Troilus and Cressida

epub:type="z3998:persona">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.

Scene III

Troy. Before Priam’s palace.

	Enter Hector and Andromache.
Andromache	When was my lord so much ungently temper’d, To stop his ears against admonishment? Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.
Hector	You train me to offend you; get you in: By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go!
Andromache	My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.
Hector	No more, I say.
	Enter Cassandra.
Cassandra	Where is my brother Hector?
Andromache	Here, sister; arm’d, and bloody in intent. Consort with me in loud and dear petition, Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream’d Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
Cassandra	O, ’tis true.
Hector	Ho! bid my trumpet sound.
Cassandra	No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother.
Hector	Be gone, I say: the gods have heard me swear.
Cassandra	The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows: They are polluted offerings, more abhorr’d Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
Andromache	O, be persuaded! do not count it holy To hurt by being just: it is as lawful, For we would give much, to use violent thefts, And rob in the behalf of