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.