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!
Exit
Scene 3
Troy. Before Priam’s palace.
Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE
ANDROMACHE When was my lord so much ungently temper’d,
To stop his ears against admonishment?
Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.
HECTOR You train me to offend you; get you in:
By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go!
ANDROMACHE My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.
HECTOR No more, I say.
Enter CASSANDRA
CASSANDRA Where is my brother Hector?
ANDROMACHE Here, sister; arm’d, and bloody in intent.
Consort with me in loud and dear petition,
Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream’d
Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night
Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
CASSANDRA O, ’tis true.
HECTOR Ho! bid my trumpet sound!
CASSANDRA No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother.
HECTOR Be gone, I say: the gods have heard me swear.
CASSANDRA The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows:
They are polluted offerings, more abhorr’d
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
ANDROMACHE O, be persuaded! do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful,
For we would give much, to use violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity.
CASSANDRA It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
But vows to every purpose must not hold:
Unarm, sweet Hector.
HECTOR Hold you still, I say;
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:
Lie every man holds dear; but the brave man
Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.
Enter TROILUS
How now, young man! mean’st thou to fight to-day?
ANDROMACHE Cassandra, call my father to persuade.
Exit CASSANDRA
HECTOR No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
I am to-day i’ the vein of chivalry:
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Unarm thee, go, and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I’ll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.
TROILUS Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.
HECTOR What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it.
TROILUS When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise, and live.
HECTOR O,’tis fair play.
TROILUS Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.
HECTOR How now! how now!
TROILUS For the love of all the gods,
Let’s leave the hermit pity with our mothers,
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
HECTOR Fie, savage, fie!
TROILUS Hector, then ’tis wars.
HECTOR Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.
TROILUS Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o’ergalled with recourse of tears;
Not you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way,
But by my ruin.
Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM
CASSANDRA Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast:
He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
Fall all together.
PRIAM Come, Hector, come, go back:
Thy wife hath dream’d; thy mother hath had visions;
Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt
To tell thee that this day is ominous:
Therefore, come back.
HECTOR AEneas is a-field;
And I do stand engaged to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.
PRIAM Ay, but thou shalt not go.
HECTOR I must not break my faith.
You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice,
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.
CASSANDRA O Priam, yield not to him!
ANDROMACHE Do not, dear father.
HECTOR Andromache, I am offended with you:
Upon the love you bear me, get you in.
Exit ANDROMACHE
TROILUS This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
Makes all these bodements.
CASSANDRA O, farewell, dear Hector!
Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale!
Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents!
Hark, how Troy roars! how Hecuba cries out!
How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth!
Behold, distraction, frenzy and amazement,
Like witless antics, one another meet,
And all cry, Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!
TROILUS Away! away!
CASSANDRA Farewell: yet, soft! Hector! take my leave:
Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.
Exit
HECTOR You are amazed, my liege, at her exclaim:
Go in and cheer the town: we’ll forth and fight,
Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.
PRIAM Farewell: the gods with safety stand about thee!
Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums
TROILUS They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.
Enter PANDARUS
PANDARUS Do you hear, my lord? do you hear?
TROILUS What now?
PANDARUS Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.
TROILUS Let me read.
PANDARUS A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so
troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl;
and what one thing, what another, that I shall
leave you one o’ these days: and I have a rheum
in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones
that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what
to think on’t. What says she there?
TROILUS Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart:
The effect doth operate another way.
Tearing the letter
Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.
My love with words and errors still she feeds;
But edifies another with her deeds.
Exeunt severally
Scene 4
Plains between Troy and the Grecian camp.
Alarums: excursions. Enter THERSITES
THERSITES Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go
look on. That dissembling abominable varlets Diomed,
has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave’s
sleeve of Troy there in his helm: I would fain see
them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that
loves the whore there, might send that Greekish
whore-masterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the
dissembling luxurious drab, of a sleeveless errand.
O’ the t’other side, the policy of those crafty