TROILUS

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,

Outliving 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 winnowed 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.

CRESSIDA

In that I’ll war with you.

TROILUS

O virtuous fight,

When right with right wars who shall be most right.

True swains in love shall in the world to come

Approve their truth by Troilus. When their rhymes,

Full of protest, of oath and big compare,

Wants similes, truth tired 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 th’ 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.

CRESSIDA

Prophet may you be!

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,

When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When water drops have worn the stones of Troy

And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,

And mighty states characterless are grated

To dusty nothing, yet let memory

From false to false among false maids in love

Upbraid my falsehood. When they’ve said, ‘as false

As air, as water, wind or sandy earth,

As fox to lamb, or 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’.

PANDARUS 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 pain to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name: call them all panders. Let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between panders. Say ‘Amen’.

TROILUS Amen.

CRESSIDA Amen.

PANDARUS Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a bed—which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!

Exeunt Troilus and Cressida

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here

Bed, chamber, pander to provide this gear. Exit

3.3 Flourish. Enter Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Ajax, and Calchas

CALCHAS

Now, princes, for the service I have done you,

Th‘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 come

I have abandoned Troy, left my profession,

Incurred a traitor’s name, exposed myself

From certain and possessed 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 registered in promise

Which you say live to come in my behalf.

AGAMEMNON

What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.

CALCHAS

You have a Trojan prisoner called Antenor,

Yesterday took. Troy holds him very dear.

Oft have you—often have you thanks therefor—

Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,

Whom Troy hath still denied. But this Antenor

I know is such a wrest in their affairs

That their negotiations 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.

AGAMEMNON

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 tomorrow

Be answered in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

DIOMEDES

This shall I undertake, and ’tis a burden

Which I am proud to bear. Exit with Calchas

Enter Achilles and Patroclus in their tent

ULYSSES

Achilles stands i‘th’ entrance of his tent.

Please it our general 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 turned on

him.

If so, I have derision medicinable

To use between your strangeness and his pride,

Which his own will shall have desire to drink.