blush, and fetches her wind fo fhort, as if the were
frayed with a fprite: I'll fetch her. It is the
prettiest villain-fhe fetches her breath as thort
as a new-ta'en sparrow.
[Exit Pandarus.

Troi. Even fuch a paffion doth embrace my

bofom :

My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lofe,
Like vaffalage at unawares encount'ring
The eye of majesty.

Enter Pandaras, and Creffida.

5

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 discharging 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 per10fection in reverfion fhall have a praise in prefent:

Pan. Come, come, what need you blufh?
fhame's a baby. Here the is now: fwear the
oaths now to her, that you have fworn to me.-
What, are you gone again? you must be watch'd 15
ere you be made tame 1, must you? Come your
ways, come your ways; an you draw back-
ward, we'll put you i' the files -Why do you
not speak to her!-Come, draw this curtain, and
let's fee your picture. Alas the day, how loth 20
you are to offend day-light! an 'twere dark, you'd
clofe fooner. So, fo; rub on, and kifs the mif-
trefs. How now, a kiss in fee-farm! build there,
carpenter; the air is fweet. Nay, you fhall
fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The faul-25
con as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river 3:
go to, go to.

Troi. You have bereft me of all words, lady.
Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds:

we will not name defert, before his birth; and being born, his addition fhall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus fhall be fuch to Creffid, as what envy can say worst, shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest, not truer than Troilus.

Cre. Will you walk in, my lord?

Re-enter Pandarus.

Pan. What, blushing ftill? 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.

Troi. You know now your hoftages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too;

but the'll bereave you of the deeds too, if the cail 30 our kindred, though they be long ere they are

your activity in queftion. What, billing again? here's-In switness whereof the parties interchangeably Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.

[Exit Pandarus.

Cre. Will you walk in, my lord? 35 Troi. O Creffida, how often have I wifh'd me thus?

Cre. With'd, my lord?-The gods grant!-0 my lord!

Troi. What should they grant? what makes this 40 pretty abruption? What too curious dreg efpies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

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

woo'd, they are conftant, being won: they are burrs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown.

Cre. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me
heart:

Prince Troilus, I have lov`d you night and day,
For many weary months.

Troi. Why was my Creffid then fo hard to win?
Cre. Hard to feem won, but I was won, my
lord,

With the first glance that ever-Pardon me :-
If I confefs much, you will play the tyrant,

I love you now; but not, 'till now, so much
But I might mafter it :-in faith, I lye;

Troi. Fears make devils of cherubims; they 45 My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown never fee truly.

Cre. Blind fear, that feeing reafon leads, finds fafer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: To fear the worst, oft cures the worst.

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 ourselves?
But though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;

Troi. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all 50 And yet, good faith, I wifh'd myself a man;
Cupid's pageant there is prefented no monster.
Cre. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Troi. Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep feas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tygers; thinking it harder for our mistress 55 to devife impofition enough, than for us to undergo any difficulty impofed. This is the monftruofity in love, lady,-that the will is infinite, and the execution confin'd; that the defire is boundless, and the act a flave to limit.

I Alluding to the manner of taming hawks.

Or, that we women had men's privilege
Of fpeaking firft. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue;
For, in this rapture, I fhall furely speak
The thing I fhall repent. See, fee, your filence,
Cunning in dumbnefs, from my weakness draws
My very foul of counfel: Stop my mouth.

Troi. And fhall, albeit fweet mufick iffues thence.
Pan. Pretty, i'faith.

Cre. My lord, I do befeech you, pardon me; 60Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss:

2 Alluding to the custom of putting men fufpected

of cowardice in the middle places. 3 Pandarus means, that he'll match his niece against her lover

for any bett. The tercel is the male hawk; by the faulcon we generally understand the female.

will give him no high or pompous titles.

4 We

I am

I am afham'd;-O heavens! what have I done?-
For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

Troi. Your leave, fweet Creffid?

Pan. Leave! an you take leave 'till to-morrow morning,

Cre. Pray you, content you.
Troi. What offends you, lady?
Cre. Sir, mine own company.
Troi. You cannot shun yourself.
Cre. Let me go and try:

I have a kind of felf refides with you;
But an unkind self, that itself will leave,

To be another's fool. I would be gone :-
Where is my wit? I speak I know not what.

From false to false, among false maids in love, [false
Upbraid my falfhood! when they have faid-as
As air, as water, wind, or fandy earth,
As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,

5 Pard to the hind, or step-dame to her fon;
Yea, let them fay, to stick the heart of falfhood,
As falfe as Creffid.

Pan. Go to, a bargain made: feal it, feal it: I'll be the witnefs.Here I hold your hand; 10 here, my coufin's. If ever you prove false 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,

Troi. Well know they what they speak, that 15 all false women Creffids, and all brokers-between speak fo wifely.

Cre. Perchance, my lord, I fhew more craft

than love;

And fell fo roundly to a large confeffion,

To angle for your thoughts: But you are wife;
Or else you love not; For to be wife, and love,
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
Troi. 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 conftancy in plight and youth,
Out-living beauties outward, with a mind
That doth renew fwifter than blood decays!
Or that perfuafion could but thus convince me,-
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of fuch a winnow'd purity in love;
How were I then uplifted! but, alas,

I am as true as truth's fimplicity,

And fimpler than the infancy of truth.

Cre. In that I'll war with you.

Trai. O virtuous fight,

[right!

When right with right wars who fhall be moft
True fwains in love fhall, in the world to come,

Pandars! fay amen.

Troi. Amen.

Cre. Amen.

The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
35 To call for recompence. Appear it to your mind,
That, through the fight I bear in things, to Jove
I have abandon'd Troy, left my poffeffions,
Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and poffeft conveniences,

Approve their truths by Troilus: when their 40 To doubtful fortunes; sequestring from me all

rhymes,

Full of proteft, of oath, and big compare,
Want fimilies, truth tir'd with iteration,-
As true as fteel 2, as plantage 3 to the moon,
As fun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the center,
Yet after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentic author to be cited,

As true as Troilus fhall crown up the verfe,
And fanctify the numbers.

Cre. Prophet may you be!

If I be falfe, or fwerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When water-drops have worn the ftones of Troy,
And blind oblivion fwallow'd cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated
To dufty nothing; yet let memory,

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:
45 I do befeech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit,

50

Out of thofe many register'd in promise,
Which, you fay, live to come in my behalf.
Aga. What would'st thou of us, Trojan? make

demand.

Cal. You have a Trojan prifoner, call'd Antenor,
Yefterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore)
Defir'd my Creffid in right great exchange,
55 Whom Troy hath ftill deny'd: But this Antenor
I know, is fuch a wreft in their affairs,
That their negociations all must slack,

"I wish," my integrity might be met and matched with fuch equality and force of pure unmingled love." 2 This is an ancient proverbial fimile. 3 Formerly neither sowing, planting, nor grafting, were ever undertaken without a scrupulous 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 increase of the moone maketh plants fruitfull: fo as in the full moone they are in the best strength; decaieing in the wane; and in the conjunction to utterlie wither and vade."

Wanting

Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a fon of Priam,
In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite ftrike off all service I have done,
In most accepted pain 1.

Aga. Let Diomedes bear him,

And bring us Creffid hither; Calchas fhall have
What he requests of us.-Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this enterchange:
Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Diom. This fhall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

5

He fhall as foon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Shew not their mealy wings, but to the fummer;
And not a man, for being fimply man,

Hath any honour; but's honour'd for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

[out

Which when they fall, as being flippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as flippery too,
10 Doth one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not fo with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did poffefs,
Save thefe men's looks; who do, methinks, find
Something in me not worth that rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulyffes;
I'll interrupt his reading.How now, Ulyffes?
Ulyff. Now, great Thetis' fon?
Achil. What are you reading?
Uly. A ftrange fellow here

[Exit Diomed, and Calchas. 15
Enter Achilles and Patroclus, before their tent.
Ulyff. Achilles ftands i' the entrance of his tent :-
Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot;-and, princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him ;———
I will come laft: 'Tis like he'll question me,
Why fuch unplaufive eyes are bent, why turn'd
on him:

If fo, I have derifion med'cinable,

To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have defire to drink;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To fhew itself, but pride; for fupple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.

2C

Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted 2,
How much in having, or without, or in,-
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
25 As when his virtues fhining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Acbil. This is not strange, Ulyffes.
The beauty that is borne here in the face,
30 The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself
(That most pure spirit of sense) behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye oppos'd
Salutes each other with each other's form.
For fpeculation turns not to itself,

Aga. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along ;-
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or elfe difdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.
Acbil. What, comes the general to speak with 35

Neft. Would you, my lord, aught with the gene-40
Acbil. No.

Neft. Nothing, my lord?

Aga. The better.

Arbil. Good day, good day.

Men. How do you? how do you?

Acbil. What, does the cuckold fcorn me?
Ajax. How now, Patroclus?

Acbil. Good morrow, Ajax.

Ajax. Ha?

Acbil. Good morrow.

Ajax. Ay, and good next day too.

[Excunt.

Acbil. What mean these fellows? know they
not Achilles?

[bend,

Patr. They país by strangely: they were us'd to
To fend their fmiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly, as they us'd to creep
To holy altars.

Acbil. What, am I poor of late?

Till it hath travell'd, and is marry'd there
Where it may fee itself: this is not strange at all.
Ulyss. I do not strain at the position,

It is familiar; but at the author's drift:
Who, in his circumstance 3, exprefsly proves-
That no man is the lord of any thing,
(Though in and of him there is much confifting)
'Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught

45 Till he behold them form'd in the applause
Where they are extended; which, like an arch,
reverberates

The voice again; or like a gate of steel
Fronting the fun, receives and renders back

50 His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately

55

The unknown+ Ajax.

Heavens, what a man is there! a very horfe;

That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are,

Most abject in regard, and dear in use!

What things again most dear in the esteem, And poor in worth! Now fhall we fee to-morrow An act that very chance doth throw upon him, Muft fall out with men too: What the declin'd is,|60| Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,

'Tis certain, Greatnefs, once fallen out with fortune,

1 i. e. Her prefence fall ftrike off, or recompence the fervice I have done, even in these labours which were most accepted. 2i.e. however excellently endorved, 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 ufc.

[vour'd 15

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-
That all, with one confent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things paft; 45
And fhew to duft, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gilt o'er-dufted.

The prefent eye praises the prefent object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not ftirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,
And cafe thy reputation in thy tent;
Whofe glorious deeds, but in thefe fields of late,
Made emulous miffions 2'mongst the gods them-
And drave great Mars to faction.

To creep is to keep out of fight, from whatever motive. The meaning is, Some men keep out of notice in the hall of fortune, while others, though they but play the ideot, are always in her eye, in the way of diftinétion. 2 The meaning of miffion, Dr. Johnton fays, feems to be dispatches of the gods from heaven about mortal bufinefs, fuch as often happened at the fiege of Troy. 3 Polyxena, in the at of marrying whom, he was afterwards killed by Paris. 4 i. e. There is a fecret administration of affairs, which no biftory was ever able to difcover. 5 i. e. By neglecting our duty we commission or enable that danger of dishonour, which could not reach us before, to lay hold upon us.

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a pea-10 cock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hoftefs, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to fet down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard 1, as who should say-there were wit in this head, an 'twould out; and fo there is; 15 but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show 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. He knows not me: I faid, Good-morrow, Ajax ;|20| and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monfter. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both fides, like a leather jerkin.

Acbil. Thou must be my embaffador to him, Therfites.

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 25 out his brains, I know not: But, I am fure, none e; unlefs the fidler Apollo get his finews to make catlings 2 on. [ftraight. Acbil. 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.

Ther, Who, I? why, he'll answer no body; he profeffes not answering; speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in his arms. I will 30 put on his presence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall fee the pageant of Ajax.

Acbil. To him, Patroclus: Tell him,-I humbly defire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to 35 procure fafe conduct for his perfon,of the magnanimous, and most illuftrious, fix-or-feven-times-ho

[Exeunt Achilles, and Patroclus. Ther. 'Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a fheep, than fuch a valiant ignorance.

[Exit.

SCENE
A Street in Troy.

АСТ

I.

Par. A valiant Greek, Æneas; take his hand :
Witness the process of your speech, wherein
You told how Diomed, a whole week by days,
Did haunt you in the field.

60

IV.

Ene. Health to you, valiant fir,
During all queftion 3 of the gentle truce:
But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance,
As heart can think, or courage execute.

Dio. The one and other Diomed embraces..
Our bloods are now in calm; and, fo long, health:
But when contention and occafion meet,
By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life,
With all my force, purfuit, and policy.

Ene. And thou fhalt hunt a lion, that will fly
With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchifes' life,
Welcome, indeed! By Venus' hand I fwear,
No man alive can love, in fuch a fort,
The thing he means to kill, more excellently.
Dio. We fympathize:Jove, let Æneas live,
If to my fword his fate be not the glory,

I With a fly look. 2 A catling fignifies a small lute-ftring made of catgut. intercourfe, interchange of conversation.

3 Queftion here means

A thou