A street. 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?