Troilus and Cressida

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
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. Cressida In that I’ll war with you. Troilus

O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
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,
Want similes, truth tired with iteration,
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
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.

Cressida

Prophet may you be!
If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When waterdrops 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’ve said “as false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
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.”

Pandarus 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 all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen. Troilus Amen. Cressida Amen. Pandarus

Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with 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 gear! Exeunt.

Scene III

The Grecian camp. Before Achilles’ tent.

	Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Ajax, Menelaus, and Calchas.
Calchas	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 love, I have abandon’d Troy, left my possession, Incurr’d a traitor’s name; exposed myself, From certain and possess’d conveniences, To doubtful fortunes; sequestering 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.
Agamemnon	What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand.
Calchas	You have a Trojan prisoner, call’d Antenor, Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you⁠—often have you thanks therefore⁠— Desired 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, 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.
Agamemnon	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.
Diomedes	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.
Ulysses	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 Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him: If so, I have derision medicinable, To use between your strangeness and his pride, Which his own will shall have desire to drink: It may be good: pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.
Agamemnon	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.
Achilles	What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind, I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.
Agamemnon	What says Achilles? would he aught with us?
Nestor	Would you, my lord, aught with the general?
Achilles	No.
Nestor	Nothing, my lord.
Agamemnon	The better. Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor.
Achilles	Good day, good day.
Menelaus	How do you? how do you? Exit.
Achilles	What, does the cuckold scorn me?
Ajax	How now, Patroclus!
Achilles	Good morrow, Ajax.
Ajax	Ha?
Achilles	Good morrow.
Ajax	Ay, and good next day too. Exit.
Achilles	What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?
Patroclus	They pass by strangely: they were used to bend, To send their smiles before them to Achilles; To come as humbly as they used to creep To holy altars.
Achilles	What, am I poor of late? ’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune, Must fall out with men too: what the declined is He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer, And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honour, but honour for those honours That are without him, as place, riches, favour, Prizes of accident as oft as merit: Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, The love that lean’d on them as slippery too, Do one pluck down another and together Die in