The History of Troilus and Cressida - William Shakespeare (reading women txt) 📗

I would be, if I were not Thersites; for
I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus.
Hey-day! sprites and fires!

[Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR,
MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights.]

AGAMEMNON.
We go wrong, we go wrong.

AJAX.
No, yonder 'tis;
There, where we see the lights.

HECTOR.
I trouble you.

AJAX.
No, not a whit.

ULYSSES.
Here comes himself to guide you.

[Re-enter ACHILLES.]

ACHILLES.
Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.

AGAMEMNON.
So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night;
Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.

HECTOR.
Thanks, and good night to the Greeks' general.

MENELAUS.
Good night, my lord.

HECTOR.
Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.

THERSITES.
Sweet draught! 'Sweet' quoth a'!
Sweet sink, sweet sewer!

ACHILLES.
Good night and welcome, both at once, to those
That go or tarry.

AGAMEMNON.
Good night.

[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS.]

ACHILLES.
Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
Keep Hector company an hour or two.

DIOMEDES.
I cannot, lord; I have important business,
The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.

HECTOR.
Give me your hand.

ULYSSES.

[Aside to TROILUS]

Follow his torch; he goes to
Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company.

TROILUS.
Sweet sir, you honour me.

HECTOR.
And so, good night.

[Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following.]

ACHILLES.
Come, come, enter my tent.

[Exeunt all but THERSITES.]

THERSITES.
That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust
knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a
serpent when he hisses. He will spend his mouth and promise, like
Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell
it: it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun
borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather
leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps a
Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent. I'll after.
Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets!

[Exit.]


ACT V.

SCENE 2. The Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS' tent

[Enter DIOMEDES.]

DIOMEDES.
What, are you up here, ho! Speak.

CALCHAS.
[Within.] Who calls?

DIOMEDES.
Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?

CALCHAS.
[Within.] She comes to you.

[Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them THERSITES.]

ULYSSES.
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.
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.
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.
Roguery!

DIOMEDES.
Nay, then

CRESSIDA.
I'll tell you what -

DIOMEDES.
Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn.

CRESSIDA.
In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

THERSITES.
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 anything but that, sweet Greek.

DIOMEDES.
Good night.

TROILUS.
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.
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;
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.
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.
Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!

ULYSSES.
How now, my lord?

TROILUS.
By Jove, I will be patient.

CRESSIDA.
Guardian! Why, Greek!

DIOMEDES.
Fo, fo! 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.
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.
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.
I'll fetch you one.

[Exit.]

ULYSSES.
You have sworn patience.

TROILUS.
Fear me not, my lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition
Of what I feel. I am all patience.

[Re-enter CRESSIDA.]

THERSITES.
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.
You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
He lov'd 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.
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.
O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
Thy master now lies thinking on 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.

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.
I will have this. Whose was it?

CRESSIDA.
It is no matter.

DIOMEDES.
Come, tell me whose it was.

CRESSIDA.
'Twas one's that lov'd me better than you will.
But, now you have it, take it.

DIOMEDES.
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.
Wert thou the devil and wor'st it on thy horn,
It should be challeng'd.

CRESSIDA.
Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past; and yet it is not;
I will not keep my word.

DIOMEDES.
Why, then farewell;
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 plagu'd.

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 th' 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 believ'd 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 sanctimony,
If sanctimony be the god's delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This was 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 orifice 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, dissolv'd, and loos'd;
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
Inflam'd 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 compos'd by Vulcan's skill
My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constring'd 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.
Fairwell, revolted fair! and,