Helen's-well, go to-there were no more comparison between the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, butTro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,

When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep

They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad
In Cressid's love: thou answer'st she is fair;
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink

50

Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me,
As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her; 60
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth.

Tro. Thou dost not speak so much.

Pan. Faith, I'll not meddle in 't. Let her be as

she is if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands. Tro. Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus! Pan. I have had my labour for my travail; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for labour.

my

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

Pan. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not
so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me,
she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on
Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she
were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me.

Tro. Say I she is not fair?
Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a
fool to stay behind her father; let her to the
Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I

:

see her for my part, I'll meddle nor make no
more i' the matter.

Tro. Pandarus,——

Pan. Not I.

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,

70

80

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave

90

all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit. An alarum.

Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;

It is too starved a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we.
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl :
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.

Alarum. Enter Æneas.

100

Ene. How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield?
Tro. Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.

What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?

Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Tro. By whom, Æneas?

Ene.

Troilus, by Menelaus.

Tro. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn;

Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. Æne. Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day! Tro. Better at home, if would I might' were 'may.' But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither? Ene. In all swift haste.

Alex.

Queen Hecuba and Helen.

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,

Cres.

And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw

In Hector's wrath.

What was his cause of anger ?

Alex. The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;

Cres.

They call him Ajax.

Good; and what of him?"

Alex. They say he is a very man per se,

And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as 20 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 every thing so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

30