Pandarus' orchard. Enter PANDARUS and Troilus's Boy, meeting PANDARUS How now! where's thy master? at my cousin Cressida's? Boy No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither. PANDARUS O, here he comes.
Enter TROILUS How now, how now! TROILUS Sirrah, walk off.
Exit Boy PANDARUS Have you seen my cousin? TROILUS No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift transportance to those fields Where I may wallow in the lily-beds Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus, From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings And fly with me to Cressid! PANDARUS Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight.
Exit TROILUS 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 watery palate tastes indeed Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me, Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine, Too subtle-potent, tuned 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;
As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps The enemy flying.
Re-enter PANDARUS PANDARUS She's making her ready, she'll come straight: you must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were frayed with a sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain: she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta'en sparrow.
Exit TROILUS Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom:
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lose, Like vassalage at unawares encountering The eye of majesty.
Re-enter PANDARUS with CRESSIDA PANDARUS 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 i' the fills. Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld 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 i' the river: go to, go to. TROILUS You have bereft me of all words, lady. PANDARUS Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you o' 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 CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord? TROILUS O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus! CRESSIDA Wished, my lord! The gods grant,--O my lord! TROILUS What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love? CRESSIDA More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. TROILUS Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly. CRESSIDA Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to fear the worst oft cures the worse. TROILUS O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster. CRESSIDA Nor nothing monstrous neither? TROILUS 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 difficulty 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. CRESSIDA 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 part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters? TROILUS Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present: we will not name desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus. CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord?