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!
