If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but not, till now, so much
But I might master it :-in faith, I lie ;

My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother: See, we fools!
Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;
And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man ;
Or that we women had men's privilege

Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue ;
For, in this rapture, I shall surely speak

The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
My very soul of counsel: Stop my mouth.

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
Pan. Pretty, i'faith.

Cres. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me ;
Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss :

I am asham'd;-O heavens! what have I done?-.

For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid?

Pan. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morn

ing,

Cres. Pray you, content you. Tro. What offends you, lady? Cres. Sir, mine own company. Tro. You cannot shun Yourself.

Cres. Let me go and try:

I have a kind of self resides with you;
But an unkind self, that itself will leave,
To be another's fool. I would be gone :—

Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.

Tro. Well know they what they speak, that speak so wisely.

Cres. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love; And fell so roundly to a large confession,

To angle for your thoughts: But you are wise;
Or else you love not; For to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might ; that dwells with gods above,

[7] Cressida's meaning is this: "Perchance I fell too roundly to confession, in order to angle for your thoughts; but you are not so easily taken in; you are too wise, or too indifferent; for to be wise and love, exceeds man's might."

M. MASON

Tro. O, that I thought it could be in a woman, (As, if it can, I will presume in you,)

To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Out-living 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.
Cres. In that I'll war with

Tro. O virtuous fight,

you.

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 tir'd 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.

Cres. 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,

[8] I wish "my integrity might be met and matched with such equality and force of pure unmingled love." JOHNSON.

Compare, that is, comparison. STEEVENS.

Plantage to the moon-alluding to the common opinion of the influence the moon has over what is planted or sown, which was therefore done in the in

crease:

"Rite Latonæ puerum canentes:

Rite crescentem face noctilucam,
Prosperam frugum,------,"

Hor. Lib. IV. Od. vi.

WARBURTON. From a book entitled The profitable Art of Gardening, &c. I learn, that neither sowing, planting, nor grafting, were ever undertaken without a scrupulous attention

to the increase or waning of the moon.

STEEVENS.

[2] Troilus shall crown the verse as a man to be cited as the authentic author of truth; as one whose protestations were true to a proverb. [3] That is, conclude it. Finis coronat opus.

JOHNSON.
STEEVENS.

From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood! when they have 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.

Pan. 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 inconstant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, Amen.

Tro. Amen.

Cres. Amen.

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and 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 geer!

SCENE III.

[Exeunt

The Grecian Camp. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Cal. 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 Jove
I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; sequest'ring 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.

Aga. What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand.
Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,

Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you, (often have you thanks therefore,)
Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied: Rut this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest in their affairs,*
That their negociations 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

Aga. 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.
Dio. This shall I undertake, and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear. [Exe. Dio. and CALCHAS.
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent.
Ulyss. 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, why turn'd on him :
If so, I have derision med'cinable,

To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink ;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Aga. 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.

Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. Aga. What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

[4] Wrest means an instrument for tuning the harp by drawing up the strings. To wrest is to wind. The form of the wrest may be seen in some of the old illuminated service books, wherein David is represented playing on his harp. DOUCE

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general ? Achil. No.

Nest. Nothing, my lord.

Aga. The better.

[Exeunt AGAM. and Nest.

Achil. Good day, good day.

[Exit. MENELAus.

Men. How do you? how do you?

Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me?

Ajax. How now, Patroclus?

Achil. Good-morrow, Ajax.

Ajax. Ha?

Achil. Good-morrow.

Ajax. Ay; and good next day too.

[Exit AJAX.

Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not

Achilles?

Patr. They pass by strangely: they were us`d to bend, To send their smiles before them to Achilles ;

To come as humbly, as they us❜d to creep

To holy altars.

Achil. What, am I poor of late?

"Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Show not their meanly 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 the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy

At ample point all that I did possess,

Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding

As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;

I'll interrupt his reading.

How now, Ulysses?

Ulyss. Now, great Thetis' son?

Achil. What are you reading?

Ulyss. A strange fellow here

Writes me, That man,-how dearly ever parted,"

[5] However excellently endowed; with however dear or precious parts enriched or adorned.

JOHNSON.