Troilus And Cressida

1 Enter Diomedes.
2 DIOMEDES.
3 What, are you up here, ho! Speak.
4 CALCHAS.
5 [_Within_.] Who calls?
6 DIOMEDES.
7 Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?
8 CALCHAS.
9 [_Within_.] She comes to you.
10 Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance; after them Thersites.
11 ULYSSES.
12 Stand where the torch may not discover us.
13 Enter Cressida.
14 TROILUS.
15 Cressid comes forth to him.
16 DIOMEDES.
17 How now, my charge!
18 CRESSIDA.
19 Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.
20 [_Whispers_.]
21 TROILUS.
22 Yea, so familiar?
23 ULYSSES.
24 She will sing any man at first sight.
25 THERSITES.
26 And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.
27 DIOMEDES.
28 Will you remember?
29 CRESSIDA.
30 Remember! Yes.
31 DIOMEDES.
32 Nay, but do, then;
33 And let your mind be coupled with your words.
34 TROILUS.
35 What should she remember?
36 ULYSSES.
37 List!
38 CRESSIDA.
39 Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.
40 THERSITES.
41 Roguery!
42 DIOMEDES.
43 Nay, then—
44 CRESSIDA.
45 I’ll tell you what—
46 DIOMEDES.
47 Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn.
48 CRESSIDA.
49 In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?
50 THERSITES.
51 A juggling trick, to be secretly open.
52 DIOMEDES.
53 What did you swear you would bestow on me?
54 CRESSIDA.
55 I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;
56 Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.
57 DIOMEDES.
58 Good night.
59 TROILUS.
60 Hold, patience!
61 ULYSSES.
62 How now, Trojan!
63 CRESSIDA.
64 Diomed!
65 DIOMEDES.
66 No, no, good night; I’ll be your fool no more.
67 TROILUS.
68 Thy better must.
69 CRESSIDA.
70 Hark! a word in your ear.
71 TROILUS.
72 O plague and madness!
73 ULYSSES.
74 You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray,
75 Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
76 To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;
77 The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.
78 TROILUS.
79 Behold, I pray you.
80 ULYSSES.
81 Nay, good my lord, go off;
82 You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.
83 TROILUS.
84 I pray thee stay.
85 ULYSSES.
86 You have not patience; come.
87 TROILUS.
88 I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments,
89 I will not speak a word.
90 DIOMEDES.
91 And so, good night.
92 CRESSIDA.
93 Nay, but you part in anger.
94 TROILUS.
95 Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!
96 ULYSSES.
97 How now, my lord?
98 TROILUS.
99 By Jove, I will be patient.
100 CRESSIDA.
101 Guardian! Why, Greek!
102 DIOMEDES.
103 Fo, fo! adieu! you palter.
104 CRESSIDA.
105 In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.
106 ULYSSES.
107 You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?
108 You will break out.
109 TROILUS.
110 She strokes his cheek.
111 ULYSSES.
112 Come, come.
113 TROILUS.
114 Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:
115 There is between my will and all offences
116 A guard of patience. Stay a little while.
117 THERSITES.
118 How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles
119 these together! Fry, lechery, fry!
120 DIOMEDES.
121 But will you, then?
122 CRESSIDA.
123 In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.
124 DIOMEDES.
125 Give me some token for the surety of it.
126 CRESSIDA.
127 I’ll fetch you one.
128 [_Exit_.]
129 ULYSSES.
130 You have sworn patience.
131 TROILUS.
132 Fear me not, my lord;
133 I will not be myself, nor have cognition
134 Of what I feel. I am all patience.
135 Re-enter Cressida.
136 THERSITES.
137 Now the pledge; now, now, now!
138 CRESSIDA.
139 Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
140 TROILUS.
141 O beauty! where is thy faith?
142 ULYSSES.
143 My lord!
144 TROILUS.
145 I will be patient; outwardly I will.
146 CRESSIDA.
147 You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
148 He lov’d me—O false wench!—Give’t me again.
149 DIOMEDES.
150 Whose was’t?
151 CRESSIDA.
152 It is no matter, now I have’t again.
153 I will not meet with you tomorrow night.
154 I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
155 THERSITES.
156 Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.
157 DIOMEDES.
158 I shall have it.
159 CRESSIDA.
160 What, this?
161 DIOMEDES.
162 Ay, that.
163 CRESSIDA.
164 O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
165 Thy master now lies thinking on his bed
166 Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
167 And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
168 As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
169 He that takes that doth take my heart withal.
170 DIOMEDES.
171 I had your heart before; this follows it.
172 TROILUS.
173 I did swear patience.
174 CRESSIDA.
175 You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
176 I’ll give you something else.
177 DIOMEDES.
178 I will have this. Whose was it?
179 CRESSIDA.
180 It is no matter.
181 DIOMEDES.
182 Come, tell me whose it was.
183 CRESSIDA.
184 ’Twas one’s that lov’d me better than you will.
185 But, now you have it, take it.
186 DIOMEDES.
187 Whose was it?
188 CRESSIDA.
189 By all Diana’s waiting women yond,
190 And by herself, I will not tell you whose.
191 DIOMEDES.
192 Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm,
193 And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.
194 TROILUS.
195 Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn,
196 It should be challeng’d.
197 CRESSIDA.
198 Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past; and yet it is not;
199 I will not keep my word.
200 DIOMEDES.
201 Why, then farewell;
202 Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
203 CRESSIDA.
204 You shall not go. One cannot speak a word
205 But it straight starts you.
206 DIOMEDES.
207 I do not like this fooling.
208 THERSITES.
209 Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you
210 Pleases me best.
211 DIOMEDES.
212 What, shall I come? The hour?
213 CRESSIDA.
214 Ay, come; O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu’d.
215 DIOMEDES.
216 Farewell till then.
217 CRESSIDA.
218 Good night. I prithee come.
219 [_Exit_ Diomedes.]
220 Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee;
221 But with my heart the other eye doth see.
222 Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
223 The error of our eye directs our mind.
224 What error leads must err; O, then conclude,
225 Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude.
226 [_Exit_.]
227 THERSITES.
228 A proof of strength she could not publish more,
229 Unless she said ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’
230 ULYSSES.
231 All’s done, my lord.
232 TROILUS.
233 It is.
234 ULYSSES.
235 Why stay we, then?
236 TROILUS.
237 To make a recordation to my soul
238 Of every syllable that here was spoke.
239 But if I tell how these two did co-act,
240 Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
241 Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
242 An esperance so obstinately strong,
243 That doth invert th’attest of eyes and ears;
244 As if those organs had deceptious functions
245 Created only to calumniate.
246 Was Cressid here?
247 ULYSSES.
248 I cannot conjure, Trojan.
249 TROILUS.
250 She was not, sure.
251 ULYSSES.
252 Most sure she was.
253 TROILUS.
254 Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.
255 ULYSSES.
256 Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.
257 TROILUS.
258 Let it not be believ’d for womanhood.
259 Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
260 To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
261 For depravation, to square the general sex
262 By Cressid’s rule. Rather think this not Cressid.
263 ULYSSES.
264 What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?
265 TROILUS.
266 Nothing at all, unless that this were she.
267 THERSITES.
268 Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?
269 TROILUS.
270 This she? No; this is Diomed’s Cressida.
271 If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
272 If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
273 If sanctimony be the god’s delight,
274 If there be rule in unity itself,
275 This was not she. O madness of discourse,
276 That cause sets up with and against itself!
277 Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
278 Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
279 Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
280 Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
281 Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
282 Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
283 And yet the spacious breadth of this division
284 Admits no orifice for a point as subtle
285 As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter.
286 Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto’s gates:
287 Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven.
288 Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself:
289 The bonds of heaven are slipp’d, dissolv’d, and loos’d;
290 And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
291 The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
292 The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics
293 Of her o’er-eaten faith, are given to Diomed.
294 ULYSSES.
295 May worthy Troilus be half attach’d
296 With that which here his passion doth express?
297 TROILUS.
298 Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
299 In characters as red as Mars his heart
300 Inflam’d with Venus. Never did young man fancy
301 With so eternal and so fix’d a soul.
302 Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
303 So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
304 That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm;
305 Were it a casque compos’d by Vulcan’s skill
306 My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout
307 Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
308 Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun,
309 Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune’s ear
310 In his descent than shall my prompted sword
311 Falling on Diomed.
312 THERSITES.
313 He’ll tickle it for his concupy.
314 TROILUS.
315 O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
316 Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
317 And they’ll seem glorious.
318 ULYSSES.
319 O, contain yourself;
320 Your passion draws ears hither.
321 Enter Aeneas.
322 AENEAS.
323 I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.
324 Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
325 Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
326 TROILUS.
327 Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
328 Fairwell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
329 Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head.
330 ULYSSES.
331 I’ll bring you to the gates.
332 TROILUS.
333 Accept distracted thanks.
334 [_Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas and Ulysses_.]
335 THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a
336 raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for
337 the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not do more for an
338 almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and
339 lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!
340 [_Exit_.]