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
She comes to you. 5 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 Yea, so familiar? 10 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
Will you remember? 15 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
List! 20 CRESSIDA
Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly. THERSITES, aside
Roguery! DIOMEDES
Nay, then— CRESSIDA
I’ll tell you what— DIOMEDES
Foh, foh, come, tell a pin! You are forsworn. 25 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.
Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek. 30 DIOMEDES
Good night. TROILUS, aside
Hold, patience! ULYSSES, aside to Troilus
How now, Trojan? CRESSIDA
Diomed— DIOMEDES
No, no, good night. I’ll be your fool no more. 35 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,
Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself 40
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.
You flow to great distraction. Come, my lord. 45 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. DIOMEDES
And so good night. He starts to leave. 50 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
By Jove, I will be patient. 55 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?
You will break out. 60 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 offenses
A guard of patience. Stay a little while. 65 THERSITES, aside
How the devil Luxury, with his fat
rump and potato finger, tickles these together.
Fry, lechery, fry! | Diomedes shows up at the tent looking for Cressida. Calchas invites him inside as Troilus and Ulysses watch from a distance and Thersites creeps up behind them to see what happens. Cressida is all coy with Diomedes, calling him her "sweet guardian" and her "sweet honey Greek" and begging him not to "tempt" her as he whispers in her ear. Diomedes reminds Cressida that she promised she would give him something. (Uh-oh. Things aren't looking good for Troilus.) Troilus is crushed but he refuses to budge, even when Ulysses says he should just go home and forget about Cressida. Thersites,who's watching this scene from his own vantage point, is thoroughly disgusted with both Cressida and Diomedes. But then, Thersites seems pretty disgusted with everybody. |
DIOMEDES
But will you, then? CRESSIDA
In faith, I will, la. Never trust me else. 70 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.
I will not be myself nor have cognition 75
Of what I feel. I am all patience. 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
O beauty, where is thy faith? 80 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
Whose was ’t? 85 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,
whetstone. 90 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 on his bed 95
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
He that takes that doth take my heart withal. 100 DIOMEDES
I had your heart before. This follows it. TROILUS, aside
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? 105 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? 110 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
Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn, 115
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. 120 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 you
Pleases me best. 125 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.— He exits.
Troilus, farewell. One eye yet looks on thee, 130
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 swayed by eyes are full of turpitude. 135 She exits. THERSITES, aside
A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she said “My mind is now turned whore.” | Eventually, Cressida promises to sleep with Diomedes and even gives him a love token to prove she's serious. Guess what it is? That's right. The "sleeve" Troilus gave her earlier. This just about kills Troilus, obviously. Diomedes wants to know where the love token came from but Cressida won't tell. Then she changes her mind and says she's not going to hook up with Diomedes and that he shouldn't come back to her tent. Diomedes threatens to wear the sleeve the next day during battle just to taunt the guy who gave it to Cressida. As he turns to leave, Cressida tells him to wait up. She's changed her mind again and has decided to sleep with him after all. Diomedes has had enough of this crazy lady and leaves. But Cressida claims she can't help the fact that she's unfaithful because she's a woman and all women are promiscuous. With that lovely thought, she exits the stage. Thersites, who has been making nasty comments the whole time, says that Cressida is a "whore." Then again, Theresites thinks pretty much everyone is a whore. Or a man-whore. |
ULYSSES
All’s done, my lord. TROILUS
It is. ULYSSES
Why stay we then? 140 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, 145
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.
Was Cressid here? 150 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. 155 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. 160 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 ’s
own eyes? 165 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, 170
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 reason
Without revolt. This is and is not Cressid. 175
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 180
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 slipped, dissolved, and 185
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 given to Diomed. 190 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 heart
Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy 195
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.
Were it a casque composed by Vulcan’s skill, 200
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 ear
In his descent than shall my prompted sword 205
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,
And they’ll seem glorious. 210 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.
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home. 215 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. 220 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 more
for an almond than he for a commodious drab. 225
Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery! Nothing
else holds fashion. A burning devil take them! He exits. | Troilus can't believe what he's just seen and heard, and he declares that he's going to stab Diomedes tomorrow during battle. Which is logical. Not. Then Aeneas shows up and announces that Hector has already gone back to Troy and it's time for Troilus to go home, too. Thersites is left alone on stage. He says that the world is all about "lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery." We feel you, man. |