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.
CRESSIDA.
Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.
Prince Troilus, I have lov’d you night and day
For many weary months.
TROILUS.
Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
CRESSIDA.
Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever—pardon me.
If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but till now not so much
But I might master it. In faith, I lie;
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabb’d? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I lov’d you well, I woo’d you not;
And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,
Or that we women had men’s privilege
Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
For in this rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.