⌈CRESSiDA⌉ 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 (aside) 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

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,

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.

⌈TROILUS⌉ (aside)

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 swayed by eyes are full of turpitude. Exit

THERSITES (aside)

A proof of strength she could not publish more

Unless she said, ‘My mind is now turned 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 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 (aside) Will a 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,

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 thyselfl

Bifold 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 slipped, 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 e’en be half attached

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 fixed 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 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,

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 (aside) 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 (to Troilus)

I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.

Hector by this is arming him in Troy.