TPTT The History of Troilus and Cressida: ACT V
Introduction
PROLOGUE
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
SCENE I. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.
SCENE II. The same. Before Calchas' tent.
SCENE III. Troy. Before Priam's palace.
SCENE IV. Plains between Troy and the Grecian camp.
SCENE V. Another part of the plains.
SCENE VI. Another part of the plains.
SCENE VII. Another part of the plains.
SCENE VIII. Another part of the plains.
SCENE IX. Another part of the plains.
SCENE X. Another part of the plains.
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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
5     Stand where the torch may not discover us.
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
10    She will sing any man at first sight.
THERSITES
      And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff;
      she's noted.
DIOMEDES
      Will you remember?
CRESSIDA
      Remember! yes.
DIOMEDES
15    Nay, but do, then;
      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
20    Roguery!
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
25    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 any thing but that, sweet Greek.
DIOMEDES
      Good night.
TROILUS
30    Hold, patience!
ULYSSES
      How now, Trojan!
CRESSIDA
      Diomed,--
DIOMEDES
      No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no more.
TROILUS
      Thy better must.
CRESSIDA
35    Hark, one word in your ear.
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;
40    The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.
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
45    You have not patience; come.
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
50    Doth that grieve thee?
      O wither'd truth!
ULYSSES
      Why, how now, lord!
TROILUS
      By Jove,
      I will be patient.
CRESSIDA
55    Guardian!--why, Greek!
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
60    She strokes his cheek!
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
65    How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and
      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
70    I'll fetch you one.
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
75    Now the pledge; now, now, now!
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
80    You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
      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:
85    I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
THERSITES
      Now she sharpens: well said, whetstone!
DIOMEDES
      I shall have it.
CRESSIDA
      What, this?
DIOMEDES
      Ay, that.
CRESSIDA
90    O, 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;
95    He that takes that doth take my heart withal.
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
100   I 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
105   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
110   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;
115   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
120   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
125   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
130   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
135   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,
140   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
145   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
150   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
155   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;
160   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!
165   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
170   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;
175   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,
180   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
185   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:
190   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,
195   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!
200   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:
205   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
210   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
215   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
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