Troy. Pandarus' Orchard.
 Enter PANDARUS and Troilus' MAN, meeting.

Pandarus	How now, where's thy master? At my cousin Cressida's?

Man	No, sir, he stays for you to conduct him thither.

                              Enter TROILUS.

Pandarus	O here he comes. How now, how now?

Troilus	Sirrah, walk off.
												[Exit MAN.
Pandarus	Have you seen my cousin?

Troilus	No, Pandarus; I stalk about her door
	Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
	Staying for waftage. O be thou my Charon,
	And give me swift transportance to those fields
	Where I may wallow in the lily beds
	Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,
	From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
	And fly with me to Cressid.

Pandarus	Walk here i'th' orchard; I'll bring her straight.
												[Exit.
Troilus	I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
	Th' imaginary relish is so sweet
	That it enchants my sense. What will it be
	When that the wat'ry palates taste indeed
	Love's thrice-repurd nectar? Death, I fear me,
	Sounding destruction, or some joy too fine,
	Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness
	For the capacity of my ruder powers.
	I fear it much; and I do fear besides
	That I shall lose distinction in my joys,
	As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
	The enemy flying.

                            Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pandarus	She's making her ready, she'll come straight. You must be 
	witty now; she does so blush, and fetches her wind so short 
	as if she were frayed with a sprite. I'll fetch her. It is 
	the prettiest villain! She fetches her breath as short as a 
	new ta'en sparrow.
												[Exit.

Troilus	Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.
	My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,
	And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
	Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
	The eye of majesty.

                 Re-enter PANDARUS, and CRESSIDA veiled.

Pandarus	Come, come, what need you blush? Shame's a baby.
	[To TROILUS.] Here she is now; swear the oaths now to her 
	that you have sworn to me.
	[To CRESSIDA.] What, are you gone again? You must be watched 
	ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your 
	ways; and you draw backward we'll put you i'th' fills.
	[To TROILUS.] Why do you not speak to her?
	[To CRESSIDA.] Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your 
	picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! 
	And 'twere dark, you'd close sooner.
	[To TROILUS.] So, so; rub on and kiss the mistress. How now, 
	a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter, the air is 
	sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. 
	The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i'th' river. Go 
	to, go to.

Troilus	You have bereft me of all words, lady.

Pandarus	Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she'll bereave you 
	o'th' deeds too, if she call your activity in question. 
	What, billing again? Here's "In witness whereof the parties 
	interchangeably" - Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.
												[Exit.
Cressida	Will you walk in, my lord?

Troilus	O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!

Cressida	Wished, my lord? The gods grant - O my lord!

Troilus	What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? 
	What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain 
	of our love?

Cressida	More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.

Troilus	Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly.

Cressida	Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing 
	than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst 
	oft cures the worse.

Troilus	O let my lady apprehend no fear; in all Cupid's pageant 
	there is presented no monster.

Cressida	Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Troilus	Nothing but our undertakings, when we vow to weep seas, live 
	in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our 
	mistress to devise imposition enough than for us to undergo 
	any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, 
	lady: that the will is infinite, and the execution confined; 
	that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.

Cressida	They say all lovers swear more performance than they are 
	able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; 
	vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less 
	than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of 
	lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?

Troilus	Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are tasted, 
	allow us as we prove. Our head shall go bare till merit 
	crown it. No perfection in reversion shall have a praise in 
	present. We will not name desert before his birth, and, 
	being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair 
	faith. Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say 
	worst shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can 
	speak truest, not truer than Troilus.

Cressida	Will you walk in, my lord?

                            Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pandarus	What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

Cressida	Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.

Pandarus	I thank you for that: if my lord get a boy of you, you'll 
	give him me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for 
	it.

Troilus	You know now your hostages: your uncle's word, and my firm 
	faith.

Pandarus	Nay, I'll give my word for her too. Our kindred, though they 
	be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won: 
	they are burrs, I can tell you - they'll stick where they 
	are thrown.

Cressida	Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.
	Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day
	For many weary months.

Troilus	Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

Cressida	Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
	With the first glance that ever - pardon me,
	If I confess much you will play the tyrant.
	I love you now, but till now not 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 blabbed? Who shall be true to us
	When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
	But, though I loved you well, I wooed you not;
	And yet, good faith, I wished 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 from me. Stop my mouth.

Troilus	And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
												[Kisses her.
Pandarus	Pretty, i'faith.

Cressida	My lord, I do beseech you pardon me;
	'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.
	I am ashamed. O heavens! what have I done?
	For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

Troilus	Your leave, sweet Cressid?

Pandarus	Leave? And you take leave till tomorrow morning-

Cressida	Pray you content you.

Troilus	What offends you, lady?

Cressida	Sir, mine own company.

Troilus	You cannot shun yourself.

Cressida	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. Where is my wit?
	I would be gone; I speak I know not what.

Troilus	Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.

Cressida	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.

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 truths 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 
	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 constant men be Troiluses, all false women 
	Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars. Say Amen.

Troilus	Amen.

Cressida	Amen.

Pandarus	Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with 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, and pander to provide this gear!
												[Exit.
