owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would
not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire
against destiny. Ask me not, what 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!
spirits 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 ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR
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
Scene 2
The same. Before Calchas’ tent.
Enter DIOMEDES
DIOMEDES What, are you up here, ho? speak.
CALCHAS [Within]
Who calls?
DIOMEDES 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 Foh, foh! come, tell a pin: you are 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 any thing 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 wither’d truth!
ULYSSES Why, how now, lord!
TROILUS By Jove,
I will be patient.
CRESSIDA Guardian!–why, Greek!
DIOMEDES Foh, foh! 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, sweet 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 loved 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 in 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 loved 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 worest it on thy horn,
It should be challenged.
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 plagued.
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 the 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 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.
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 sanctimonies,