I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.
Tro. 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 protést, of oath, and big compare,
Want 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 the 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.

Cres.

Prophet may you be!

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself;

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, AJAX,
NESTOR, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

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

The 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 Jove
I have abandoned Troy; left my possessions,
Incurred a traitor's name; exposed myself,
From certain and possessed conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; sequestering 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

When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy, As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:

And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,
And mighty states charácterless are grated

To dusty nothing; yet let memory,

From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood! when they have said-
as false

As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
As fox to lamb, as 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 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.

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will shew you a chamber with a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death away.

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.

Agam. What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make
demand.

Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, called An

tenor,

Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore)
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.

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 answered in his challenge: Ajax is ready.

Patr. They pass by strangely: they were used
to bend,

[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS. To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly as they used to creep
To holy altars.
Achil.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their
Tent.

Nes. Would you, my lord, aught with the gen- How much in having, or without, or in

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; The providence that's in a watchful state,

Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps;
Keeps place with thought, and almost like the
gods,

Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery (with whom relation
Durst never meddle) in the soul of state;
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to:
All the commérce that you have had with Troy,
As perfectly as ours is yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much,
To throw down Hector than Polyxena:

But it must grieve young Pyrrhus, now at home,
When fame shall in our islands sound her trump,
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,
"Great Hector's sister did Achilles win;
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him."
Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak;
The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.
[Exit.
Patr. To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you:
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemned for this:
They think, my little stomach to the war,
And your great love to me, restrains you thus:
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dewdrop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air.

Achil. Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
Patr. Ay; and, perhaps, receive much honor
by him.

Achil. I see my reputation is at stake; My fame is shrewdly gored.

Patr.

O, then beware;

To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full of view. A labor saved!
Enter THERSITES.

Ther. A wonder!

Achil. What?

Ther. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

Achil. How so?

Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector; and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgeling, that he raves in saying nothing. Achil. How can that be?

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say, "There were wit in this head, an 't would out:" and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not shew 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 said, "Good-morrow, Ajax;" and he replies, "Thanks, Agamemnon." What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He is grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides like a leather jerkin.

Achil. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Ther. Who, I? why he'll answer nobody; he professes not answering; speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in his arms. I will put on his presence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you

Those wounds heal ill that men do give them- shall see the pageant of Ajax.

selves :

Omission to do what is necessary

Seals a commission to a blank of danger;

And danger, like an ague, subtly taints

Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

Achil. To him, Patroclus: tell him, I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person, of the magnanimous and most illustrious, six-or-seven-times hon

Achil. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patro- ored captain-general of the Grecian army, Aga

clus:

I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him

To invite the Trojan lords, after the combat,

To see us here unarmed: I have a woman's longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,

memnon. Do this.

Patr. Jove bless great Ajax!

Ther. Humph!

Patr. I come from the worthy Achilles,-
Ther. Ha!

Patr. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent;

Ther. Humph!

Ther. No, but he's out o' tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not: but I am sure, none,

Patr. And to procure safe conduct from Aga- unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make

memnon.

Ther. Agamemnon?

Patr. Ay, my lord.

Ther. Ha!

Patr. What say you to 't?

Ther. God be wi' you, with all my heart.

Patr. Your answer, sir.

Achil. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred;

Ther. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven And I myself see not the bottom of it.
o'clock it will go one way or other; howsoever, he
shall pay for me ere he has me.
Patr. Your answer, sir.

Ther. Fare you well, with all my heart.
Achil. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

[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 sheep, than such a valiant ig[Exit.

norance.

SCENE I.—Troy. A Street.

ACT IV.

Enter, at one side, ENEAS, and Servant, with a torch; at the other, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES, and others, with torches.

Par. See, ho! who is that there?

Dei. It is the lord Eneas.

Ene. Is the prince there in person?

Had I so good occasion to lie long

By Jove! I'll play the hunter for thy life,
With all my force, pursuit, and policy.
Ene. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly
With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
—
Now, by Anchises' life,

Welcome to Troy!

Welcome, indeed!

By Venus' hand I swear,

No man alive can love, in such a sort,

The thing he means to kill, more excellently.

Dio. We sympathise:-Jove, let Eneas live,

As you, prince Paris, nothing but heavenly busi- If to my sword his fate be not the glory,

ness

Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

A thousand cómplete courses of the sun!
But, in mine emulous honor, let him die,

Dio. That's my mind too. - Good morrow, lord With every joint a wound; and that to-morrow!

Eneas.

Par. A valiant Greek, Eneas; 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.

Ene. Health to you, valiant sir,
During all question of the gentle truce:
But when I meet you armed, as black defiance
As heart can think, or courage execute.

Dio. The one and other Diomed embraces.
Our bloods are now in calm; and so long, health:
But when contention and occasion meet,

Ene. We know each other well.

Dio. We do and long to know each other

worse.

Par. This is the most despiteful gentle greeting, The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of. What business, lord, so early!

Ene. I was sent for to the king; but why, I

know not.

Par. His purpose meets you; 'twas to bring
this Greek

To Calchas' house; and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.