SCENE 2. Troy. PANDARUS’ orchard

       [Enter PANDARUS and TROILUS’ 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.

       [Enter TROILUS.]

       PANDARUS.

       O, here he comes. 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 these fields

       Where I may wallow in the lily beds

       Propos’d for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,

       from Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings,

       and fly with me to Cressid!

       PANDARUS.

       Walk here i’ th’ orchard, I’ll bring her straight.

       [Exit.]

       TROILUS.

       I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.

       Th’ imaginary relish is so sweet

       That it enchants my sense; what will it be

       When that the wat’ry palate tastes indeed

       Love’s thrice-repured 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;

       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 fray’d 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 encount’ring

       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 watch’d ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we’ll put you i’ th’ 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’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 i’ th’ 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’ th’ 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 Cressid, how often have I wish’d me thus!

       CRESSIDA.

       Wish’d, 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 confin’d; 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?

       [Re-enter PANDARUS.]

       PANDARUS.

       What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

       CRESSIDA.

       Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.

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

       TROILUS. You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.

       PANDARUS. Nay, I’ll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won; they are burs, I can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.

       CRESSIDA.

       Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.

       Prince Troilus, I have lov’d you night and day

       For many weary months.

       TROILUS.

       Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

       CRESSIDA.

       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.