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, after them THERSITES.

Ulysses	[To TROILUS.] Stand where the torch may not discover us.
									 [TROILUS and ULYSSES stand apart.

                      Enter CRESSIDA from the tent.

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 clef - 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 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					Why, how now, 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, 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.
												[Gives the 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.
												[Snatches back the sleeve.
Diomedes	Whose was't?

Cressida	It is no matter now I have't again.
	I will not meet with you tomorrow 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.
												[DIOMEDES takes the sleeve.

Diomedes						Nay, do not snatch it from me.

Cressida	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 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	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	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	A proof of strength she could not publish more,
	Unless she say "My mind is now turned whore".
												[ULYSSES and TROILUS advance.
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	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 are sanctimony,
	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 thyself!
	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'ereaten faith are bound to Diomed.

Ulysses	May worthy Troilus be half attached
	With that which here his passion doth express?

Troilus	Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulgd 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	He'll tickle it for his concupy.

Troilus	O Cressid - O false Cressid! False, false, false!-
	Let all untruths stand by thy staind 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 
	anything 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.
