| ACT V 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. | 5 |
| [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. | 10 |
| 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; | 15 |
| 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! | 20 |
| 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. | 25 |
| 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! | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| 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. | 45 |
| 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? | 50 |
| O wither'd truth! |
| ULYSSES | Why, how now, lord! |
| TROILUS | By Jove, |
| I will be patient. |
| CRESSIDA | Guardian!--why, Greek! | 55 |
| 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! | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
| [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! | 75 |
| 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. | 80 |
| 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. | 85 |
| 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! | 90 |
| 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. | 95 |
| 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? | 100 |
| 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? | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| 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. | 115 |
| 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? | 120 |
| 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. | 125 |
| 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, | 130 |
| 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 | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| 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. | 145 |
| 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! | 150 |
| 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? | 155 |
| 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, | 160 |
| 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 | 165 |
| 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, | 170 |
| 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: | 175 |
| 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 | 180 |
| 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 | 185 |
| 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; | 190 |
| 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 | 195 |
| 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, | 200 |
| 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; | 205 |
| 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. | 210 |
| 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 | 215 |
| 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] |
Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: Scenes and Commentary