Уильям Шекспир - The History of Troilus and Cressida

    In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
    The princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,
    Have to the port of Athens sent their ships
    Fraught with the ministers and instruments
    Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore
    Their crownets regal from th' Athenian bay
    Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
    To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
    The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
    With wanton Paris sleeps-and that's the quarrel.
    To Tenedos they come,
    And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
    Their war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains
    The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
    Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
    Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
    And Antenorides, with massy staples
    And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
    Sperr up the sons of Troy.
    Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits
    On one and other side, Troyan and Greek,
    Sets all on hazard-and hither am I come
    A Prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
    Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
    In like conditions as our argument,
    To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
    Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
    Beginning in the middle; starting thence away,
    To what may be digested in a play.
    Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
    Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

  TROILUS. Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again.
    Why should I war without the walls of Troy
    That find such cruel battle here within?
    Each Troyan that is master of his heart,
    Let him to field; Troilus, alas, hath none!
  PANDARUS. Will this gear ne'er be mended?
  TROILUS. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
    Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
    But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
    Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
    Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
    And skilless as unpractis'd infancy.
  PANDARUS. Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part,
    I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake
    out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
  TROILUS. Have I not tarried?
  PANDARUS. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.
  TROILUS. Have I not tarried?
  PANDARUS. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.
  TROILUS. Still have I tarried.
  PANDARUS. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word
    'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating
    of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling
too,
    or you may chance to burn your lips.
  TROILUS. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,
    Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.
    At Priam's royal table do I sit;
    And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts-
    So, traitor, then she comes when she is thence.
  PANDARUS. Well, she look'd yesternight fairer than ever I saw
her
    look, or any woman else.
  TROILUS. I was about to tell thee: when my heart,
    As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
    Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
    I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
    Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.
    But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness
    Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
  PANDARUS. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's-
well,
    go to- there were no more comparison between the women. But,
for
    my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it,
    praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk
yesterday, as
    I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit;
but-
  TROILUS. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus-
    When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown'd,
    Reply not in how many fathoms deep
    They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
    In Cressid's love. Thou answer'st 'She is fair'-
    Pourest in the open ulcer of my heart-
    Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
    Handlest in thy discourse. O, that her 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 it. 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 a
Friday
    as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she
were a
    blackamoor; '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' th' 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. Sound
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 starv'd 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 wand'ring flood;
    Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
    Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.