Trough

“ Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
Do to this body what extremes you can,
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth,
Drawing all things to it. I’ll go in and weep—
PANDARUS.
Do, do.
CRESSIDA.
Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,
Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart,
With sounding ‘Troilus.’ I will not go from Troy.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Troy. A street before Pandarus’ house. Enter Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Deiphobus, Antenor and Diomedes. ”

“ That’s Deiphobus. ’Tis Troilus. There’s a man, niece. Hem! Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!
CRESSIDA.
Peace, for shame, peace!
PANDARUS.
Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece; look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hack’d than Hector’s; and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he never saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were a grace or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. ”

“ A word, my lord—Your pardon, Diomede—
Your brother Troilus, to my certain knowledge,
Does lodge this night in Pandarus's house.
Hect. Go you before. Tell him of our approach,
Which will, I fear, be much unwelcome to him.
Æn. I assure you,
Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece,
Than Cressida from Troy.
Hect. I know it well; and how he is, beside,
Of hasty blood.
Æn. He will not hear me speak;
But I have noted long betwixt you two
A more than brother's love; an awful homage
The fiery youth pays to your elder virtue.
Hect. Leave it to me; I'll manage him alone ”

“ Is the legend of pathetic tenderness in the impassioned “Troilus,” and “the sillie woman who falsed Troilus,” ever to be closed? there may we pursue the vicissitudes of love, in what the poet calls “a little tragedy;” and we find Ovidian graces amid its utter simplicity. There are, indeed, vicissitudes of taste as well as of love. “Troilus and Cressida” was the favourite in the days of Henry VIII. over the “Canterbury Tales” and “The Floure and the Leafe;” it was, too, the model of Sidney in the court of Elizabeth; Love triumphed at court over Humour and Fancy. ”

“ The fugitive who had lately read to the boy Royal sonorous words of the twelve youths of Troy felt strangely dizzy as he pondered on the carven tribute to his ancestor. It began, as he well remembered, “A soldier of the Revolution and of God.” Dizzy as he was, he would like to recite the whole of that inscription, with the proper emphasis, for the youngster’s benefit. Where was the kid, that little Lord Bountiful, “a traveller like myself”? Oh, yes, he remembered now, but with immense, overpowering difficulty. The boy had vanished, fled away on the wings of an Iliad. ”

“ When we got to the transept Maria turned a little, as though she was going to the transept door, and then stopped herself. She stood still; and when I stood also, she made two steps towards me, and put her hand on my arm. “Oh, John!” she said.
“Well,” said I; “after all it does not signify. You can make a joke of it when my back is turned.”
“Dearest John!”—she had never spoken to me in that way before—“you must not be angry with me. It is better that we should explain to each other, is it not? ”

“ From one bedside to another, "does he well to stoop so low?"
Yet had Troilus only known it, they were not the poor alone
Whom his brother served that morning, but their Master and his own.
There was one but just recovered, light of heart, though poor and weak,
With a journey long before him, going forth his home to seek,
Far away among the mountains where his wife and children stayed;
But the Patriarch's love had found him ere the stranger sought his aid,
Giving money for the journey, giving blessèd words of cheer. ”

“ But the words were hardly out of her mouth before it struck her that the man was Aaron Trow, of whom every one in Bermuda had been talking.
“Come into the house,” he said, “and give me food.” And he still held her with his hand as though he would compel her to follow him.
She stood for a moment thinking what she would say to him; for even then, with that terrible man standing close to her in the darkness, her presence of mind did not desert her. “Surely,” she said, “I will give you food if you are hungry. But take your hand from me. No man would lay his hands on a woman.” ”

“ And Aaron Trow was now like a hunted fox, doomed to be dug out from his last refuge, with this addition to his misery, that these hounds when they caught their prey, would not put him at once out of his misery. When first he saw that throng of men coming down from the hill top and resting on the platform, he knew that his fate was come. ”

“ But thus we get our triangle: the sea coast (base) , the Troy River and the Devil's Hedge (sides) , meeting at the village of Lerryn (apex) among the orchards.
Now these orchards, you must know, on May mornings when the tide served, were the favourite rendezvous for the lads and maidens of Troy, and even for the middle-aged and married; who would company thither by water, to wash their faces in the dew, and eat cream, and see the sun rise, and afterwards return chorussing, their boats draped with green boughs. ”

“ Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Troyans, cry, A Helen and a woe!
Cry, cry. Troy burns, or else let Helen go.
Exit
HECTOR. Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse, or is your blood
So madly hot that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?
TROILUS. Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it ”

“ Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s a-field today?
PARIS.
Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have arm’d today, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?
HELEN.
He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.
PANDARUS.
Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend today. You’ll remember your brother’s excuse?
PARIS.
To a hair. ”

“ ULYSSES. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him to-night,
Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.
TROILUS. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?
ULYSSES. You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?
TROILUS. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? ”

“ The robin, the linnet, and my special favorite, the thrush, sang as if to bursting. — I like Master Thrush because he does not care for any weather, is the first to begin singing, and the last to stop, and like me, is always in a good humor. — They had all passed safely through the dangers of the night, which darkens their little lives every twenty-four hours, but as soon as the curtain begins to rise, and the first ray of dawn puts fresh color into life — Twee-ee, twee, twee, twee, tweet! with what sweet cries and transports of joy they greet the new day. ”

“ With strange ideas of our Trojan guest!
His worth, his actions, and majestic air,
A man descended from the gods declare.
Fear ever argues a degenerate kind;
His birth is well asserted by his mind.
Then, what he suffer'd, when by Fate betray'd!
What brave attempts for falling Troy he made! ”

“ CRESSIDA. Good night. I prithee come. Exit DIOMEDES
Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee;
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind.
What error leads must err; O, then conclude,
Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude.
Exit
THERSITES. A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she said 'My mind is now turn'd whore.'
ULYSSES. All's done, my lord.
TROILUS. It is.
ULYSSES. Why stay we, then?
TROILUS. To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke. ”

“ TROILUS. They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.
Enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS. Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?
TROILUS. What now?
PANDARUS. Here's a letter come from yond poor girl.
TROILUS. Let me read.
PANDARUS. A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles
me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing,
what another, that I shall leave you one o' th's days; and I have
a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that
unless a man were curs'd I cannot tell what to think on't. What
says she there? ”

“ PANDARUS. Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil come to him,
it's all one. By God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder
comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.
PARIS passes
Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day? He's not hurt. Why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon. ”

“ Her face shone clear as the light:
“Now who comes walking thro’ merry Troy town,
A boy full fair to sight.
“All men may see by his bearing free
He comes of a royal race,—
By the eyes below his forehead of snow,
And the charm of his god-like face.” ”

“ And the Thrush piped feebly,—
"O foolish little bird," said Saint Peter. "You boasted that you made the summer. But see! The Lord's will has sent us back to the middle of winter, to punish your boasting. You shall not die, he will send the sun again to warm you. But hereafter beware how you take too much credit for your little efforts."
Since that time March has ever been a treacherous and a changeful month. Then the Thrush thinks not of marriage, but of his lesson learned in past days, and wraps himself in his warmest feathers, waiting for the Lord's will to be done. ”

“ And a glory rested on her from the opening door above;
Yet one shadow marred its splendour when she looked with anxious love
On a little maid, her daughter, with a pretty, careworn face,
Who had brought two younger children, waiting now for her embrace,
Wondering why she did not give it, why so deadly still she lay,
For they knew not, though she knew it, she would not live out the day.
Said the Patriarch: "Brother Troilus, have you nothing you could give
To this woman and her children, for she has not long to live? ”

“ My own creation, perjured Troy.
And now as then my heart is set
To work him good: thy fears forget.
Avernus' haven he shall see
In safety, where he fain would be.
One life alone shall glut the wave ”

“ The wood-thrush s is no opera music, it is not so much the composition as the strain, the tone that interests us, cool bars of melody from the atmosphere of everlasting morning or evening. It is the quality of the sound, not the sequence. In the pe wee s note there is some sultriness, but in the thrush's, though heard at noon, there is the liquid coolness of things drawn from the bottom of springs. The thrush s alone declares the immortal wealth and vigor that is in the forest. Here is a bird in whose strain the story is told. Whenever a man hears it, he is young, and Nature is in her spring. ”

“ And not only with the barrenness of our souls can God deal with His quickening breath, but with our difficulties as well: with those things in our surroundings that seem the most unfavourable.
See this bit of gorse-bush. The whole year round the thorn has been hardening and sharpening. Spring comes: the thorn does not drop off, and it does not soften ”

“ Yes; he could hear them all; but hearing and obeying were very different. It was not easy to shake off that dying man; and as for swimming with him, that was clearly impossible. It was as much as he could do to keep his head above water, let alone any attempt to move in one settled direction.
For some four or five minutes they lay thus battling on the waves before the head of either of them went down. Trow had been twice below the surface, but it was before he had succeeded in supporting himself by Morton’s arm. ”

“ Many pious ejaculations were uttered, and iron was ostentatiously displayed, ‘for Trows can never abide the sight o' iron.’ The Bible was read and quoted. People moved about in groups or couples, never singly, and infants were carefully guarded as well as sained by vigilant and learned ‘wise women.’ Alas, the poor Trows! ”

“ An ancient wood, fit for the work design'd,
(The shady covert of the salvage kind,)
The Trojans found: the sounding ax is plied;
Firs, pines, and pitch trees, and the tow'ring pride
Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,
And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.
Huge trunks of trees, fell'd from the steepy crown
Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.
Arm'd like the rest the Trojan prince appears,
And by his pious labor urges theirs. ”

“ Troar did not. Consequently he both saw and heard a man enter the cubicle about an hour later. He was a large man, and there was little diffidence about his movements as he approached Troar's bed and ripped the blankets from it in one forceful jerk.
"Cold," he was good enough to explain.
"It is," agreed Troar pleasantly.
"And that's all you've got to say."
"That's all," beamed Troar.
"Well, you know best."
"Not much good saying things if you can't back them up, is it?" ”