Act 1, Scene II

SCENE II. The Same. A street.

Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER
CRESSIDA
Who were those went by?

ALEXANDER
Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA
And whither go they?

ALEXANDER
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was moved:
He chid Andromache and struck his armourer,
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

CRESSIDA
What was his cause of anger?

ALEXANDER
The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDA
Good; and what of him?

ALEXANDER
They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.

CRESSIDA
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDER
This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their
particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion,
churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man
into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his
valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with
discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he
hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he
carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without
cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the
joints of every thing, but everything so out of joint
that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use,
or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDA
But how should this man, that makes
me smile, make Hector angry?

ALEXANDER
They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and
struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath
ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

CRESSIDA
Who comes here?

ALEXANDER
Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

Enter PANDARUS

CRESSIDA
Hector's a gallant man.

ALEXANDER
As may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUS
What's that? what's that?

CRESSIDA
Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS
Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of?
Good morrow, Alexander. How do you, cousin? When
were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDA
This morning, uncle.

PANDARUS
What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector
armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not
up, was she?

CRESSIDA
Hector was gone, but Helen was not up.

PANDARUS
Even so: Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDA
That were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUS