Chapter: ACT III. SCENE 2.
Troy. PANDARUS' orchard

Enter PANDARUS and TROILUS' BOY, meeting

  PANDARUS. How now! Where's thy master? At my cousin Cressida's?
  BOY. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.

                      Enter TROILUS

  PANDARUS. O, here he comes. How now, how now!
  TROILUS. Sirrah, walk off.                  Exit Boy
  PANDARUS. Have you seen my cousin?
  TROILUS. No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door
    Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
    Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
    And give me swift transportance to these fields
    Where I may wallow in the lily beds
    Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,
    From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
    And fly with me to Cressid!
  PANDARUS. Walk here i' th' orchard, I'll bring her straight.
      Exit
  TROILUS. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
    Th' imaginary relish is so sweet
    That it enchants my sense; what will it be
    When that the wat'ry palate tastes indeed
    Love's thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;
    Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,
    Too subtle-potent, tun'd too sharp in sweetness,
    For the capacity of my ruder powers.
    I fear it much; and I do fear besides
    That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
    As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
    The enemy flying.

                     Re-enter PANDARUS

  PANDARUS. She's making her ready, she'll come straight; you must be
    witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as
    if she were fray'd with a sprite. I'll fetch her. It is the
    prettiest villain; she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta'en
    sparrow.
Exit
  TROILUS. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.
    My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,
    And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
    Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
    The eye of majesty.

              Re-enter PANDARUS With CRESSIDA

  PANDARUS. Come, come, what need you blush? Shame's a baby.-Here she
    is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.-
    What, are you gone again? You must be watch'd ere you be made
    tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw
    backward, we'll put you i' th' fills.-Why do you not speak to
    her?-Come, draw this curtain and let's see your picture.
    Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! An 'twere
    dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress
    How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air is
    sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The
    falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' th' river. Go to, go
    to.
  TROILUS. You have bereft me of all words, lady.
  PANDARUS. Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she'll bereave
    you o' th' 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 Cressid, how often have I wish'd me thus!
  CRESSIDA. Wish'd, 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 confin'd; 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 for her too: our kindred, though
    they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won;
    they are burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are
    thrown.
  CRESSIDA. Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.
    Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day
    For many weary months.
  TROILUS. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
  CRESSIDA. Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
    With the first glance that ever-pardon me.
    If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
    I love you now; but till now not so much
    But I might master it. In faith, I lie;
    My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
    Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
    Why have I blabb'd? Who shall be true to us,
    When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
    But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;
    And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man,
    Or that we women had men's privilege
    Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
    For in this rapture I shall surely speak
    The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
    Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
    My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.
  TROILUS. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
  PANDARUS. Pretty, i' faith.
  CRESSIDA. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;
    'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.
    I am asham'd. O heavens! what have I done?
    For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
  TROILUS. Your leave, sweet Cressid!
  PANDARUS. Leave! An you take leave till to-morrow morning-
  CRESSIDA. Pray you, content you.
  TROILUS. What offends you, lady?
  CRESSIDA. Sir, mine own company.
  TROILUS. You cannot shun yourself.
  CRESSIDA. Let me go and try.
    I have a kind of self resides with you;
    But an unkind self, that itself will leave
    To be another's fool. I would be gone.
    Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
  TROILUS. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
  CRESSIDA. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;
    And fell so roundly to a large confession
    To angle for your thoughts; but you are wise-
    Or else you love not; for to be wise and love
    Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
  TROILUS. O that I thought it could be in a woman-
    As, if it can, I will presume in you-
    To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
    To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
    Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind
    That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
    Or that persuasion could but thus convince me
    That my integrity and truth to you
    Might be affronted with the match and weight
    Of such a winnowed purity in love.
    How were I then uplifted! but, alas,
    I am as true as truth's simplicity,
    And simpler than the infancy of truth.
  CRESSIDA. In that I'll war with you.
  TROILUS. 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 truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,
    Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
    Want similes, truth tir'd 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 th' 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.
  CRESSIDA. Prophet may you be!
    If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
    When time is old and hath forgot itself,
    When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
    And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,
    And mighty states characterless are grated
    To dusty nothing-yet let memory
    From false to false, among false maids in love,
    Upbraid my falsehood when th' have said 'As false
    As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
    As fox to lamb, or 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.'
  PANDARUS. 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 call'd 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.'
  TROILUS. Amen.
  CRESSIDA. Amen.
  PANDARUS. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber
    and a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your
    pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!
    And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,
    Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!
Exeunt

 Pandarus and Troilus man meet. The man tells Pandarus that Troilus is waiting for him to conduct him to Cressidas. Troilus enters and the servant is dismissed. When asked if he has met Cressida yet, Troilus answers in negative. Pandarus answers without frills - his business-like literalism is in strong contrast to Troilus slightly strained hyperbole. He tells Troilus to Walk here ithorchard and adds that he will bring Cressida at once and exits. Troilus goes on in the same hyperbolic vein. He launches into a monologue on his fear of excessive delight. He says that he is giddy with expectation. The imagined relish of love is so sweet that his sense is enchanted. He wonders what will be the case when the salivating palate tastes Loves nectar. He answers himself that the results will probably be death at the most, sounding destruction, or it could give some joy too fine, of such an extreme pitch that the sense of sweetness would be lost altogether. Pandarus re-enters and tells him that Cressida is readying herself to come to him. He tells him to be alert and that Cressida is blushing and short of breath, as if she was frightened of a ghost. He says that he will bring her and mentions again that she is panting, fetches her breath as short as a new taen sparrow. Pandarus exits again. Troilus says that a similar passion is consuming him. His heart was beating thicker than a feverous pulse, and all his faculties were becoming useless like a vassal who, all of a sudden, encounters the eye of Majesty. Pandarus and Cressida enter, and Pandarus proceeds to bring the couple together. Troilus tells Cressida that she has bereft him of words. Pandarus says Words pay no debts, give her deeds - meaning enough of chatter, get down to the action. Deeds here mean copulation. Pandarus continues that Cressida would deprive Troilus of the deeds too if his activity was in question. Then as the couple start kissing again, Pandarus quotes a common legal formula: In witness whereof the parties interchangeably, managing to play with a sexual implication. Before he exits, he asks them to go inside. Cressida and Troilus speak, and the dialogue until Pandarus enters is riddling and affected. It can be called as a parody of court speech. Troilus tells Cressida that he has often wished to be in the state he is in right then. Cressida says the lords have granted his wish and abruptly interrupts herself. Troilus asks her the matter. Cressida hints at her fears. She hesitates. Troilus tells her not to worry. She asks if lovers who have the voice of lions and the act of hares are not monsters. Troilus says that they are not like those lovers. His lines express a profound regret - not merely that lovers should be less than they claim to be, but that no love can ever find its proper and sufficient mode of utterance. All speech and all action come short. Using images of gestation and childbirth, Troilus says they arent like the lovers who have the voice of lions and the act of hares. Pandarus enters and asks if they havent finished with talking. Cressida tells him that she dedicates whatever lechery she is about to commit, to him.. Pandarus playfully thanks her and says that if she became pregnant with a boy she would have to give it to him. He tells her to be true to Troilus, and that if he flinches, she can scold him for it. Troilus tells Cressida that she has her uncles word and his faith. Pandarus insists that he give his word for Cressida too. He says that though his kindred might take a long time to be wooed, once they are won they are constant. He compares his kindred in this case Cressida to burs or seed vessel of goose grass that will stick to the surface that they are thrown at. Cressida says that she has grown suddenly bold and confesses to Troilus that I have lovd you night and day/ For many weary months.

