Act 1, Scene I - Page 2

hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me,
As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

PANDARUS
I speak no more than truth.

TROILUS
Thou dost not speak so much.

PANDARUS
Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is:
if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be
not, she has the mends in her own hands.

TROILUS
Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus!

PANDARUS
I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of
her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and
between, but small thanks for my labour.

TROILUS
What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

PANDARUS
Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair
as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as
fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care
I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me.

TROILUS
Say I she is not fair?

PANDARUS
I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to
stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so
I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part,
I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter.

TROILUS
Pandarus,--

PANDARUS
Not I.

TROILUS
Sweet Pandarus,--

PANDARUS
Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I
found it, and there an end.

Exit PANDARUS. An alarum

TROILUS
Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus,--O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo.
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.

Alarum. Enter AENEAS

AENEAS
How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield?

TROILUS
Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, AEneas, from the field to-day?

AENEAS
That Paris is returned home and hurt.

TROILUS
By