Act 3, Scene II - Page 2

words, lady.

PANDARUS
Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll
bereave you o' the deeds too, if she call your
activity in question. What, billing again? Here's
'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably'--
Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire.

Exit

CRESSIDA
Will you walk in, my lord?

TROILUS
O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!

CRESSIDA
Wished, my lord! The gods grant,--O my lord!

TROILUS
What should they grant? what makes this pretty
abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet
lady in the fountain of our love?

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

TROILUS
Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.

CRESSIDA
Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer
footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to
fear the worst oft cures the worse.

TROILUS
O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's
pageant there is presented no monster.

CRESSIDA
Nor nothing monstrous neither?

TROILUS
Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep
seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking
it harder for our mistress to devise imposition
enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed.
This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will
is infinite and the execution confined, that the
desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.

CRESSIDA
They say all lovers swear more performance than they
are able and yet reserve 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?

TROILUS
Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we
are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go
bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion
shall have a praise in present: we will not name
desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition
shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus
shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst
shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can
speak truest not truer than Troilus.

CRESSIDA
Will you walk in, my lord?

Re-enter PANDARUS

PANDARUS
What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet?

CRESSIDA
Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.

PANDARUS
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.

TROILUS
You know now your hostages; your uncle's word and my
firm faith.

PANDARUS
Nay, I'll give my word