Andro. You shall be
My knight this day; you shall not wear a cause
So black as Helen's rape upon your breast.
Let Paris fight for Helen; guilt for guilt:
But when you fight for honour and for me,
Then let our equal gods behold an act,
They may not blush to crown.
Hect. Æneas, go,
And bear my challenge to the Grecian camp.
If there be one amongst the best of Greece,
Who holds his honour higher than his ease,
Who knows his valour, and knows not his fear;
Who loves his mistress more than in confession,
And dares avow her beauty and her worth,
In other arms than hers,—to him this challenge.
I have a lady of more truth and beauty,
Than ever Greek did compass in his arms;
And will to-morrow, with the trumpet's call,
Mid-way between their tents and these our walls,
287 Maintain what I have said. If any come,
My sword shall honour him; if none shall dare,
Then shall I say, at my return to Troy,
The Grecian dames are sun-burnt, and not worth
The splinter of a lance.
Æn. It shall be told them,
As boldly as you gave it.
Priam. Heaven protect thee![Exeunt.
SCENE II.
Enter Pandarus and Cressida.
Pand. Yonder he stands, poor wretch! there stands he with such a look, and such a face, and such begging eyes! there he stands, poor prisoner!
Cress. What a deluge of words do you pour out, uncle, to say just nothing?
Pand. Nothing, do you call it! is that nothing, do you call that nothing? why he looks, for all the world, like one of your rascally malefactors, just thrown off the gibbet, with his cap down, his arms tied down, his feet sprunting, his body swinging. Nothing do you call it? this is nothing, with a vengeance!
Cress. Or, what think you of a hurt bird, that flutters about with a broken wing?