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  • Title: Troilus and Cressida (Modern)
  • Editor: William Godshalk
  • ISBN: 1-55058-301-8

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: William Godshalk
    Peer Reviewed

    Troilus and Cressida (Modern)

    2972.1[5.2]
    Enter Diomed.
    Diomed
    What, are you up here, ho? Speak?
    [Enter Calchas.]
    2975Calchas
    Who calls?
    Diomed
    Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?
    Calchas
    She comes to you.
    Enter Troilus and Ulysses [followed at a distance by Thersites].
    Ulysses
    [To Troilus]
    Stand where the torch may not discover us.
    2980Enter Cressida.
    Troilus
    [To Ulysses] Cressid comes forth to him.
    Diomed
    [To Cressida] How now, my charge?
    Cressida
    Now, my sweet guardian, hark, a word with you.
    [Cressida whispers to Diomed.]
    Troilus
    [Aside] Yea, so familiar?
    2985Ulysses
    [Aside] She will sing any man at first sight.
    Thersites
    [Aside] And any man may find her, if he can take her life; she's noted.
    Diomed
    Will you remember?
    Cressida
    Remember? Yes.
    2990Diomed
    Nay, but do then, and let your mind be coupled with your words.
    Troilus
    [Aside] What should she remember?
    Ulysses
    [Aside] List.
    Cressida
    Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.
    2995Thersites
    [Aside] Roguery.
    Diomed
    Nay then --
    Cressida
    I'll tell you what --
    Diomed
    Foh, foh, come tell a pin; you are a forsworn --
    Cressida
    In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?
    3000Thersites
    [Aside] A juggling trick -- to be secretly open.
    Diomed
    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.
    Diomed
    Good night.
    [Diomed turns to go.]
    3005Troilus
    [Aside] Hold, patience.
    Ulysses
    [To Troilus] How now, Trojan?
    Cressida
    Diomed --
    Diomed
    No, no, good night. I'll be your fool no more.
    Troilus
    [Aside] Thy better must.
    3010Cressida
    Hark, one word in your ear.
    [Cressida whispers to Diomed.]
    Troilus
    [Aside] 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,
    3015The time right deadly. I beseech you, go.
    Troilus
    [To Ulysses] Behold, I pray you.
    Ulysses
    Nay, good my lord, go off.
    You flow to great distraction. Come, my lord?
    Troilus
    I pray thee, stay.
    3020Ulysses
    You have not patience, come.
    Troilus
    I pray you, stay. By hell and hell torments,
    I will not speak a word.
    Diomed
    And so, good night.
    [Diomed turns to leave.]
    Cressida
    Nay, but you part in anger.
    3025Troilus
    [Aside] Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth.
    Ulysses
    Why, how now, lord?
    Troilus
    By Jove, I will be patient.
    Cressida
    Guardian? Why, Greek?
    Diomed
    Foh, foh, adieu; you palter.
    3030Cressida
    In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.
    Ulysses
    You shake, my lord, at something. Will you go?
    You will break out.
    Troilus
    She strokes his cheek.
    Ulysses
    Come, come.
    3035Troilus
    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
    [Aside] How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles these together. Fry, lechery, fry.
    3040Diomed
    But will you then?
    Cressida
    In faith, I will; lo, never trust me else.
    Diomed
    Give me some token for the surety of it.
    Cressida
    I'll fetch you one.
    Exit.
    Ulysses
    You have sworn patience.
    3045Troilus
    Fear me not, sweet lord.
    I will not be myself, nor have cognition
    Of what I feel. I am all patience.
    Enter Cressida [carrying a sleeve.]
    Thersites
    [Aside] Now the pledge, now, now, now.
    Cressida
    Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
    3050Troilus
    O beauty, where is thy faith?
    Ulysses
    My lord.
    Troilus
    [Aside] 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.
    [Cressida takes the sleeve from Diomed.]
    3055Diomed
    Whose was't?
    Cressida
    It is no matter, now I have'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.
    3060Diomed
    I shall have it.
    Cressida
    What, this?
    Diomed
    Ay, that.
    Cressida
    O all you gods. -- O pretty, pretty pledge.
    Thy master now lies thinking in his bed
    3065Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove
    And gives memorial dainty kisses to it
    As I kiss thee.
    [Diomed forcibly takes the sleeve; Cressida tries to take it back.]
    Diomed
    Nay, do not snatch it from me.
    Cressida
    He that takes that doth take my heart withal.
    3070Diomed
    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.
    Diomed
    I will have this. Whose was it?
    3075Cressida
    It is no matter.
    Diomed
    Come, tell me whose it was.
    Cressida
    'Twas one that loved me better than you will.
    But, now you have it, take it.
    Diomed
    Whose was it?
    3080Cressida
    By all Diana's waiting-women yon,
    And by herself, I will not tell you whose.
    Diomed
    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,
    3085It should be challenged.
    Cressida
    Well, well, 'tis done; 'tis past; and yet it is not;
    I will not keep my word.
    Diomed
    Why then, farewell.
    Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
    3090Cressida
    You shall not go. One cannot speak a word,
    But it straight starts you.
    Diomed
    I do not like this fooling.
    Thersites
    [Aside] Nor I, by Pluto, but that that likes not me pleases me best.
    What? Shall I come? The hour?
    Cressida
    Ay, come. -- O Jove. -- Do come. -- I shall be plagued.
    Farewell till then.
    Exit.
    Cressida
    Good night. I prithee, come.
    Troilus, farewell; one eye yet looks on thee;
    3100But 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. Oh, then conclude,
    Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude.
    Exit [with Calchas?].
    3105Thersites
    A proof of strength she could not publish more,
    Unless she say, "My mind is now turned whore."
    Ulysses
    All's done, my lord.
    Troilus
    It is.
    Ulysses
    Why stay we then?
    3110Troilus
    To make a recordation to my soul
    Of every syllable that here was spoke.
    But, if I tell how these two did coact,
    Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
    Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
    3115An esperance so obstinately strong,
    That doth invert that test of eyes and ears,
    As if those organs had deceptious functions
    Created only to calumniate.
    Was Cressid here?
    3120Ulysses
    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.
    3125Troilus
    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.
    3130Ulysses
    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.
    3135If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
    If souls guide vows, if vows are sanctimony,
    If sanctimony be the gods' delight,
    If there be rule in unity itself,
    This is not she. Oh, madness of discourse
    3140That cause sets up with and against thyself
    By foul 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
    3145Of 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 orifice for a point as subtle
    As Ariachne's broken woof to enter.
    3150Instance, oh, instance, strong as Pluto's gates:
    Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven.
    Instance, oh, instance, strong as heaven itself:
    The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and loosed,
    And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
    3155The 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 attached
    With that which here his passion doth express?
    3160Troilus
    Ay, Greek, and that shall be divulgèd well
    In characters as red as Mars his heart
    Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy
    With so eternal and so fixed a soul.
    Hark, Greek, as much I do Cressida love,
    3165So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
    That sleeve is mine that he'll bear in 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,
    3170Constringed in mass by the almighty fen,
    Shall dizzy with more clamor Neptune's ear
    In his descent than shall my prompted sword
    Falling on Diomed.
    Thersites
    [Aside] He'll tickle it for his concupy.
    3175Troilus
    O Cressid. O false Cressid. False, false, false.
    Let all untruths stand by thy stainèd name,
    And they'll seem glorious.
    Ulysses
    Oh, contain yourself.
    Your passion draws ears hither.
    3180Enter 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.
    Troilus
    [To Aeneas] Have with you, prince.
    [To Ulysses] -- My courteous lord, adieu. --
    3185[To Cressida] 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.
    3190Thersites
    [Aside] 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. Lechery, lechery, still 3195wars and lechery, nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them.
    [Exit Thersites.]