Chapter: ACT V. SCENE 2.
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, 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 shall 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 a 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, Troyan!
  CRESSIDA. Diomed!
  DIOMEDES. No, no, good night; I'll be your fool no more.
  TROILUS. Thy better must.
  CRESSIDA. Hark! a word in your ear.
  TROILUS. O plague and madness!
  ULYSSES. You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray,
    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 prithee 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. How now, my 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, lo; 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, my 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 lov'd me-O false wench!-Give't me again.
  DIOMEDES. Whose was't?
  CRESSIDA. It is no matter, now I ha'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 on 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 lov'd 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 wor'st it on thy horn,
    It should be challeng'd.
  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 plagu'd.
  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 coact,
    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, Troyan.
  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 believ'd 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 '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 god's delight,
    If there be rule in unity itself,
    This was not she. O madness of discourse,
    That cause sets up with and against itself!
    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 slipp'd, dissolv'd, and loos'd;
    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
    Inflam'd 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 compos'd by Vulcan's skill
    My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout
    Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
    Constring'd 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.
    Fairwell, 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

 Diomedes enters and asks Calchas, Wheres your daughter? Calchas says that she will soon be with him. Troilus and Ulysses enter. Thersites is behind them at a distance. Ulysses cautions Troilus to stand where the torch does not catch him. Cressida enters. Troilus says that Cressida goes out to meet Diomedes. She whispers in his ear. Troilus is surprised at her familiarity with Diomedes. Ulysses, who remembers Cressidas behavior earlier, says She will sing any man at first sight. Thersites as bawdy as ever says that any man may sing Cressida, if he can take her clef - clef here could mean the sign identifying the stave on which the musical notes appear and hence fixing the pitch of the notes, and also the female pudendum. He says that she is noted and recognized for what she is - that is, one of ill repute. Diomedes asks Cressida if she will remember. Cressida says she will. Troilus wonders what it is that she is to remember. Cressida addresses Diomedes as Sweet honey Greek, and asks him not to tempt here to folly further. As Cressida attempts to play hard to get, Diomedes brushes her aside with Fo, fo, come, tell a pin; you are foresworn. He tells her that having been effectually unfaithful already, she can hardly stand upon her honor now. Cressida tells him that she truly cannot keep whatever compact was agreed between them and asks him what she should do. Thersites calls this development a juggling trick: to be secretly open. He means this is a deception, a feat of almost impossible skill that attempts to be sexually accessible and privately public. Diomedes asks Cressida what she had sworn to bestow on him.. Cressida pleads with him not to hold her to her promise. Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek, she says. Diomedes bids her a terse good night. Troilus is slowly growing uncontrollable: Hold, patience! he says. Ulysses asks him the matter. Cressida calls Diomedes. Diomedes says good night again and says he will not be her dupe any longer. Troilus comments bitterly that he, Diomedes better, must continue to be Cressidas fool. Cressida attempts to whisper in Diomedes ear. Troilus growing more troubled mutters O plague and madness! Ulysses, who notes Troilus state, suggests that they leave lest his displeasure is transformed into wrathful terms. The place is dangerous and the time is deadly, he says beseeching him to leave. Troilus doesnt want to leave. He insists that they stay and watch. Ulysses doesnt agree - he is worried about Troilus mental and emotional disorder. But still Troilus insists on staying. Ulysses says Troilus doesnt have the patience to watch what is happening. Troilus begs that they stay. He promises by hell and all hell torments to not speak a word. Diomedes bids Cressida good night. Cressida doesnt want to let him go as he parts in anger. Troilus is incredulous and wonders if that grieves Cressida. When Ulysses again seems about to drag him away, he swears by Jove that he will be patient. Cressida attempts to retain Diomedes who threatens to leave as he is disgusted with her equivocation and shuffling. Cressida insists that she is not shuffling and asks him to come back

