The History of Troilus and Cressida. Уильям Шекспир
Читать онлайн книгу.
he never saw three and twenty. Go thy way,
Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were a grace or a
daughter a
goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris?
Paris
is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give
an
eye to boot.
CRESSIDA. Here comes more.
Common soldiers pass
PANDARUS. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran!
porridge after meat! I could live and die in the eyes of
Troilus.
Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws,
crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than
Agamemnon and all Greece.
CRESSIDA. There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man
than
Troilus.
PANDARUS. Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel!
CRESSIDA. Well, well.
PANDARUS. Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you
any
eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good
shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue,
youth,
liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a
man?
CRESSIDA. Ay, a minc'd man; and then to be bak'd with no date
in
the pie, for then the man's date is out.
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, 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
PANDARUS. You are such another!
Enter TROILUS' BOY
BOY. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
PANDARUS. Where?
BOY. At your own house; there he unarms him.
PANDARUS. Good boy, tell him I come. Exit
Boy
I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.
CRESSIDA. Adieu, uncle.
PANDARUS. I will be with you, niece, by and by.
CRESSIDA. To bring, uncle.
PANDARUS. Ay, a token from Troilus.
CRESSIDA. By the same token, you are a bawd.
PANDARUS
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
He offers in another's enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be,
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she belov'd knows nought that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is.
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech.
Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.
Exit
ACT I. SCENE 3. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON'S tent
Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, and others
AGAMEMNON. Princes,
What grief hath set these jaundies o'er your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promis'd largeness; checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infects the sound pine, and diverts his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works
And call them shames, which are, indeed, nought else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men;
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune's love? For then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin.
But in the wind and tempest of her frown
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.
NESTOR. With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy