the poet's thoughts:-
O, a kiss

Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!'
The tercel is the male and the falcon the female

Cres. Will you walk in, my lord?
Re-enter PANDARUS.

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

Cres. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedi

cate to you.

of you, you'll give him me: Be true to my lord:
Pan. I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy
if he flinch, chide me for it.

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

kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed,
Pan. Nav, I'll give my word for her too; our
they are constant, being won: they are burs, I can
tell you: they'll stick were they are thrown.10

Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me

heart:

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

Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cres. 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.
But I might master it: in faith, I lie;
I love you now; but not, till now, so much
Too headstrong for their mother: See, we fools!
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us,
But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd not
you
Or that we women had men's privilege
And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man;
For, in this rapture, I shall surely speak
Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue;
The thing I shall repent. See, sec, your silence,
My very soul of counsel: Stop my mouth.
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws

;

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
Pan. Pretty, i' faith.

Cres. My lord, I do beseech you pardon me;
I am asham'd;-O heavens! what have I done?-
'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss:
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,

Cres. Pray you, content you.
Tro.
What offends
Cres. Sir, mine own company.

you, lady?

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Tro. You cannot shun Yourself

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,
speak so wisely.

Cres. Perchance, my lord, I show more
than love;

that

craft

And fell so roundly to a large confession,
To angle for your thoughts: But you are wise;
Or else you love not; For to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.1
Tro. O, that I thought it could be in a woman,
(As, if it can, I will presume in you,)
To feed for aye2 her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me,—
That my integrity and truth to you

O virtuous fight,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son;
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
As false as Cressid.

Pan. 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 called to the world's end after my name, call them allPandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-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, press it to death: away.

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,
Bed, chamber, Pandar, to provide this geer.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The Grecian Camp. Enter AGA-
MEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX,
MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnow'd purity in love;
How were I then uplifted! but, alas,
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.
Tro.
When right with right wars who shall be most right!I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
True swains in love shall, in the world to come,
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,4
Want similes of truth, tir'd with iteration,"
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to-day, as turtle to her mate,

6

As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,-
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentic author to be cited,
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,
And mighty states characterless are grated
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,

Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done
you,
The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind,
That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove
Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; sequest'ring from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition.
Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become

As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,

To give me now a little benefit,

Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which you say, live to come in my behalf.

Agam. What would'st thou of us, Trojan? make
demand.

Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore,) Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange, Whom Troy hath still denied: But this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest in their affairs, That their negotiations all must slack, Wanting his manage; and they will almost Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, Which Steevens thinks may be explained :-'No longer 1 Cressida's meaning appears to be, Perchance I assisting Troy with my advice, I have left it to the dofell too roundly to confession, in order to angle for your minion of love, to the cousequences of the amour of thoughts; but you are not so easily taken in; you are Paris and Helen.' The present reading of the text is too wise, or too indifferent; for to be wise, and love, ex-supported by Johnson and Malone; to which Mason ceeds man's might.' The thought originally belongs to makes this objection:- That it was Juno and not Jore Publius Syrus: Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur.' that persecuted the Trojans. Jore wished them well, 2 Troilus alludes to the perpetual lamps, which were and though we may abandon a man to his enemies, we supposed to illuminate sepulchres. cannot, with propriety, say that we abandon him to his friends. Some modern editions have the line thus:

lasting flames, that burn

To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn.' See Pericles, Act ii. Sc. 1.

3 Met with and equalled. See Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 1: That he, as 'twere by accident, may here

Affront Ophelia.'

4 Comparisons.

6 In the old copy this line stands :

"Wants similes truth tird with iteration." The emendation was proposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt.

6 Plantage is here put for any thing planted, which was thought to depend for its success upon the influence of the moon. The poore husbandman perceiveth that the increase of the moone maketh plants fruitfull; so as in the full moone they are in their best strength; decaieing in the wane; and in the conjunction do utter lie wither and vade.'-Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. 7 i. e. conclude it. Finis coronat opus.

"That through the sight I bear in things to come." Which is an emendation to which I must confess I I incline: for, as Mason observes, the speech of Calchas would have been incomplete, if he had said he abandoned Troy, from the sight he bore of things, without explaining it by adding the words to come.

The merit of Calchas did not merely consist in having come over to the Greeks; he also revealed to them the fate of Troy, which depended on their conveying away the palladium, and the horses of Rhesus, before they should drink of the river Xanthus.

10 Into for unto; a common form of expression in old writers. Thus in the Paston Letters, vol. ii. p. 3:— And they that have justed with him into this day, have been as richly beseen,' &c.

11 A wrest is an instrument for tuning harps, &c. by drawing up the strings. Its form may be seen in some 8 Hanmer altered this to inconstant men; but the of the illuminated service-books, where David is reprepoet seems to have been less attentive to make Panda-sented; in the Second Part of Mersenna's Harmonics; rus talk consequentially, than to account for the ideas and in the Syntagmata of Prætorius, vol ii. fig. xix. So actually annexed to the three names in his own time. in King James's Edict against Combats, &c. p. 45:9 The old copies all concur in reading"That through the sight I bear in things to love."

This small instrument the tongue, being
Kept in tune by the wrest of awe.'

In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
In most accepted pain.'

Agam.
Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither; Calchas shall have
What he requests of us.-Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent.

Ulyss. Achilles stands i' the entrance of his

tent:

Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, princes all,

Lay negligent and loose regard upon him;

I will come last: 'Tis like, he'll question me,

[blocks in formation]

out

Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.-
How now, Ulysses?
Ulyss.

Now, great Thetis' son?
Achil. What are you reading.
Ulyss.
A strange fellow here
Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,2
How much in having, or without, or in,-
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;

Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on As when his virtues shining upon others

hiin:

If so, I have derision med'cinable,

To use between our strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Agam. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along;
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.
Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.
Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught
with us?

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the ge-
neral ?
Achil.
No.
Nest. Nothing, my lord.
Agam.

The better.

[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR.
Achil.
Good day, good day.
Men. How do you? how do you?
[Exit MENELAUS.
Achil
What, does the cuckold scorn me?
Ajar. How now, Patroclus?
Achil.
Good morrow, Ajax.
Ha?
Ay, and good next day too.
[Exit AJAX.
Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not
Achilles?

Ajar.

Achil. Good morrow.
Ajax.

[blocks in formation]

Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Achil.

This is not strange, Ulysses.

The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself
(That most pure spirit of sense,) behold itself,3
Not going from itself; but eye to eye oppos'd
Salutes each other with each other's form.
For speculation turns not to itself,

Till it hath travell'd, and is married there
Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all.
Ulyss. I do not strain at the position,

It is familiar; but at the author's drift:
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves-
That no man is the lord of any thing,
(Though in and of him there be much consisting,)
Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them form'd in the applause
Where they are extended; which, like an arch,
reverberates

The voice again; or like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately
The unknown Ajax.7
Heavens, what a man is there!
very horse;
That has he knows not what. Nature, what things
there are,

Most abject in regard, and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem,
And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow,
An act that very chance doth throw upon him,-
Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!

How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!-why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder;
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
And great Troy shrieking.

Achil. I do believe it: for they passed by me,
As misers do by beggars: neither gave to me
Good word, nor look: What, are my deeds forgot?

5 Detail of argument.

6 The old copies read who, like an arch, reverberate ; which may mean, They who applaud reverberate. The elliptic mode of expression is in the poet's manner. Rowe made the alteration.

7 i. e. Ajax, who has abilities which were never brought into view or use.

8 The folio reads shrinking. The following passage in the subsequent scene seems to favour the reading of

4 Speculation has here the same meaning as in Mac- the quarto :-beth:-

"Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with.'

Hark, how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out; How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth; And all cry-Hector, Hector's dead.'

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