The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 516
Myself or Menelaus?
DIOMEDES Both alike.
He merits well to have her that doth seek her,
Not making any scruple of her soilure,
With such a hell of pain and world of charge;
And you as well to keep her that defend her,
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Not palating the taste of her dishonour,
With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.
He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat ’tamed piece;
You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
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Are pleased to breed out your inheritors.
Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more,
But he as he. Which heavier for a whore?
PARIS You are too bitter to your countrywoman.
DIOMEDES She’s bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris:
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For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian’s life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
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As for her Greeks and Trojans suffered death.
PARIS Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,
Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy.
But we in silence hold this virtue well:
We’ll not commend what we intend to sell.
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Here lies our way. Exeunt.
4.2 Enter TROILUS and CRESSIDA.
TROILUS Dear, trouble not yourself. The morn is cold.
CRESSIDA
Then, sweet my lord, I’ll call mine uncle down.
He shall unbolt the gates.
TROILUS Trouble him not.
To bed, to bed! Sleep kill those pretty eyes
And give as soft attachment to thy senses
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As infants’ empty of all thought!
CRESSIDA Good morrow, then.
TROILUS I prithee now, to bed.
CRESSIDA Are you aweary of me?
TROILUS O Cressida! But that the busy day,
Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows,
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And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,
I would not from thee.
CRESSIDA Night hath been too brief.
TROILUS
Beshrew the witch! With venomous wights she stays
As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love
With wings more momentary-swift than thought.
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You will catch cold and curse me.
CRESSIDA Prithee, tarry. You men will never tarry.
O foolish Cressid, I might have still held off,
And then you would have tarried! – Hark, there’s
one up.
PANDARUS [within] What’s all the doors open here?
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TROILUS It is your uncle.
Enter PANDARUS.
CRESSIDA
A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking.
I shall have such a life!
PANDARUS How now, how now, how go maidenheads?
Here, you maid! Where’s my cousin Cressid?
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CRESSIDA
Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle!
You bring me to do – and then you flout me too.
PANDARUS To do what, to do what? – Let her say what.
– What have I brought you to do?
CRESSIDA
Come, come, beshrew your heart! You’ll ne’er be good,
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Nor suffer others.
PANDARUS Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! Ah, poor
capocchia, has ’t not slept tonight? Would he not – ah,
naughty man – let it sleep? A bugbear take him!
CRESSIDA [to Troilus]
Did not I tell you? Would he were knocked i’th’ head!
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[One knocks.]
Who’s that at door? Good uncle, go and see. –
My lord, come you again into my chamber.
You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.
TROILUS Ha, ha!
CRESSIDA
Come, you are deceived. I think of no such thing.
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[Knock.]
How earnestly they knock! Pray you, come in.
I would not for half Troy have you seen here.
Exeunt Troilus and Cressida.
PANDARUS Who’s there? What’s the matter? Will you
beat down the door? [Opens the door.] How now,
what’s the matter?
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Enter AENEAS.
AENEAS Good morrow, lord, good morrow.
PANDARUS Who’s there? My Lord Aeneas? By my troth,
I knew you not. What news with you so early?
AENEAS Is not Prince Troilus here?
PANDARUS Here? What should he do here?
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AENEAS Come, he is here, my lord. Do not deny him.
It doth import him much to speak with me.
PANDARUS Is he here, say you? It’s more than I know, I’ll
be sworn. For my own part, I came in late. What
should he do here?
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AENEAS
Ho, nay, then! Come, come, you’ll do him wrong
Ere you are ware. You’ll be so true to him
To be false to him. Do not you know of him,
But yet go fetch him hither. Go.
Enter TROILUS.
TROILUS How now, what’s the matter?
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AENEAS My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,
My matter is so rash. There is at hand
Paris your brother and Deiphobus,
The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor
Delivered to us; and for him forthwith,
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Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,
We must give up to Diomedes’ hand
The Lady Cressida.
TROILUS Is it concluded so?
AENEAS By Priam and the general state of Troy.
They are at hand and ready to effect it.
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TROILUS How my achievements mock me! –
I will go meet them. And, my Lord Aeneas,
We met by chance; you did not find me here.
AENEAS Good, good my lord, the secrets of nature
Have not more gift in taciturnity.
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Exeunt Troilus and Aeneas.
PANDARUS Is’t possible? No sooner got but lost? The
devil take Antenor! The young prince will go mad. A
plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke’s neck!
Enter CRESSIDA.
CRESSIDA
How now? What’s the matter? Who was here?
PANDARUS Ah, ah!
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CRESSIDA
Why sigh you so profoundly? Where’s my lord?
Gone? Tell me, sweet uncle, what’s the matter?
PANDARUS Would I were as deep under the earth as I am
above!
CRESSIDA O the gods! What’s the matter?
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PANDARUS Pray thee, get thee in. Would thou hadst
ne’er been born! I knew thou wouldst be his death. O,
poor gentleman! A plague upon Antenor!
CRESSIDA Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I
beseech you, what’s the matter?
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PANDARUS Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be
gone. Thou art changed for Antenor. Thou must to
thy father and be gone from Troilus. ’Twill be his
death, ’twill be his bane; he cannot bear it.
CRESSIDA O you immortal gods! I will not go.
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PANDARUS Thou must.
CRESSIDA I will not, uncle. I ha
ve forgot my father.
I know no touch of consanguinity;
No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me
As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine,
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Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force and death,
Do to this body what extremes you can;
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth,
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Drawing all things to it. I’ll go in and weep –
PANDARUS Do, do.
CRESSIDA
Tear my bright hair and scratch my praised cheeks,
Crack my clear voice with sobs, and break my heart
With sounding ‘Troilus’. I will not go from Troy.
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Exeunt.
4.3 Enter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, Antenor and DIOMEDES.
PARIS It is great morning, and the hour prefixed
Of her delivery to this valiant Greek
Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,
Tell you the lady what she is to do
And haste her to the purpose.
TROILUS Walk into her house.
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I’ll bring her to the Grecian presently;
And to his hand when I deliver her,
Think it an altar and thy brother Troilus
A priest, there off ’ring to it his own heart.
PARIS I know what ’tis to love;
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And would, as I shall pity, I could help!
Please you walk in, my lords. Exeunt.
4.4 Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA.
PANDARUS Be moderate, be moderate.
CRESSIDA Why tell you me of moderation?
The grief is fine, full, perfect that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong
As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?
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If I could temporize with my affection,
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief.
My love admits no qualifying dross;
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.
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Enter TROILUS.
PANDARUS Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!
CRESSIDA [Embraces Troilus.] O Troilus! Troilus!
PANDARUS What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me
embrace, too. ‘O heart’, as the goodly saying is,
‘O heart, heavy heart,
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Why sigh’st thou without breaking?’
where he answers again:
‘Because thou canst not ease thy smart
By friendship nor by speaking.’
There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away
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nothing, for we may live to have need of such a verse.
We see it, we see it. How now, lambs?
TROILUS Cressid, I love thee in so strained a purity
That the blest gods, as angry with my fancy –
More bright in zeal than the devotion which
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Cold lips blow to their deities – take thee from me.
CRESSIDA Have the gods envy?
PANDARUS Ay, ay, ay, ay, ’tis too plain a case.
CRESSIDA And is it true that I must go from Troy?
TROILUS A hateful truth.
CRESSIDA What, and from Troilus too?
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TROILUS From Troy and Troilus.
CRESSIDA Is’t possible?
TROILUS And suddenly, where injury of chance
Puts back leave-taking, jostles roughly by
All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
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Our locked embrasures, strangles our dear vows
Even in the birth of our own labouring breath.
We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
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Injurious Time now with a robber’s haste
Crams his rich thiev’ry up, he knows not how.
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them,
He fumbles up into a loose adieu
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And scants us with a single famished kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.
AENEAS [within] My lord, is the lady ready?
TROILUS
Hark, you are called. Some say the Genius so
Cries ‘Come!’ to him that instantly must die. –
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Bid them have patience. She shall come anon.
PANDARUS Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind,