Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida

ACT V SCENE II	The same. Before Calchas' tent.
	Enter DIOMEDES
DIOMEDES	What, are you up here, ho? speak.
CALCHAS	Within
DIOMEDES	Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?
CALCHAS	Within
	Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance;after them, THERSITES
ULYSSES	Stand where the torch may not discover us.
	Enter CRESSIDA
TROILUS	Cressid comes forth to him.	5
DIOMEDES	How now, my charge!
CRESSIDA	Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.
	Whispers
TROILUS	Yea, so familiar!
ULYSSES	She will sing any man at first sight.
THERSITES	And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff;	10
	she's noted.
DIOMEDES	Will you remember?
CRESSIDA	Remember! yes.
DIOMEDES	Nay, but do, then;
	And let your mind be coupled with your words.	15
TROILUS	What should she remember?
ULYSSES	List.
CRESSIDA	Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.
THERSITES	Roguery!
DIOMEDES	Nay, then,--	20
CRESSIDA	I'll tell you what,--
DIOMEDES	Foh, foh! come, tell a pin: you are forsworn.
CRESSIDA	In faith, I cannot: what would you have me do?
THERSITES	A juggling trick,--to be secretly open.
DIOMEDES	What did you swear you would bestow on me?	25
CRESSIDA	I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;
	Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek.
DIOMEDES	Good night.
TROILUS	Hold, patience!
ULYSSES	How now, Trojan!	30
CRESSIDA	Diomed,--
DIOMEDES	No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no more.
TROILUS	Thy better must.
CRESSIDA	Hark, one word in your ear.
TROILUS	O plague and madness!	35
ULYSSES	You are moved, prince; let us depart, I pray you,
	Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
	To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous;
	The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.
TROILUS	Behold, I pray you!	40
ULYSSES	Nay, good my lord, go off:
	You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.
TROILUS	I pray thee, stay.
ULYSSES	You have not patience; come.
TROILUS	I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell's torments	45
	I will not speak a word!
DIOMEDES	And so, good night.
CRESSIDA	Nay, but you part in anger.
TROILUS	Doth that grieve thee?
	O wither'd truth!	50
ULYSSES	Why, how now, lord!
TROILUS	By Jove,
	I will be patient.
CRESSIDA	Guardian!--why, Greek!
DIOMEDES	Foh, foh! adieu; you palter.	55
CRESSIDA	In faith, I do not: come hither once again.
ULYSSES	You shake, my lord, at something: will you go?
	You will break out.
TROILUS	She strokes his cheek!
ULYSSES	Come, come.	60
TROILUS	Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:
	There is between my will and all offences
	A guard of patience: stay a little while.
THERSITES	How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and
	potato-finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!	65
DIOMEDES	But will you, then?
CRESSIDA	In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.
DIOMEDES	Give me some token for the surety of it.
CRESSIDA	I'll fetch you one.
	Exit
ULYSSES	You have sworn patience.	70
TROILUS	Fear me not, sweet lord;
	I will not be myself, nor have cognition
	Of what I feel: I am all patience.
	Re-enter CRESSIDA
THERSITES	Now the pledge; now, now, now!
CRESSIDA	Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.	75
TROILUS	O beauty! where is thy faith?
ULYSSES	My lord,--
TROILUS	I will be patient; outwardly I will.
CRESSIDA	You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
	He loved me--O false wench!--Give't me again.	80
DIOMEDES	Whose was't?
CRESSIDA	It is no matter, now I have't again.
	I will not meet with you to-morrow night:
	I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
THERSITES	Now she sharpens: well said, whetstone!	85
DIOMEDES	I shall have it.
CRESSIDA	What, this?
DIOMEDES	Ay, that.
CRESSIDA	O, all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
	Thy master now lies thinking in his bed	90
	Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
	And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
	As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
	He that takes that doth take my heart withal.
DIOMEDES	I had your heart before, this follows it.	95
TROILUS	I did swear patience.
CRESSIDA	You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
	I'll give you something else.
DIOMEDES	I will have this: whose was it?
CRESSIDA	It is no matter.	100
DIOMEDES	Come, tell me whose it was.
CRESSIDA	'Twas one's that loved me better than you will.
	But, now you have it, take it.
DIOMEDES	Whose was it?
CRESSIDA	By all Diana's waiting-women yond,	105
	And by herself, I will not tell you whose.
DIOMEDES	To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,
	And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.
TROILUS	Wert thou the devil, and worest it on thy horn,
	It should be challenged.	110
CRESSIDA	Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past: and yet it is not;
	I will not keep my word.
DIOMEDES	Why, then, farewell;
	Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
CRESSIDA	You shall not go: one cannot speak a word,	115
	But it straight starts you.
DIOMEDES	I do not like this fooling.
THERSITES	Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you pleases me best.
DIOMEDES	What, shall I come? the hour?
CRESSIDA	Ay, come:--O Jove!--do come:--I shall be plagued.	120
DIOMEDES	Farewell till then.
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,	125
	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.'	130
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.	135
	But if I tell how these two did co-act,
	Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
	Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
	An esperance so obstinately strong,
	That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears,	140
	As if those organs had deceptious functions,
	Created only to calumniate.
	Was Cressid here?
ULYSSES	I cannot conjure, Trojan.
TROILUS	She was not, sure.	145
ULYSSES	Most sure she was.
TROILUS	Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.
ULYSSES	Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but now.
TROILUS	Let it not be believed for womanhood!
	Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage	150
	To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
	For depravation, to square the general sex
	By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid.
ULYSSES	What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?
TROILUS	Nothing at all, unless that this were she.	155
THERSITES	Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?
TROILUS	This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida:
	If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
	If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
	If sanctimony be the gods' delight,	160
	If there be rule in unity itself,
	This is not she. O madness of discourse,
	That cause sets up with and against itself!
	Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
	Without perdition, and loss assume all reason	165
	Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
	Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
	Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate
	Divides more wider than the sky and earth,
	And yet the spacious breadth of this division	170
	Admits no orifex for a point as subtle
	As Ariachne's broken woof to enter.
	Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
	Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
	Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;	175
	The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolved, and loosed;
	And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
	The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
	The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics
	Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.	180
ULYSSES	May worthy Troilus be half attach'd
	With that which here his passion doth express?
TROILUS	Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
	In characters as red as Mars his heart
	Inflamed with Venus: never did young man fancy	185
	With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.
	Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
	So much by weight hate I her Diomed:
	That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm;
	Were it a casque composed by Vulcan's skill,	190
	My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout
	Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
	Constringed in mass by the almighty sun,
	Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
	In his descent than shall my prompted sword	195
	Falling on Diomed.
THERSITES	He'll tickle it for his concupy.
TROILUS	O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
	Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
	And they'll seem glorious.	200
ULYSSES	O, contain yourself
	Your passion draws ears hither.
	Enter AENEAS
AENEAS	I have been seeking you this hour, my lord:
	Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
	Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.	205
TROILUS	Have with you, prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
	Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
	Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
ULYSSES	I'll bring you to the gates.
TROILUS	Accept distracted thanks.	210
	Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS, and ULYSSES
THERSITES	Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would
	croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode.
	Patroclus will give me any thing for the
	intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not
	do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab.	215
	Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing
	else holds fashion: a burning devil take them!
	Exit