_Pan_. What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?
_Cre_. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.
_Pan_. 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.
_Troy_. You know now your hostages: 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 wooed, they are constant being won; they are burs, I
can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.
_Cre_. Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.
Prince Troylus, I have lov’d you night and day
For many weary months.
_Troy_. Why was my Creſſid then so hard to win?
_Cre_. 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 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.
_Troy_. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
_Pan_. Pretty, i’ faith.
_Cre_. 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.
_Troy_. Your leave, sweet Creſſid!
_Pan_. Leave! An you take leave till to-morrow morning-
_Cre_. Pray you, content you.
_Troy_. What offends you, lady?
_Cre_. Sir, mine own company.
_Troy_. You cannot shun yourself.
_Cre_. 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.
_Troy_. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
_Cre_. 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.
_Troy_. 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.
_Cre_. In that I’ll war with you.
_Troy_. 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 Troylus, 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 th’ centre-
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth’s authentic author to be cited,
‘As true as Troylus’ shall crown up the verse
And sanctify the numbers.
_Cre_. 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
From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood when th’ have 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.’
_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 call’d
to
the world’s end after my name-call them all Pandars; let all
constant men be Troyluses, all false women Creſſids, and all
brokers between Pandars. Say ‘Amen.’
_Troy_. Amen.
_Cre_. 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, pander, to provide this gear!
Exeunt
Flourish. Enter Agamemnon, Vlyſſes, Diomedes, Nestor, Aiax, Menelaus,
and Chalcas
_Cal_. Now, Princes, for the service I have done,
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 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 regist’red in promise,
Which you say live to come in my behalf.
_Agam_. What wouldst thou of us, Troian? Make demand.
_Cal_. You have a Troian 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; 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.
_Agam_. 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. Aiax is ready.
_Diom_. This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.
Exeunt Diomedes and Chalcas