Act 5, Scene 2: The same. Before Calchas' tent

SCENE II. The same. Before Calchas' tent.

    Enter DIOMEDES

DIOMEDES

    What, are you up here, ho? speak.

CALCHAS

    [Within] Who calls?

DIOMEDES

    Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?

CALCHAS

    [Within] She comes to you.

    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.

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;
    she's noted.

DIOMEDES

    Will you remember?

CRESSIDA

    Remember! yes.

DIOMEDES

    Nay, but do, then;
    And let your mind be coupled with your words.

TROILUS

    What should she remember?

ULYSSES

    List.

CRESSIDA

    Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

THERSITES

    Roguery!

DIOMEDES

    Nay, then,--

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?

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!

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!

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!

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
    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!

ULYSSES

    Why, how now, lord!

TROILUS

    By Jove,
    I will be patient.

CRESSIDA

    Guardian!--why, Greek!

DIOMEDES

    Foh, foh! adieu; you palter.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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
    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.

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.

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,
    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.

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,
    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.

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,
    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.
    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,
    As if those organs had deceptious functions,
    Created only to calumniate.
    Was Cressid here?

ULYSSES

    I cannot conjure, Trojan.

TROILUS

    She was not, sure.

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
    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.

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,
    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
    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
    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;
    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.

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
    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,
    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
    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.

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.

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.

    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.
    Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing
    else holds fashion: a burning devil take them!

    Exit