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Troilus and Cressida: Act V, Scene 2

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Troilus and Cressida
Act V, Scene 2

The Grecian camp. Before Calchas’s tent.

The plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare

The parrot will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab

The plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare

Henry Nicholson Ellacombe, University College Library Services, 1896

  1. Enter Diomedes.

Diomedes

1
  1. What, are you up here, ho? Speak!

Calchas

2
  1. Within.
  2. Who calls?

Diomedes

3
  1. Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?

Calchas

4
  1. Within.
  2. She comes to you.
  1. Enter Troilus and Ulysses at a distance; after them,
  2. Thersites.

Ulysses

5
  1. Stand where the torch may not discover us.
  1. Enter Cressida.

Troilus

6
  1. Cressid comes forth to him.

Diomedes

7
  1.                             How now, my charge?

Cressida

8
  1. Now, my sweet guardian, hark, a word with you.
  1. Whispers.

Troilus

9
  1. Yea, so familiar?

Ulysses

10
  1. She will sing any man at first sight.

Thersites

11 - 12
  1. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s
  2. noted.

Diomedes

13
  1. Will you remember?

Cressida

14
  1. Remember? Yes.

Diomedes

15 - 16
  1. Nay, but do then,
  2. And let your mind be coupled with your words.

Troilus

17
  1. What shall she remember?

Ulysses

18
  1. List!

Cressida

19
  1. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

Thersites

20
  1. Roguery!

Diomedes

21
  1. Nay then—

Cressida

22
  1. I’ll tell you what—

Diomedes

23
  1. Fo, fo, come, tell a pin. You are forsworn.

Cressida

24
  1. In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

Thersites

25
  1. A juggling trick—to be secretly open.

Diomedes

26
  1. What did you swear you would bestow on me?

Cressida

27 - 28
  1. I prithee do not hold me to mine oath,
  2. Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek.

Diomedes

29
  1. Good night.

Troilus

30
  1. Hold, patience.

Ulysses

31
  1. How now, Troyan?

Cressida

32
  1. Diomed—

Diomedes

33
  1. No, no, good night, I’ll be your fool no more.

Troilus

34
  1. Thy better must.

Cressida

35
  1. Hark a word in your ear.

Troilus

36
  1. O plague and madness!

Ulysses

37 - 40
  1. You are moved, Prince, let us depart, I pray,
  2. Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
  3. To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous,
  4. The time right deadly. I beseech you go.

Troilus

41
  1. Behold, I pray you.

Ulysses

42 - 43
  1.                     Now, good my lord, go off;
  2. You flow to great distraction. Come, my lord.

Troilus

44
  1. I prithee stay.

Ulysses

45
  1.                 You have not patience, come.

Troilus

46 - 47
  1. I pray you stay. By hell and all hell’s torments,
  2. I will not speak a word.

Diomedes

48
  1.                          And so good night.

Cressida

49
  1. Nay, but you part in anger.

Troilus

50 - 51
  1.                             Doth that grieve thee?
  2. O withered truth!

Ulysses

52
  1.                   How now, my lord?

Troilus

53 - 54
  1.                   By Jove
  2. I will be patient.

Cressida

55
  1.                    Guardian! Why, Greek!

Diomedes

56
  1. Fo, fo, adieu, you palter.

Cressida

57
  1. In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.

Ulysses

58 - 59
  1. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?
  2. You will break out.

Troilus

60
  1.                     She strokes his cheek.

Ulysses

61
  1.                        Come, come.

Troilus

62 - 64
  1. Nay, stay; by Jove I will not speak a word.
  2. There is between my will and all offenses
  3. A guard of patience. Stay a little while.

Thersites

65 - 66
  1. How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger,
  2. tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

Diomedes

67
  1. But will you then?

Cressida

68
  1. In faith I will lo, never trust me else.

Diomedes

69
  1. Give me some token for the surety of it.

Cressida

70
  1. I’ll fetch you one.
  1. Exit.

Ulysses

71
  1. You have sworn patience.

Troilus

72 - 74
  1.                          Fear me not, my lord.
  2. I will not be myself, nor have cognition
  3. Of what I feel; I am all patience.
  1. Enter Cressida.

Thersites

75
  1. Now the pledge, now, now, now!

Cressida

76
  1. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.

Troilus

77
  1. O beauty, where is thy faith?

Ulysses

78
  1.                               My lord—

Troilus

79
  1. I will be patient, outwardly I will.

Cressida

80 - 81
  1. You look upon that sleeve, behold it well.
  2. He lov’d me—O false wench!—Give’t me again.

Diomedes

82
  1. Whose was’t?

Cressida

83 - 85
  1. It is no matter now I ha’t again.
  2. I will not meet with you tomorrow night.
  3. I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

Thersites

86
  1. Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone!

Diomedes

87
  1. I shall have it.

Cressida

88
  1.                  What, this?

Diomedes

89
  1.             Ay, that.

Cressida

90 - 95
  1. O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
  2. Thy master now lies thinking on his bed
  3. Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
  4. And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
  5. As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me.
  6. He that takes that doth take my heart withal.

Diomedes

96
  1. I had your heart before, this follows it.

Troilus

97
  1. I did swear patience.

Cressida

98 - 99
  1. You shall not have it, Diomed, faith, you shall not.
  2. I’ll give you something else.

Diomedes

100
  1. I will have this. Whose was it?

Cressida

101
  1.                                 It is no matter.

Diomedes

102
  1. Come, tell me whose it was.

Cressida

103 - 104
  1. ’Twas one’s that lov’d me better than you will.
  2. But now you have it, take it.

Diomedes

105
  1.                               Whose was it?

Cressida

106 - 107
  1. By all Diana’s waiting-women yond,
  2. And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

Diomedes

108 - 109
  1. Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm,
  2. And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.

Troilus

110 - 111
  1. Wert thou the devil, and wor’st it on thy horn,
  2. It should be challeng’d.

Cressida

112 - 113
  1. Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past. And yet it is not;
  2. I will not keep my word.

Diomedes

114 - 115
  1.                          Why then farewell,
  2. Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

O pretty, pretty pledge!

James Neagle, 1804

Cressida

116 - 117
  1. You shall not go. One cannot speak a word
  2. But it straight starts you.

Diomedes

118
  1.                             I do not like this fooling.

Thersites

119 - 120
  1. Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you pleases me
  2. best.

Diomedes

121
  1. What, shall I come? The hour—

Cressida

122
  1. Ay, come—O Jove!—do come.—I shall be plagued.

Diomedes

123
  1. Farewell till then.

Cressida

124 - 130
  1.                     Good night. I prithee come.
  2. Exit Diomedes.
  3. Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee,
  4. But with my heart the other eye doth see.
  5. Ah, poor our sex! This fault in us I find,
  6. The error of our eye directs our mind.
  7. What error leads must err; O then conclude,
  8. Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude.
  1. Exit.

Thersites

131 - 132
  1. A proof of strength she could not publish more,
  2. Unless she said, “My mind is now turn’d whore.”

Ulysses

133
  1. All’s done, my lord.

Troilus

134
  1.                      It is.

Ulysses

135
  1.        Why stay we then?

Troilus

136 - 145
  1. To make a recordation to my soul
  2. Of every syllable that here was spoke.
  3. But if I tell how these two did co-act,
  4. Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
  5. Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
  6. An esperance so obstinately strong,
  7. That doth invert th’ attest of eyes and ears,
  8. As if those organs had deceptious functions,
  9. Created only to calumniate.
  10. Was Cressid here?

Ulysses

146
  1.                   I cannot conjure, Troyan.

Troilus

147
  1. She was not, sure.

Ulysses

148
  1.                    Most sure she was.

Troilus

149
  1. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

Ulysses

150
  1. Nor mine, my lord; Cressid was here but now.

Troilus

151 - 155
  1. Let it not be believ’d for womanhood!
  2. Think we had mothers, do not give advantage
  3. To stubborn critics, apt without a theme
  4. For depravation, to square the general sex
  5. By Cressid’s rule. Rather think this not Cressid.

Ulysses

156
  1. What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?

Troilus

157
  1. Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

Thersites

158
  1. Will ’a swagger himself out on ’s own eyes?

Troilus

159 - 182
  1. This she? No, this is Diomed’s Cressida.
  2. If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
  3. If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
  4. If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,
  5. If there be rule in unity itself,
  6. This was not she. O madness of discourse,
  7. That cause sets up with and against itself!
  8. Bi-fold authority, where reason can revolt
  9. Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
  10. Without revolt. This is, and is not, Cressid!
  11. Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
  12. Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
  13. Divides more wider than the sky and earth,
  14. And yet the spacious breadth of this division
  15. Admits no orifex for a point as subtle
  16. As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter.
  17. Instance, O instance, strong as Pluto’s gates,
  18. Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven;
  19. Instance, O instance, strong as heaven itself,
  20. The bonds of heaven are slipp’d, dissolv’d, and loos’d,
  21. And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
  22. The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
  23. The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics
  24. Of her o’er-eaten faith, are given to Diomed.

Ulysses

183 - 184
  1. May worthy Troilus be half attached
  2. With that which here his passion doth express?

Troilus

185 - 198
  1. Ay, Greek, and that shall be divulged well
  2. In characters as red as Mars his heart
  3. Inflam’d with Venus. Never did young man fancy
  4. With so eternal and so fix’d a soul.
  5. Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
  6. So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
  7. That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm.
  8. Were it a casque compos’d by Vulcan’s skill,
  9. My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout
  10. Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
  11. Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun,
  12. Shall dizzy with more clamor Neptune’s ear,
  13. In his descent, than shall my prompted sword
  14. Falling on Diomed.

Thersites

199
  1. He’ll tickle it for his concupy.

Troilus

200 - 202
  1. O Cressid! O false Cressid! False, false, false!
  2. Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
  3. And they’ll seem glorious.

Ulysses

203 - 204
  1.                            O, contain yourself;
  2. Your passion draws ears hither.
  1. Enter Aeneas.

Aeneas

205 - 207
  1. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.
  2. Hector by this is arming him in Troy;
  3. Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.

Troilus

208 - 210
  1. Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
  2. Farewell, revolted fair! And, Diomed,
  3. Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!

Ulysses

211
  1. I’ll bring you to the gates.

Troilus

212
  1. Accept distracted thanks.
  1. Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas, and Ulysses.

Thersites

213 - 218
  1. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a
  2. raven, I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me
  3. any thing for the intelligence of this whore. The parrot
  4. will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious
  5. drab. Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery, nothing else
  6. holds fashion. A burning devil take them!
  1. Exit.
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