Enter Diomedes.DIOMEDES What, are you up here, ho? Speak.CALCHAS, ⌜within⌝ Who calls?DIOMEDES Diomed. Calchas, I think? Where’s your daughter?CALCHAS, ⌜within⌝ 5She comes to you.⟨Enter Troilus and Ulysses,⟩ ⌜at a distance, and then,
apart from them, Thersites.⌝ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ Stand where the torch may not discover us.Enter Cressida.TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ Cressid comes forth to him.DIOMEDES How now, my charge?CRESSIDA Now, my sweet guardian. Hark, a word with you.⌜She whispers to him.⌝TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ 10Yea, so familiar?ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ She will sing any man at first sight.THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ And any man may sing her, if he can take her clef. She’s noted.DIOMEDES 15Will you remember?⌜CRESSIDA⌝ Remember? Yes.DIOMEDES Nay, but do, then, and let your mind be coupled with your words.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ What ⟨should⟩ she remember?ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ 20List!CRESSIDA Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ Roguery!DIOMEDES Nay, then—
221
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 2
CRESSIDA I’ll tell you what—DIOMEDES 25 Foh, foh, come, tell a pin! You are forsworn.CRESSIDA In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ 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.30 Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.DIOMEDES Good night.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ Hold, patience!ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ How now, Trojan?CRESSIDA Diomed—DIOMEDES 35 No, no, good night. I’ll be your fool no more.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ Thy better must.CRESSIDA Hark, a word in your ear.⌜She whispers to him.⌝TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ O plague and madness!ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ You are moved, prince. Let us depart, I pray ⟨you,⟩40 Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous; The time right deadly. I beseech you, go.TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ Behold, I pray you.ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ ⟨Nay,⟩ good my lord, go off.45 You flow to great ⟨distraction.⟩ Come, my lord.TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ I prithee, stay.ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ You have not patience. Come.TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ I pray you, stay. By hell and all hell’s torments, I will not speak a word.
223
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 2
DIOMEDES 50 And so good night.⌜He starts to leave.⌝CRESSIDA Nay, but you part in anger.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ How now, my lord?TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ 55 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, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ You shake, my lord, at something. Will you go?60 You will break out.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ She strokes his cheek!ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ Come, come.TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ Nay, stay. By Jove, I will not speak a word. There is between my will and all offenses65 A guard of patience. Stay a little while.THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles ⟨these⟩ together. Fry, lechery, fry!DIOMEDES ⟨But⟩ will you, then?CRESSIDA 70 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.She exits.ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ You have sworn patience.TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ Fear me not, my lord.75 I will not be myself nor have cognition Of what I feel. I am all patience.
225
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 2
Enter Cressida ⌜with Troilus’s sleeve.⌝THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ Now the pledge, now, now, now!CRESSIDA, ⌜giving the sleeve⌝ Here, Diomed. Keep this sleeve.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ 80O beauty, where is thy faith?ULYSSES, ⌜aside to Troilus⌝ My lord—TROILUS, ⌜aside to Ulysses⌝ ⟨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.⌜She snatches the sleeve from Diomedes.⌝DIOMEDES 85Whose was ’t?CRESSIDA It is no matter, now I ha ’t again. I will not meet with you tomorrow night. I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ Now she sharpens. Well said,90 whetstone.DIOMEDES I shall have it.CRESSIDA What, this?DIOMEDES Ay, that.CRESSIDA O all you gods!—O pretty, pretty pledge!95 Thy master now lies thinking on his bed Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove, And gives memorial dainty kisses to it As I kiss thee.⌜He grabs the sleeve, and she tries to retrieve it.⌝DIOMEDES Nay, do not snatch it from me.CRESSIDA 100 He that takes that doth take my heart withal.DIOMEDES I had your heart before. This follows it.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ I did swear patience.
227
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 2
⟨CRESSIDA⟩ You shall not have it, Diomed, faith, you shall not. I’ll give you something else.DIOMEDES 105I 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 110 Whose was it?CRESSIDA By all Diana’s waiting-women yond, And by herself, I will not tell you whose.DIOMEDES Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.TROILUS, ⌜aside⌝ 115 Wert thou the devil and wor’st 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.120 Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.⌜He starts to leave.⌝CRESSIDA You shall not go. One cannot speak a word But it straight starts you.DIOMEDES I do not like this fooling.⌜TROILUS, aside⌝ Nor I, by Pluto! But that that likes not you125 Pleases me best.DIOMEDES What, shall I come? The hour?CRESSIDA Ay, come.—O Jove!—Do, come.—I shall be plagued.
229
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 2
DIOMEDES Farewell, till then.CRESSIDA Good night. I prithee, come.—⟨He exits.⟩130 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:135 Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude.She exits.THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ A proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she said “My mind is now turned whore.”ULYSSES All’s done, my lord.TROILUS It is.ULYSSES 140 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?145 Sith yet there is a credence in my heart, An esperance so obstinately strong. That doth invert th’ attest of eyes and ears, As if those organs ⟨had deceptious⟩ functions, Created only to calumniate.150 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 155 Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.
231
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 2
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 sex160 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, ⌜aside⌝ Will he swagger himself out on ’s165 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,170 If there be rule in unity itself, This ⟨is⟩ not she. O madness of discourse, That cause sets up with and against itself! Bifold authority, where reason can revolt Without perdition, and loss assume all reason175 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 division180 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,185 The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and loosed, And with another knot, ⟨five-finger-tied,⟩
233
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 2
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics190 Of her o’er-eaten faith are given to Diomed.ULYSSES May worthy Troilus be half attached With that which here his passion doth express?TROILUS Ay, Greek, and that shall be divulgèd well In characters as red as Mars his heart195 Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy With so eternal and so fixed 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.200 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 clamor Neptune’s ear205 In his descent than shall my prompted sword Falling on Diomed.THERSITES, ⌜aside⌝ He’ll tickle it for his concupy.TROILUS O Cressid! O false Cressid! False, false, false! Let all untruths stand by thy stainèd name,210 And they’ll seem glorious.ULYSSES O, contain yourself. Your passion draws ears hither.Enter Aeneas.AENEAS, ⌜to Troilus⌝ I have been seeking you this hour, my lord. Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy.215 Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.TROILUS Have with you, prince.—My courteous lord, adieu.—
235
Troilus and Cressida
ACT 5. SC. 3
Farewell, revolted fair!—And, Diomed, Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!ULYSSES I’ll bring you to the gates.TROILUS 220Accept distracted thanks.Troilus, Aeneas, and Ulysses exit.THERSITES Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore. The parrot will not do more225 for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!He exits.
Troilus and Cressida
