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Cres. In faith, I cannot: what would you have A guard of patience; - stay a little while.

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Dio. No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no Of what I feel; I am all patience.

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[Exit.

Cres. You look upon that sleeve; behold it

well. He loved me

again.

-O, false wench!-Give 't me

Dio. Who was 't?

Cres. It is no matter, now I have 't again.

I will not meet with you to-morrow night:

I pr'y thee, Diomed, visit me no more.

Ther. Now she sharpens; well said, whetstone. Dio. I shall have it.

Cres.

Dio.

What, this?
Ay, that.

Cres. O, all you gods!-0, 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;

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Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; 'faith Of every syllable that here was spoke.

you shall not;

I'll give you something else.

Dio. I will have this; whose was it?
Cres.

It is no matter.

Dio. Come, tell me whose it was?

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 cars!

Cres. 'Twas one's that loved me better than As if those organs had deceptious functions,

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Cres. Well, well, 't is done, 't is past: and yet Think we had mothers; do not give advantage

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Ther. Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?

Tro. This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida : If beauty have a soul, this is not she;

If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimony,

If sanctimony be the gods' 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 commence 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 orifice for a point, as subtile
As is Arachne's broken woof, to enter.

Unless she said, "My mind is now turned whore." Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;

Ulys.

All's done, my lord.

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 reliques
Of her o'er eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.
Ulys. May worthy Troilus be half attached
With that which here his passion doth express?
Tro. 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 on 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 clamor Neptune's ear
In his descent, than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy.

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Consort with me in loud and dear petition; Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamed Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night

Tro. O, Cressid! O, false Cressid! false, false, Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of

false !

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Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
Tro. Have with you, prince :- My courteous
lord, adieu :

Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
Ulys. I'll bring you to the gates.
Tro. Accept distracted thanks.

[Exeunt TROILUS, ENEAS, and ULYSSES. Ther. '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

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Cas. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows: They are polluted offerings, more abhorred Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

And. O, be persuaded: Do not count it holy To hurt by being just it is as lawful, For we would give much, to use violent thefts, And rob in the behalf of charity.

Cas. It is the purpose that makes strong the
VOW;
But vows to every purpose must not hold:
Unarm, sweet Hector.

Hect. Hold you still, I say;
Mine honor keeps the weather of my fate.
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honor far more precious-dear than life.

Enter TROILUS.

How now, young man? mean'st thou to fight today?

And. Cassandra, call my father to persuade.

Exit CASSANDRA.

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And I do stand engaged to many Greeks,

Hect. No, 'faith, young Troilus; doff thy har-Even in the faith of valor, to appear

ness, youth;

I am to-day i' the vein of chivalry :

Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong, And tempt not yet the brushes of the war. Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy, I'll stand, to-day, for thee, and me, and Troy.

Tro. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you.

Which better fits a lion than a man.

Hect. What vice is that good Troilus? chide me for it.

Tro. When many times the captive Grecians fall, Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword, You bid them rise and live.

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Pan. Do you hear, my lord? do you hear?
Tro. What now?

Pan. Here's a letter from yon' poor girl.
Tro. Let me read.

Pan. A whoreson ptisick, a whoreson rascally ptisick so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl; and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o' these days: and I have a rheum in mine eyes too; and such an ache in my bones, that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what to think on 't.- What says she there? Tro. Words, words, mere words; no matter from the heart; [Tearing the letter.

Dio.

Thou dost miscall retire

I do not fly; but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude:
Have at thee!

Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian!—now for thy whore, Trojan! now the sleeve, now the sleeveless!

[Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES, fighting. Enter HECTOR.

Hect. What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match?

Art thou of blood and honor.

The effect doth operate another way.-
Go, wind to wind, there turn and change to- knave; a very filthy rogue.

Ther. No, no: I am a rascal; a scurvy railing

gether.

My love with words and errors still she feeds;
But edifies another with her deeds.

[Exit.

Hect. I do believe thee; — live. Ther. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck, for frightening me! [Exeunt severally. What's become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another; I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself.

SCENE IV. Between Troy and the Grecian Camp. I'll seek them.

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Alarums; Excursions. Enter THERSITES.

Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another: I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there, in his helm: I would fain see them meet; that that same Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish whoremasterly villian, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling luxurious drab, on a sleeveless errand O' the other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals-that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses-is not proved worth a blackberry: they set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles: and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. Soft! here comes sleeve and sleeveless.

Enter DIOMEDES: TROILUS following.
Tro. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river
Styx,

I would swim after.

SCENE V. The same.

Enter DIOMEDES and a Servant.

Exit.

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