Is as a virtue fixed, today was moved.

He chid Andromache and struck his armourer

And, like as there were husbandry in war,

Before the sun rose he was harnessed light,

And to the field goes he, where every flower

Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw

In Hector’s wrath.

CRESSIDA What was his cause of anger?

ALEXANDER

The noise goes this: there is among the Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;

They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDA Good, and what of him?

ALEXANDER

They say he is a very man per se,

And stands alone.

CRESSIDA So do all men

Unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDER This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as 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 farced 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 everything, but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDA But how should this man that makes me smile make Hector angry?

ALEXANDER They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

CRESSIDA Who comes here?

ALEXANDER Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

⌈Enter Pandarus above⌉

CRESSIDA Hector’s a gallant man.

ALEXANDER As may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUS What’s that? What’s that?

CRESSIDA Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?—Good morrow, Alexander.—How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDA This morning, uncle.

PANDARUS What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

CRESSIDA

Hector was gone but Helen was not up?

PANDARUS E’en so. Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDA

That were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUS Was he angry?

CRESSIDA So he says here.

PANDARUS True, he was so. I know the cause too. He’ll lay about him today, I can tell them that. And there’s Troilus will not come far behind him. Let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

CRESSIDA What, is he angry too?

PANDARUS Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

CRESSIDA

O Jupiter! There’s no comparison.

PANDARUS What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him?

CRESSIDA

Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

PANDARUS Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

CRESSIDA

Then you say as I say, for I am sure

He is not Hector.

PANDARUS No, nor Hector is not Troilus, in some degrees.

CRESSIDA

’Tis just to each of them: he is himself.

PANDARUS Himself? Alas, poor Troilus, I would he were.

CRESSIDA So he is.

PANDARUS Condition I had gone barefoot to India.

CRESSIDA He is not Hector.

PANDARUS Himself ? No, he’s not himself. Would a were himself! Well, the gods are above, time must friend or end. Well, Troilus, well, I would my heart were in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

CRESSIDA Excuse me.

PANDARUS He is elder.

CRESSIDA Pardon me, pardon me.

PANDARUS Th‘other’s not come to’t. You shall tell me another tale when th’other’s come to’t. Hector shall not have his will this year.

CRESSIDA

He shall not need it if he have his own.

PANDARUS Nor his qualities.

CRESSIDA No matter.

PANDARUS Nor his beauty.

CRESSIDA

’Twould not become him; his own’s better.

PANDARUS You have no judgement, niece. Helen herself swore th‘other day that Troilus for a brown favour, for so ’tis, I must confess—not brown neither—

CRESSIDA No, but brown.

PANDARUS Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

CRESSIDA To say the truth, true and not true.

PANDARUS She praised his complexion above Paris’.

CRESSIDA Why, Paris hath colour enough.

PANDARUS So he has.

CRESSIDA Then Troilus should have too much. If she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen’s golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

PANDARUS I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

CRESSIDA Then she’s a merry Greek indeed.

PANDARUS Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th’other day into the compassed window, and you know he has not past three or four hairs on his chin—

CRESSIDA Indeed, a tapster’s arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. no

PANDARUS Why, he is very young—and yet will he within three pound lift as much as his brother Hector.

CRESSIDA Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?

PANDARUS But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin.

CRESSIDA Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?

PANDARUS Why, you know, ’tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.

CRESSIDA O he smiles valiantly.

PANDARUS Does he not?

CRESSIDA O yes, an’t were a cloud in autumn.

PANDARUS Why, go to then. But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus—

CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof if you’ll prove it so.

PANDARUS Troilus? Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.

CRESSIDA If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head you would eat chickens i’th’ shell.

PANDARUS I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess—

CRESSIDA Without the rack.

PANDARUS And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

CRESSIDA Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.

PANDARUS But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o’er.

CRESSIDA With millstones.

PANDARUS And Cassandra laughed.

CRESSIDA But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes—or did her eyes run o’er too?

PINDARUS And Hector laughed.

CRESSIDA At what was all this laughing?

PANDARUS Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on

Troilus’ chin.

CRESSIDA An’t had been a green hair I should have laughed too.

PANDARUS They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.

CRESSIDA What was his answer?

PANDARUS Quoth she, ‘Here’s but two-and-fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.’

CRESSIDA This is her question.

PINDARUS That’s true, make no question of that. ‘Two-and-fifty hairs,’ quoth he, ‘and one white? That white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.’ ‘Jupiter!’ quoth she, ‘which of these hairs is Paris my husband?’ ‘The forked one,’ quoth he, ‘pluck’t out and give it him.’ But there was such laughing, and Helen so blushed and Paris so chafed and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.

CRESSIDA So let it now, for it has been a great while going by.

PANDARUS Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday.

Think on’t.

CRESSIDA So I do.

PANDARUS I’ll be sworn ’tis true. He will weep you an’t were a man born in April.