Cre. They fay, all lovers fwear more performance than they are able, and yet referve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and difcharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions, and the act of hares, are they not monsters? Troi. Are there fuch? fuch are not we: Praise us as we are tafted, allow us as we prove; our head fhall go bare, 'till merit crown it: no perfection in reverfion fhall have a praife in prefent : we will not name defert, before his birth; and be Gre. Will you walk in, my lord? Pan. Come, come, what need you blufhing born, his addition fhall be humble 4. Few fhame's a baby. Here the is now: fwear the words to fair faith: Troilus fhall be fuch to Creffid, oaths now to her, that you have fworn to me.—as what envy can fay worft, fhall be a mock for What, are you gone again? you must be watch'd his truth; and what truth can fpeak trueft, not ere you be made tame 1, muft you? Come your truer than Troilus. ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you i' the files 2.-Why do you not fpeak to her !--Come, draw this curtain, and let's fee your picture. Alas the day, how loth you are to offend day-light! an 'twere dark, you'd clofe fooner. So, fo; rub on, and kifs the miftrefs. How now, a kifs in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air is fweet. Nay, you fhall Pan. I thank you for that; if my lord get a fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The faul-boy of you, you'll give him me: Be true to my con as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river 3: lord; if he flinch, chide me for it. go to, go to. Troi. You have bereft me of all words, lady. Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you of the deeds too, if the call your activity in queftion. What, billing again? here's-In witness whereof the parties interchangeabiy-Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire. [Exit Pandarus. Cre. Will you walk in, my lord? Troi. O Cretfida, how often have I wifh'd me thus ? Cre. With'd, my lord?-The gods grant!my lord! Troi. What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg efpies my fweet lady in the fountain of our love? Cre. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. Gre. Blind fear, that feeing reafon leads, finds fafer footing than blind reafon tumbling without fear: To fear the wortt, oft cures the worst. Pan. What, blufhing ftill? have you not done talking yet? Cre. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you. Troi. You know now your hoftages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith. Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too; our kindred, though they be long ere they are woo'd, they are conftant, being won: they are burrs, I can tell you; they'll flick where they are thrown. Gre. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day, Troi. Why was my Creffid then so hard to win? With the firft glance that ever- Troi. Fears make devils of cherubims; they My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown never fee truly. Too headstrong for their mother: See, we fools! Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us, When we are fo unfecret to ourfelves? But though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not; Troi. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all And yet, good faith, I with'd myself a man; Cupid's pageant there is prefented no moniter. Or, that we women had men's privilege Cre. Nor nothing monitrous neither? Of fpeaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue; Trei. Nothing, but our undertakings; when For, in this rapture, I fhall furely speak we vow to weep feas, live in fire, eat rocks, The thing I fhall repent. See, fee, your filence, tame tygers; thinking harder for our mittrels Cunning in dumbnefs, from my weakness draws to devife impofition enough, than for us to under- My very foul of counfel: Stop my mouth. go any difficulty impofed. This is the monftruofity in love, lady,-that the will is infinite, and the execution contin'd; that the defire is boundless, and the act a flave to limit. Troi. And fhall, albeit fweet mufick iffues thence. Cre. My lord, I do befeech you, pardon me; 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kifs: I Alluding to the manner of taming hawks. 2 Alluding to the custom of putting men fufpected of cowardice in the middle places. 3 Pandarus means, that he' match his niece against her lover for any bett. The terrel is the male hawk; by the faulcon we generally understand the female. 4 We will give him no high or pompous titles, Pan. Leave an you take leave 'till to-morrow morning, Cre. Pray you, content you. I have a kind of felf refides with you; Cre. Perchance, my lord, I fhew more craft And fell fo roundly to a large confeffion, (As, if it can, I will prefume in you) Out-living beauties outward, with a mind From falfe to falfe, among falfe maids in love, [falfe As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf, Pan. Go to, a bargain made: feal it, feal it; I'll be the witnefs.Here I hold your hand; here, my coufin's. If ever you prove falfe to one another, fince I have taken fuch 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 inconftant men be Troilus's, all falfe women Creflids, and all brokers-between Pandars! fay amen. Troi. Amen. Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will fhew you a bed-chamber; which bed, because it fhall not fpeak of your pretty encounters, prefs it to death: away. And Cupid grant all tongue-ty'd maidens here, SCENE III, [Exeunt. Or that perfuafion could but thus convince me, Enter Agamemnon, Ulyffes, Diomed, Neftor, Ajax, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight I am as tine as truth's fimplicity, And fimpler than the infancy of truth. Cre. In that I'll war with you. Troi. O virtuous fight, Menelaus, and Calebas. Cal. Now, princes, for the fervice I have done The advantage of the time prompts me aloud When right with right wars who shall be most | Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself, Full of proteft, of oath, and big compare, As true as Troilus fhall crown up the verfe, Cre. Prophet may you be! If I be falfe, or fwerve a hair from truth, From certain and poffeft conveniences, Cal. You have a Trojan prifoner, call'd Antenor, When water-drops have worn the ftones of Troy, Defir'd my Creifid in right great exchange, And blind oblivion fwallow'd cities up, And mighty ftates characterlefs are grated Whom Troy hath ftill deny'd: But this Antenor, II with, " my integrity might be met and matched with fuch equality and force of pure un mingled love." 2 This is an ancient proverbial fimile. 3 Formerly neither fowing, planting, nor grafting, were ever undertaken without a fcrupulous attention to the increafe or waning of the moon, as may be proved by the following quotation from Scott's Difcoverie of Witchcraft: "The poore husbandman perceiveth that the increate of the moone maketh plants fruitfull: to as in the full moone they are in the belt ftrength; decaieing in the wane; and in the conjunction to utterlie wither and vade." Wanting Wanting his manage; and they will almost Aga. Let Diomedes bear him, [Exit Diomed, and Calchas. I will come laft: 'Tis like, he'll question me, on him: If fo, I have derifion med'cinable, To ufe between your ftrangeness and his pride, me? You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. us ? Achil. No. Neft. Nothing, my lord ? 1 Aga. The better. Achil. Good day, good day. Men. How do you? how do you? Acbil. What, does the cuckold fcorn me? Achil. Good morrow, Ajax. Ajax. Ha? Achil. Good morrow. Ajax. Ay, and good next day too. He shall as foon read in the eyes of others, Which when they fall, as being flippery standers, Abil. This is not ftrange, Ulyffes. The voice again; or like a gate of steel [Exeunt. And apprehended here immediately Acbil, What mean thefe fellows? know they The unknown 4 Ajax. not Achilles ? [bend, Heavens, what a man is there! a very horfe; Patr. They pafs by strangely: they were us'd to That has he knows not what. Nature, what things To fend their fmiles before them to Achilles ; To come as humbly, as they us'd to creep there are, Moft abject in regard, and dear in ufe! Achil. What, am I poor of late? 'Tis certain, Greatnefs, once fallen out with fortune, An act that very chance doth throw upon him, Muft fall out with men too: What the declin'd is, Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what fome men do, 1 i. e. Her prefence fhall ftrike off, or recompenfe the fervice I have done, even in thefe labours which were most accepted. 2 i. c. however excellently endowed, with however dear or precious parts enriched or adorned. 3 i. e. in the detail or circumduction of his argument. 4 Ajax, who has abilities which were never brought into view or ule, While fome men leave to do! How fome men creep in faittish fortune's hall, To fee thefe Grecian lords!--why, even already [vour'd Abil. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me, In monumental mockery. Take the inftant way; Or like a gallant horfe fallen in first rank, prefent, The providence that's in a watchful state, Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. Though lefs than yours in paft, muft o'er-top yours: Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man That flightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-| The prefent eye praifes the prefent object : In time of action. I ftand condemn'd for this: Acbil. Shall Ajax fight with Hector? [by him. Patr. O, then beware; [felves: Thofe wounds heal ill, that men do give them- Seals a commiffion to a blank of danger 5; Achil. Go call Therfites hither, fweet Patroclus: 1. To creep is to keep out of fight, from whatever motive. The meaning is, Some men keep out of notice in the hail of fortune, while others, though they but play the ideot, are always in her eye, in the way of diftinction. 2 The meaning of miffion, Dr. Johnfon fays, feems to be dispatches of the gods from heaven about mortal bulinefs, fuch as often happened at the fiege of Troy. 3 Polyxena, in the act of marrying whom, he was afterwards killed by Paris. 4 i. e. There is a fecret adminiftration of affairs, which no flory was ever able to difcover. si. e. By neglecting our duty we common or enable that danger of difhonour, which could not reach us before, to lay hold upon us. Patr. And to procure fafe conduct from Aga- Patr. What fay you to't? Ther. God be wi' you, with all my heart. Ther. Why, he talks up and down like a peacock, a ftride, and a ftand: ruminates, like an hoftefs, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to fet down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should fay-there were wit in this head, an 'twould out; and fo there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not fhow without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he'll break it himself in vain-glory. The fhall pay for me ere he has me. He knows not me: I faid, Good-morrow, Ajax ; and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land-fith, languagelefs, a monfter. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both fides, like a leather jerkin. Achil. Thou must be my embaffador to him, Therfites. Ther. Who, I? why, he'll anfwer no body; he profeffes not anfwering; fpeaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in his arms. I will put on his prefence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall fee the pageant of Ajax. Ther. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock, it will go one way or other; howsoever, Patr. Your answer, fir. Ther. Fare you well, with all my heart. Acbil. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? Ther. No, but he's out o' tune thus. What mufick will be in him when Hector has knock'd out his brains, I know not: But, I am fure, none; unless the fidler Apollo get his finews to make catlings 2 on. [ftraight. Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him Ther. Let me bear another to his horfe; for that's the more capable creature. [ftirr'd; Achil. My mind is troubled, like a fountain And I myself fee not the bottom of it. Acbil. To him, Patroclus: Tell him,-I hum[Exeunt Achilles, and Patroclus. bly defire the valiant Ajax to invite the moft va- Ther. 'Would the fountain of your mind were lorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to clear again, that I might water an afs at it! I had procure fafe conduct for his perfon, of the magnani- rather be a tick in a fheep, than fuch a valiant mous, and moft illuftrious, fix-or-feven-times-ho- lignorance. [Exit. With a fly look. 2 A catling fignifies a fmall lute-firing made of catgut. • Question here means intercourfe, interchange of converfation. |