Men. Good night, my lord.

Hect. Good night, sweet Menelaus.

Ther. Sweet draught: Sweet, quoth 'a! sweet sink,

sweet sewer.

Achil. Good night,

And welcome, both to those that go, or tarry.

Aga. Good night.

[Exe. AGEM. and MENEL. Achil. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,

Keep Hector company an hour or two.

Dio. I cannot, lord; I have important business,

The tide whereof is now.-Good night, great Hector.
Hect. Give me your hand.

Ulyss. Follow his torch, he goes

To Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company. [Aside to TRO.
Tro. Sweet sir, you honour me.
Hect. And so, good night.

Achil. Come, come, enter

[Exit DIOMED; Ulysses and TROILUS following. my tent. [Exe. ACHILLES. HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR

Ther. That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers, than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabler the hound ; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than not to dog him: they say, he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll after. -Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets! [Exit

SCENE II.

The same. Before CALCHAS' Tent. Enter DIOMEDES.
Dio. What are you up here, ho? speak.

Cal. [Within.] Who calls?

Dio. Diomed.-Calchas, I think.-Where's your daughter?

Cal. [Within.] She comes to you.

Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after thein

THERSITES.

Ulyss. Stand where the torch may not discover us.

Enter CRESSIDA.

Tro. Cressid come forth to him!

[4] If a hound gives his mouth, and is not upon the scent of the game, he is by sportsmen called a babler or brabler.

ANONYMOUS.

Dio. How now, my charge?

Cres. Now, my sweet guardian!-Hark! a word with you. Tro. Yea, so familiar!

Ulyss. She will sing any man at first sight.

[Whispers.

Ther. And any man may sing her, if he can take her

Dio. Will you remember?

Cres. Remember? yes.

Dio. Nay, but do then ;

[cliff; she's noted.

And let your mind be coupled with your words.

Tro. What should she remember?

Ulyss. List!

Cres. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly. Ther. Roguery!

Dio. Nay, then,

Cres. I'll tell you what :

Dio. Pho! pho! come, tell a pin: You are forsworn.Cres. In faith, I cannot: What would you have me do? Ther. A juggling trick, to be-secretly open.

Dio. What did you swear you would bestow on me? Cres. I pr'ythee, do not hold me to mine oath ;

Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek.

Dio. Good night.

Tro. Hold, patience!

Ulyss. How now, Trojan?

Cres. Diomed,

Dio. No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no more.

Tro. Thy better must.

Cres. Hark! one word in your ear.

Tro. O plague and madness!

Ulyss. You are mov'd, prince; let us depart, I pray you,

Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself

To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous;

The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.

Tro. Behold, I pray you!

Ulyss. Now, good my lord, go off:

You flow to great destruction; come, my lord.

Tro. I pr'thee, stay.

Ulyss. You have not patience; come.

Tro. I pray you, stay; by hell, and all hell's torments

I will not speak a word.

Dio. And so, good night.

Cres. Nay, but you part in anger.

[5] Your impetuosity is such as must necessarity expose you to imminent danger.

MALONE

Tro. Doth that grieve thee?

O wither'd truth!

Ulyss. Why, how now, lord?
Tro. By Jove,

1 will be patient.

Cres. Guardian !—why, Greek!

Dio. Pho, pho! adieu; you palter.

Cres. In faith, I do not; come hither once again. Ulyss. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go? You will break out.

Tro. She strokes his cheek!

Ulyss. Come, come.

Tro. 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.

Ther. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry! Dio. But will you then?

Cres. In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.

Dio. Give me some token for the surety of it.

Cres. I'll fetch you one.

Ulyss. You have sworn patience.

Tro. Fear me not, my lord;

I will not be myself, nor have cognition

Of what I feel; I am all patience.

Re-enter CRESSIDA.

Ther. Now the pledge; now, now, now!
Cres. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
Tro. O beauty! where's thy faith?/

Ulyss. My lord,

[Exit.

Tro. I will be patient; outwardly I will. Cres. You look upon that sleeve; Behold it well.He loved me— -O false wench!-Give't me again.

Dio. Who was't?

Cres. No matter, now I have't again.

I will not meet with you to-morrow night :

I pr'ythee, Diomed, visit me no more.

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

Cres. What, this?

Dio. Ay, that.

Cres. O, all you gods!-O pretty pretty pledge!

Thy master now lies thinking in his bed

[6] Potatoes were anciently regarded as provocatives.

STEEVENS.

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?

Cres. 'Tis no matter.

Dio. Come, tell me whose it was.

shall not;

Cres. 'Twas one that loved me better than you will. But, now you have it, take it.

Dio. Whose was 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 horn,

It should be challeng'd.

Cres. Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past ;-And yet it is not: I will not keep my word.

Dio. Why then, farewell;

Thou never shall mock Diomed again.

Cres. You shall not go :-One cannot speak a word,

But it straight starts you.

Dio. I do not like this fooling.

[pleases me best.

Ther. Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you,

Dio. What, shall I come? The hour?

Cres. Ay, come :· -O Jove!

Do come :-I shall be plagu'd.
Dio. Farewell till then.

Cres. Good night. I pr'ythee, come.

[Exit Dio

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.

Ther. A proof of strength she could not publish more,

Unless she said, My mind is now turn'd whore.
Ulyss. All's done, my lord.

Tro. It is.

[8] i. e. The stars which she points to. WARBURTON.

Ulyss. Why stay we then?

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.

Was Cressid here ?

Ulyss. I cannot conjure, Trojan."

Tro. She was not sure.

Ulyss. Most sure she was.

Tro. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness. Ulyss. Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but now. 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 our mothers?

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 !9 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.

[8] I cannot raise spirits in the form of Cressida.

JOHNSON.

[9] There is madness in that disquisition in which a man reasons at once for and against himself upon authority which he knows not to be valid. JOHNSON. [1] The words loss and perdition are used in their common sense, but they mean the loss or perdition of reason.

JOHNSON.