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  • William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act V, Scene II

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Scene IIThe same. Before Calchas’ tentEnter DiomedesDiomedesWhat, are you up here, ho? speak.CalchasWithinWho calls?DiomedesCalchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?CalchasWithinShe comes to you.Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance; after them, ThersitesUlyssesStand where the torch may not discover us.Enter CressidaTroilusCressid comes forth to him.DiomedesHow now, my charge!CressidaNow, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.WhispersTroilusYea, so familiar!UlyssesShe will sing any man at first sight.ThersitesAnd any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.DiomedesWill you remember?CressidaRemember! yes.DiomedesNay, but do, then; And let your mind be coupled with your words.TroilusWhat should she remember?UlyssesList.CressidaSweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.ThersitesRoguery!DiomedesNay, then,—CressidaI’ll tell you what,—DiomedesFoh, foh! come, tell a pin: you are forsworn.CressidaIn faith, I cannot: what would you have me do?ThersitesA juggling trick,—to be secretly open.DiomedesWhat did you swear you would bestow on me?CressidaI prithee, do not hold me to mine oath; Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek.DiomedesGood night.TroilusHold, patience!UlyssesHow now, Trojan!CressidaDiomed,—DiomedesNo, no, good night: I’ll be your fool no more.TroilusThy better must.CressidaHark, one word in your ear.TroilusO plague and madness!UlyssesYou 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.TroilusBehold, I pray you!UlyssesNay, good my lord, go off: You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.TroilusI pray thee, stay.UlyssesYou have not patience; come.TroilusI pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments I will not speak a word!DiomedesAnd so, good night.CressidaNay, but you part in anger.TroilusDoth that grieve thee? O wither’d truth!UlyssesWhy, how now, lord!TroilusBy Jove, I will be patient.CressidaGuardian!—why, Greek!DiomedesFoh, foh! adieu; you palter.CressidaIn faith, I do not: come hither once again.UlyssesYou shake, my lord, at something: will you go? You will break out.TroilusShe strokes his cheek!UlyssesCome, come.TroilusNay, 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.ThersitesHow the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato-finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!DiomedesBut will you, then?CressidaIn faith, I will, la; never trust me else.DiomedesGive me some token for the surety of it.CressidaI’ll fetch you one.ExitUlyssesYou have sworn patience.TroilusFear me not, sweet lord; I will not be myself, nor have cognition Of what I feel: I am all patience.Re-enter CressidaThersitesNow the pledge; now, now, now!CressidaHere, Diomed, keep this sleeve.TroilusO beauty! where is thy faith?UlyssesMy lord,—TroilusI will be patient; outwardly I will.CressidaYou look upon that sleeve; behold it well. He loved me—O false wench!—Give’t me again.DiomedesWhose was’t?CressidaIt is no matter, now I have’t again. I will not meet with you to-morrow night: I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.ThersitesNow she sharpens: well said, whetstone!DiomedesI shall have it.CressidaWhat, this?DiomedesAy, that.CressidaO, 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.DiomedesI had your heart before, this follows it.TroilusI did swear patience.CressidaYou shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not; I’ll give you something else.DiomedesI will have this: whose was it?CressidaIt is no matter.DiomedesCome, tell me whose it was.Cressida’Twas one’s that loved me better than you will. But, now you have it, take it.DiomedesWhose was it?CressidaBy all Diana’s waiting-women yond, And by herself, I will not tell you whose.DiomedesTo-morrow will I wear it on my helm, And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.TroilusWert thou the devil, and worest it on thy horn, It should be challenged.CressidaWell, well, ’tis done, ’tis past: and yet it is not; I will not keep my word.DiomedesWhy, then, farewell; Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.CressidaYou shall not go: one cannot speak a word, But it straight starts you.DiomedesI do not like this fooling.ThersitesNor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you pleases me best.DiomedesWhat, shall I come? the hour?CressidaAy, come:—O Jove!—do come:—I shall be plagued.DiomedesFarewell till then.CressidaGood night: I prithee, come.Exit DiomedesTroilus, 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.ExitThersitesA proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she said ’ My mind is now turn’d whore.‘UlyssesAll’s done, my lord.TroilusIt is.UlyssesWhy stay we, then?TroilusTo 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?UlyssesI cannot conjure, Trojan.TroilusShe was not, sure.UlyssesMost sure she was.TroilusWhy, my negation hath no taste of madness.UlyssesNor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but now.TroilusLet 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.UlyssesWhat hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?TroilusNothing at all, unless that this were she.ThersitesWill he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?TroilusThis 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.UlyssesMay worthy Troilus be half attach’d With that which here his passion doth express?TroilusAy, 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.ThersitesHe’ll tickle it for his concupy.TroilusO Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, And they’ll seem glorious.UlyssesO, contain yourself Your passion draws ears hither.Enter AeneasAeneasI have been seeking you this hour, my lord: Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy; Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.TroilusHave with you, prince. My courteous lord, adieu. Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed, Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!UlyssesI’ll bring you to the gates.TroilusAccept distracted thanks.Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas, and UlyssesThersitesWould 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

William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act V

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William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act IV, Scene V

  • William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act IV, Scene V

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  • Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
  • The Twelve Dancing Princesses
  • Current Events This Week: January 2023
  • African Americans by the Numbers
  • Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
  • The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales