Lady Sumner passes at the back, wringing her hands.
Groom. Pandar—Prince Pandarus of Troy!—why you,
You are the very spirit of the stage!
Orchard. You mean the part I play, not me myself.
Groom. What other meaning could I have? You are
The part you play, and nothing else besides.
Orchard. Now there you're wrong; I'm very much myself.
Groom. There's not a dozen actors in the town
Who can be anything but the part they play.
You are a glove, my prince, fit or misfit:
Suave to the fingers like a second skin;
Pushed on with wetted index, grunt, grimace;
Or like the gauntlet of a dwarf that splits
Upon a giant's thumb.
Orchard. And so are you!
Groom. So they would make me; but I'll be a hand—
As I have been. This play was made for me—
For Troilus; and I'll have the business changed,
Prince Pandarus of Troy. What kind of ape
Was he that played your Troilus? Heavens!—A glove
Would have rebelled. The whole rehearsed and drilled
For Cressida, Ulysses, Hector, Helen!
And Troilus—in the book at blood-heat—stuck
In the shade to freeze; cut, mangled, hanged, drawn, quartered!
I'll have my lines restored, my scenes rehearsed
According to their import. Pandar, room,
By your leave, for Troilus! Stand, Diomed!
Unmanned abortion, bowelless coward, stand!
Prince Pandarus of Troy, you are the stage,
The inner spirit and the outward man.
For what's the theatre but a splendid bawd—
A little passive recreation pitched
To span the abyss from dinner time till supper;
To season minds of maidens and of wives
With spice of marriage and adultery;
The shoeing-horn of whoredom and the nest
Of cuckolds.
[Abbot comes down with Salerne and several scene-shifters.]
Abbot. Now——