ACTI

youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt

tha t

season a man?

Cres.

baked with no date in the pie, for then the man's 280

Ay, a minced man: and then to be

date 's out.

Pan. You are such a woman! at what ward you lie.

Cres.

upon

one knows not

Upon my back, to defend my belly; my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: at all these wards I lie, at

and

watches.

Pan. Say

one of

your watches.

Cres. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past watching.

Pan. You are such another!

Enter TROILUS's Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with

you.

Pan. Where ?

Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him.
Pan. Good boy, tell him I come.

I doubt he be hurt.

Cres. Adieu, uncle.

Fare ye well, good niece.

Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by.

280. date; the date was much used in Elizabethan cookery, hence a frequent quibble.

283. at what ward you lie, what posture of defence you assume (metaphor from fencing).

290

293. watch you for telling, watch lest you tell.

302. doubt he be, fear he is.
304. I'll be with you.
bring meant
out, be even with you,' hence
'I will pay you
Cressida's quibble.

382

Cres. To bring, uncle?

Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus.

Cres. By the same token, you are a bawd.

[Exit Pandarus. Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice, He offers in another's enterprise :

But more in Troilus thousand fold I see

Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not

this:

Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew

Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach :
Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:
Then though my heart's content firm love doth
bear,

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before
Agamemnon's tent.

Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES,
MENELAUS, and others.

Agam. Princes,

What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below

312. wooing, i.e. while stil unwon.

319. Achievement is command, etc., when we are won we re

310

320

ceive command, while unwon, entreaties.

Sennet, set of notes on the trumpet.

Fails in the promised largeness; checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,

As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far

That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought

That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,

Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works, And call them shames? which are indeed nought else

But the protractive trials of great Jove

To find persistive constancy in men:

The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,

The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter, by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat,

9. Tortive and errant, twisted and turned astray.

II. suppose, expectation. 13-15. every action. . . did draw bias and thwart, all our schemes and actions have been distorted and thwarted in the execution.

20

30

25. affined, related. 30. unmingled (four syllables).

31. thy godlike, Theobald's emendation for Q the godlike, Ff thy godly.

Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply

Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains
cut,

Bounding between the two moist elements,

Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat
Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now

Co-rivall❜d greatness?

Either to harbour fled,

Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so

Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide

In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing

of courage

As roused with rage with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in selfsame key

Retorts to chiding fortune.
Ulyss.

Agamemnon,

40

50

The

swiftest ship in the world.
two moist elements are sea and
air.

45. made a toast. Toast was commonly soaked in liquor or butter, as the boat in sea water. Cf. v. 113.

48. breese, gadfly.

51. fled, have fled. Capell read flee.

54. Retorts, Dyce's emendation for Q and Ff retyres.

2 C

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit,
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides the applause and approbation

The which, [To Agamemnon] most mighty for
thy place and sway,

[To Nestor] And thou most reverend for thy

stretch'd-out life

I give to both your speeches, which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass, and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,

Should with a bond of air, strong as the axletree
On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

Agam. Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be 't of less expect

That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips, than we are confident,

When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,

We shall hear music, wit and oracle.

Ulyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,

65. hatch'd in silver, silverhaired, from the analogy of the fine parallel lines hatched, as a ground or ornament in metal engraving. But the phrase also conveys the suggestion that Nestor's speech like Agamemnon's is worthy to be engraved and held up high' in the silver appropriate to his white hairs. The following lines introduce a conflicting image. Eloquence was often symbolised in sculpture by chains connecting the

70

speaker's tongue with the ears of his audience.

70-74. Agammenon's speech is omitted in Q.

73. mastic (Ff masticke), vituperative. The epithet is interesting as possibly containing a reference to the Histriomastix. See Introduction. The Greek μáoтis was the ultimate source of a word; but Shakespeare had probably met with the Latin derivative mastigia, scourge,' in