Cres. O, all you gods!-O pretty pretty Edge!
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;
He, that takes that, must take my heart withal.
Dio. I had your heart before, this follows it.
Tro. I did swear patience.
Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; 'faith you
I'll give you something else.
Dio. I will have this; Whose was it?
Dio. Come, tell me whose it was.
Cres. 'Twas one's that lov'd me better than you
But, now you have it, take it.
Cres. By all Diana's waiting-women yonder,
And by herself, I will not tell you whose.
Dio. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm;
And grieve his spirit, that dares not challenge it.
Tro. Wert thou the devil, and wor'st it on thy
Cres. Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past;-And yet it
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
Cres. You shall not go:-One cannot speak a
But it straight starts you.
Dio.
I do not like this fooling.
Ther. Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you,
Dio. What, shall I come? the hour?
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.
Ther. A proof of strength she could not publish
Unless she said, My mind is now turn'd whore.
Ulyss. All's done, my lord.
Tro. 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 the attest of eyes and ears;
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
I cannot conjure, Trojan.
Tro. She was not, sure.
Ulyss.
Tro. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.
Ulyss. Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but
Tro. Let it not be believ'd for womanhood!
Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
To stubborn criticks-apt, without a theme,
For depravation, -to square the general sex
By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid.
Ulyss. What hath she done, prince, that can soil
Tro. Nothing at all, unless that this were she.
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!
Bi-fold 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 subtle
As is Arachne'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, 43
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.
Ulyss. May worthy Troilus be half attach'd
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
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,
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