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Troilus and Cressida (Quarto 1, 1609)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: W. L. Godshalk
Peer Reviewed
Enter Diomed.
Dio. What are you vp here ho? speake? Chal. Who calls?
Dio. Diomed, Chalcas I thinke wher's your daughter?
Cal. She comes to you.
Vlis. Stand, where the torch may not discouer vs.
Troy. Cressid comes forth to him.
Enter Cressid.
Dio. How now my charge.
Cres. Now my sweet gardian, harke a word with you.
Troy. Yea so familiar?
2985Vlis. Shee will sing any man at first sight.
Ther. And any man may sing her, if hee can take her Cliff,
she's noted.
Dio. Will you remember?
Cal. Remember yes:
2990Dio: Nay but do then and let your minde be coupled with
Troy. What shall she remember. Ulis. List?
Cres. Sweet hony Greeke tempt me no more to folly.
2995Ther: Roguery. Dio. Nay then:
Crese: Ile tell you what.
Dio: Fo, fo, come tell a pin you are forsworne.
Cres: In faith I cannot, what would you haue me do?
3000Ther: A iugling tricke to be secretly open,
Dio: What did you sweare you would bestow on me?
Cres: I prethee do not hold me to mine oath,
Bid me do any thing but that sweete Greeke.
Dio: Good night.
3005Troy: Hold patience.
Vlis How now Troyan. Cres. Diomed.
Dio. No, no, good night Ile be your foole no more.
Troy: Thy better must.
3010Cres: Harke a word in your eare.
Troy: O plague and madnesse!
Ulis: You are moued Prince, let vs depart I pray
Least your displeasure should inlarge it selfe
To wrathfull tearmes, this place is dangerous:
3015The time right deadly, I beseech you goe.
Troy: Behold I pray you.
Vlis: Now good my Lord go off.
You flow to great distruction, come my Lord.
Troy: I prethee stay.
3020Vlis: You haue not patience, come.
Troy: I pray you stay; by hell, and all hells torments,
I will not speake a word.
Dio: And so good night.
Cres: Nay but you part in anger.
3025Troy: Doth that grieue thee, O withered truth.
Vlis: How now my Lord?
Troy: By Ioue I will be patient.
Cres: Gardian? why Greeke? Dio: Fo fo you palter.
3030Cres. In faith I doe not, come hether once againe.
Vlis: You shake my Lord at something, will you goe: you
wil break out.
Troy. She stroakes his cheeke. Vlis. Come, come.
3035Troy. Nay stay, by Ioue I will not speake a word.
There is betweene my will and all offences
A guard of patience, stay a little while.
Ther: How the diuell Luxury with his fat rumpe and po-
tato finger, tickles together; frye lechery frye.
3040Dio: Will you then?
Cres: In faith I will lo, neuer trust me else.
Dio: Giue me some token for the surety of it.
Cres: Ile fetch you one.
Exit.
Vlis: You haue sworne patience:
3045Troy: Feare me not my Lord.
I will not be my selfe, nor haue cognition
Of what I feele, I am all patience:
Enter Cress.
Ther: Now the pledge, now, now, now.
Cres: Heere Diomed keepe this sleeue.
3050Troy: O beauty where is thy faith!
Vlis: My Lord.
Troy: You looke vpon that sleeue behold it well,
Hee loue,d me (oh false wench) giu't me againe:
3055Dio: Whose wast?
Cres: It is no matter now I ha't againe.
I will not meete with you to morrow night:
I prethee Diomed visite me no more.
Ther: Now shee sharpens, well said Whetstone.
3060Dio: I shall haue it.
Cres: What this? Dio: I that.
Cres: O all you gods; O pretty pretty pledge!
Thy maister now lyes thinking on his bed
3065Of thee and mee, and sighes, and takes my gloue,
And giues memoriall dainty kisses to it, as I kisse thee.
Dio: Nay do not snatch it from me.
Cres: He that takes that doth take my heart withall.
3070Dio: I had your heart before, this followes it.
Troy: I did sweare patience.
You shall not haue it Diomed, faith you shall not,
Ile giue you something else.
Dio: I will haue this, whose was it?
3075Cres: It is no matter.
Dio. Come tell me whose it was?
Cres. Twas on's that lou'd me better then you will,
But now you haue it take it.
Dio: VVhose was it?
3080Cres: And by all Dianas wayting women yond
And by her selfe I wlll not tell you whose.
Dio: Tomorrow will I weare it on my Helme,
And grieue his spirit that dares not challenge it.
Troy: VVert thou the diuell, and wor'st it on thy horne,
3085It should be challengd.
Cres: VVell, well, tis done, tis past: and yet it is not.
I will not keepe my word.
Dio: VVhy then farewell, thou neuer shalt mocke Diomed
againe.
3090Cres: You shall not goe: one cannot speake a word but it
straight starts you.
Dio: I doc
not like this fooling.
Ther: Nor I by Pluto; but that that likes not you, pleases
me best.
3095Dio: VVhat shall I come? the houre--
Cres: I come; O Ioue: do come, I shall be plagued.
Dio: Farewell till then.
Cres: Good night, I prethee come:
Troylus farewell, one eye yet lookes on thee,
3100But with my heart the other eye doth see,
Ah poore our sex, this fault in vs I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind,
VVhat error leads must erre: O then conclude,
,,Mindes swayd by eyes are full of turpitude.
Exit.
3105Ther: A proofe of strength, she could not publish more,
Vnlesse shee said my mind is now turn'd whore.
Vlis: All's done my Lord. Troy: It is.
Vlis: VVhy stay we then?
3110Troy: To make a recordation to my soule
Of euery sillable that here was spoke:
But if I tell how these two did Court,
Shall I not lye in publishing a truth,
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart.
3115An esperance so obstinatly strong,
That doth inuert th,attest of eyes and eares,
As if those organs were deceptions functions,
Created onely to calumniate. Was Cresseid heere?
3120Vlis. I cannot coniure Troyan.
Troyl. Shee was not sure.
Ulis Most sure she was.
Troy, Why my negation hath no taste of madnesse.
Vlis. Nor mine my Lord: Cresseid was heere but now.
3125Troyl. Let it not be beleeu'd for woman-hood.
Thinke we had mothers, do not giue aduantage
To stubborne Critiques apt without a theme
For deprauation, to square the generall sex
By Cresseids rule. Rather thinke this not Cresseid.
3130Vli. What hath she done Prince that cā spoile our mothers.
Troyl. Nothing at all, vnlesse that this were she.
Ther. Will a swagger himselfe out on's owne eyes.
Troyl. This she, no this is Diomeds Cresseida,
3135If beauty haue a soule this is not shee:
If soules guide vowes, if vowes be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the gods delight:
If there be rule in vnitie it selfe,
This was not shee: O madnesse of discourse,
3140That cause sets vp with and against it selfe,
By-fould authority: where reason can reuolt
Without perdition, and losse assume all reason,
Without reuolt. This is and is not Cresseid,
Within my soule there doth conduce a fight
3145Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparat,
Diuides more wider then the skie and earth:
And yet the spacious bredth of this diuision,
Admits no orifex for a point as subtle,
As Ariachna's broken woofe to enter,
3150Instance, O instance strong as Plutoes gates,
Cresseid is mine, tied with the bonds of heauen,
Instance, O instance, strong as heauen it selfe,
The bonds of heauen are slipt, dissolu'd and loosd,
And with another knot finde finger tied,
3155The fractions of her faith, orts of her loue.
The fragments, scraps, the bitts and greazie reliques,
Of her ore-eaten faith, are giuen to Diomed.
Vlis. May worthy Troylus be halfe attached
With that which heere his passion doth expresse?
3160Troy. I Greeke, and that shall be divulged well
In Characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflam'd with Venus: neuer did young man fancy
With so eternall and so fixt a soule.
Harke Greeke, as much I do Cressid loue,
3165So much by waight, hate I her Diomed:
That sleeue is mine, that heele beare on his Helme:
VVere it a Caske compos'd by Vulcans skill
My sword should bite it: Not the dreadfull spout
VVhich Shipmen do the hurricano call,
3170Constringd in Masse by the almighty sunne
Shal dizzy with more clamour Neptunes eare, in his discent,
Then shall my prompted sword, falling on Diomed.
Thier: Heele ticle it for his concupie.
3175Troy: O Cressid, O false Cressid, false, false, false:
Let all vntruthes stand by thy stained name,
And theyle seeme glorious.
Vlis: O containe your selfe;
Your passion drawes eares hether.
Enter Eneas.
Aene: I haue beene seeking you this houre my Lord:
Hector by this is arming him in Troy:
Aiax your guard stayes to conduct you home.
Troy: Haue with you Prince: my curteous Lord adiew,
3185Farewell reuoulted faire: and Diomed
Stand fast, and weare a Castle on thy head.
Vlis. Ile bring you to the gates.
Troy. Accept distracted thankes.
Exeunt Troyl. Eeneas and Vlisses.
3190Ther. VVould I could meete that roague Diomed I would
croke like a Rauen, I would bode, I would bode: Patroclus
will giue me any thing for the inteligence of this whore: the
Parrot will not do more for an almond then he for a commo-
dious drab: Lechery, lechery, still warres and lechery, nothing
3195else holds fashion. A burning diuell take them.
Exit.