Troilus, however, brave and strong in battle, can but weep before Cressida, ask her pardon, and faint. Cressida, on her side, has every delicate feeling. When Pandarus brings her Troilus's first letter, she begins by refusing it, and is ashamed to open it: she opens it only because she is told the poor knight is about to die. At the first words "all rosy hewed tho woxe she"; and though the letter is respectful, she will not answer it. She yields at last to the importunities of her uncle, and answers Troilus that she will feel for him the affection of a sister. As to Troilus, he trembles all over, grows pale when he sees the messenger return, doubts his happiness, and will not believe the assurance which is given him: "But right so as these holtes and these hayis That han in winter dead ben and dry, Revesten hem in grene, whan that May is.... Right in that selfe wise, sooth for to sey, Woxe suddainly his herte full of joy."[203] Slowly, after many troubles, and thanks to the efforts of Pandarus, he obtains her confession; and in this confession what a delightful charm! "And as the newe abashed nightingale, That stinteth first, whan she beginneth sing, Whan that she heareth any heerdes tale, Or in the hedges any wight stearing, And after siker doeth her voice outring: Right so Creseide, whan that her drede stent, Opened her herte and told him her entent."[204] He, as soon as he perceived a hope from afar, "In chaunged voice, right for his very drede, Which voice eke quoke, and thereto his manere, Goodly abasht, and now his hewes rede, Now pale, unto Cresseide his ladie dere, With looke doun cast, and humble iyolden chere, Lo, the alderfirst word that him astart Was twice: 'Mercy, mercy, O my sweet herte!'"[205] This ardent love breaks out in impassioned accents, in bursts of happiness. Far from being regarded as a fault, it is the source of all virtue. Troilus becomes braver, more generous, more upright, through it; his speech runs now on love and virtue; he scorns all villany; he honors those who possess merit, succors those who are in distress; and Cressida, delighted, repeats all day, with exceeding liveliness, this song, which is like the warbling of a nightingale: "Whom should I thanken but you, god of love, Of all this blisse, in which to bathe I ginne? And thanked be ye, lorde for that I love, This is the right life that I am inne, To flemen all maner vice and sinne: This doeth me so to vertue for to entende That daie by daie I in my will amende. And who that saieth that for to love is vice,... He either is envious, or right nice, Or is unmightie for his shreudnesse To loven.... But I with all mine herte and all my might, As I have saied, woll love unto my last, My owne dere herte, and all mine owne knight, In whiche mine herte growen is so fast, And his in me, that it shall ever last."[206]