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 shows up at the tent looking for Cressida. Calchas invites him inside as Troilus and Ulysses watch from a distance and Thersites creeps up behind them to see what happens. Cressida is all coy with Diomedes, calling him her "sweet guardian" and her "sweet honey Greek" and begging him not to "tempt" her as he whispers in her ear. Diomedes reminds Cressida that she promised she would give him something. Troilus is crushed but he refuses to budge, even when Ulysses says he should just go home and forget about Cressida. Thersites,who's watching this scene from his own vantage point, is thoroughly disgusted with both Cressida and Diomedes. But then, Thersites seems pretty disgusted with everybody. Eventually, Cressida promises to sleep with Diomedes and even gives him a love token to prove she's serious. Guess what it is? That's right. The "sleeve" Troilus gave her earlier. This just about kills Troilus, obviously. Diomedes wants to know where the love token came from but Cressida won't tell. Then she changes her mind and says she's not going to hook up with Diomedes and that he shouldn't come back to her tent. Diomedes threatens to wear the sleeve the next day during battle just to taunt the guy who gave it to Cressida. As he turns to leave, Cressida tells him to wait up. She's changed her mind again and has decided to sleep with him after all. Diomedes has had enough of this crazy lady and leaves. But Cressida claims she can't help the fact that she's unfaithful because she's a woman and all women are promiscuous. With that lovely thought, she exits the stage. Thersites, who has been making nasty comments the whole time, says that Cressida is a "whore." Troilus can't believe what he's just seen and heard, and he declares that he's going to stab Diomedes tomorrow during battle. Which is logical. Not. Then Aeneas shows up and announces that Hector has already gone back to Troy and it's time for Troilus to go home, too. Thersites is left alone on stage. He says that the world is all about "lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery." We feel you, man.

