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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

ACT III. SCENE 3. The Greek camp

Flourish. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS

CALCHAS.

Now, Princes, for the service I have done,

Th' advantage of the time prompts me aloud

To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind

That, through the sight I bear in things to come,

I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,

Incurr'd a traitor's name, expos'd myself

From certain and possess'd conveniences

To doubtful fortunes, sequest'ring from me all

That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,

Made tame and most familiar to my nature;

And here, to do you service, am become

As new into the world, strange, unacquainted-

I do beseech you, as in way of taste,

To give me now a little benefit

Out of those many regist'red in promise,

Which you say live to come in my behalf.

AGAMEMNON.

What wouldst thou of us, Troyan? Make demand.

CALCHAS.

You have a Troyan prisoner call'd Antenor,

Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.

Oft have you-often have you thanks therefore-

Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange,

Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor,

I know, is such a wrest in their affairs

That their negotiations all must slack

Wanting his manage; and they will almost

Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,

In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes,

And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence

Shall quite strike off all service I have done

In most accepted pain.

AGAMEMNON.

Let Diomedes bear him,

And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall have

What he requests of us. Good Diomed,

Furnish you fairly for this interchange;

Withal, bring word if Hector will to-morrow

Be answer'd in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

DIOMEDES.

This shall I undertake;