Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio
Page 437
Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights.
Agam. We go wrong, we go wrong.
Ajax. No, yonder ’tis;
There, where we see the lights. 40
Hect. I trouble you.
Ajax. No, not a whit.
Ulyss. Here comes himself to guide you.
Re-enter ACHILLES.
Achil. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all. 45
Agam. So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good-night.
Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.
Hect. Thanks and good-night to the Greeks’ general.
Men. Good-night, my lord.
Hect. Good-night, sweet Lord Menelaus. 50
Ther. Sweet draught: ‘sweet,’ quoth a’! sweet sink, sweet sewer.
Achil. Good-night and welcome both at once, to those
That go or tarry.
Agam. Good-night. [Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS.
Achil. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, 55
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. [Aside to TROILUS.] Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas’ tent. 60
I’ll keep you company.
Tro. Sweet sir, you honour me.
Hect. And so, good-night. [Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following.
Achil. Come, come, enter my tent. [Exeunt 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 Brabbler 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.
Act V. 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? 5
Cal. [Within.] She comes to you.
Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them THERSITES.
Ulyss. Stand where the torch may not discover us.
Enter CRESSIDA.
Tro. Cressid comes forth to him. 10
Dio. How now, my charge!
Cres. Now, my sweet guardian! Hark! a word with you. [Whispers.
Tro. Yea, so familiar!
Ulyss. She will sing any man at first sight.
Ther. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted. 15
Dio. Will you remember?
Cres. Remember! yes.
Dio. Nay, but do, then;
And let your mind be coupled with your words.
Tro. What should she remember? 20
Ulyss. List!
Cres. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.
Ther. Roguery!
Dio. Nay, then, —
Cres. I’ll tell you what, — 25
Dio. Foh, foh! 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 prithee, do not hold me to mine oath; 30
Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.
Dio. Good-night.
Tro. Hold, patience!
Ulyss. How now, Trojan?
Cres. Diomed, — 35
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, 40
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. Nay, good my lord, go off: 45
You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.
Tro. I pray 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! 50
Dio. And so, good-night.
Cres. Nay, but you part in anger.
Tro. Doth that grieve thee?
O wither’d truth!
Ulyss. Why, how now, lord! 55
Tro. By Jove,
I will be patient.
Cres. Guardian! — why, Greek!
Dio. Foh, foh! adieu; you palter.
Cres. In faith, I do not: come hither once again. 60
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: 65
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 potato finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!
Dio. But will you, then?
Cres. In faith, I will, la; never trust me else. 70
Dio. Give me some token for the surety of it.
Cres. I’ll fetch you one. [Exit.
Ulyss. You have sworn patience.
Tro. Fear me not, sweet lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition 75
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 is thy faith? 80
Ulyss. My lord, —
Tro. I will be patient; outwardly I will.
Cres. You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
He lov’d me — O false wench! — Give ‘t to me again.
Dio. Whose was ‘t? 85
Cres. It is no matter, now I have ‘t again.
I will not meet with you to-morrow night.
I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
Ther. Now she sharpens: well said, whetstone!
Dio. I shall have it. 90
Cres. What, this?
Dio. Ay, that.
Cres. O! all you gods. O pretty, pretty pledge!
Thy master now lies thinking in his bed
Of thee and me; and sighs, and takes my glove, 95
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.
Dio. I had your heart before; this follows it.
Tro. I did swear patience. 100
Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; faith you shall not;
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. 105
Cres. ’Twas one’s 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 yond,
And by herself, I will not tell you whose. 110
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: 115
I will not keep my word.
Dio. Why then, farewell;
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
Cres. You shall not go: one cannot speak a word,
But it straight starts you. 120
Dio. I do not like this fooling.
Ther. Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not me
Pleases me best.
Dio. What, shall I come? the hour?
Cres. Ay, come: — O Jove! — 125
Do come: — I shall be plagu’d.
Dio. Farewell till then.
Cres. Good-night: I prithee, come. — [Exit DIOMEDES.
Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee,
But with my heart the other eye doth see. 130
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 trupitude. [Exit.
Ther. A proof of strength she could not publish more, 135
Unless she said, ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’
Ulyss. All’s done, my lord.
Tro. It is.
Ulyss. Why stay we, then?
Tro. To make a recordation to my soul 140
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, 145
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. 150
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! 155
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.
Ulyss. What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers? 160
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, 165
If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This is not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself;
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt 170
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; 175
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifice 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: 180
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 reliques 185
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 190
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; 195
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 200
In his descent than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.
Ther. He’ll tickle it for his concupy.
Tro. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, 205
And they’ll seem glorious.
Ulyss. O! contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.
Enter ÆNEAS.
Æne. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord. 210
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! 215
Ulyss. I’ll bring you to the gates.
Tro. Accept distracted thanks. [Exeunt TROILUS, ÆNEAS, and ULYSSES.
Ther. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus would give me any thing 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.
Act V. Scene III.
Troy. Before PRIAM’S Palace.
Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE.
And. When was my lord so much ungently temper’d,
To stop his ears against admonishment?
Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day. 5
Hect. You train me to offend you; get you in:
By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go.
And. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.
Hect. No more, I say.
Enter CASSANDRA. 10
Cas. Where is my brother Hector?
And. Here, sister; arm’d, and bloody in intent.
Consort with me in loud and dear petition;
Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream’d
Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night 15
Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
Cas. O! ’tis true.
Hect. Ho! bid my trumpet sound.
Cas. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother.
Hect. Be gone, I say: the gods have heard me swear. 20
Cas. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows:
They are polluted offerings, more abhorr’d
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
And. O! be persuaded: do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful, 25
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. 30
Hect. Hold you still, I say;
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.
Enter TROILUS. 35
How now, young man! mean’st thou to fight to-day?
And. Cassandra, call my father to persuade. [Exit CASSANDRA.
Hect. No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
I am to-day i’ the vein of chivalry:
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong, 40
And tempt not yet the brus
hes 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. 45
Hect. What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it.
Tro. When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise, and live.
Hect. O! ’tis fair play. 50
Tro. Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.
Hect. How now! how now!
Tro. For the love of all the gods,
Let’s leave the hermit pity with our mothers,
And when we have our armours buckled on, 55
The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
Hect. Fie, savage, fie!
Tro. Hector, then ’tis wars.
Hect. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day. 60
Tro. Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o’ergalled with recourse of tears; 65
Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Oppos’d to hinder me, should stop my way,
But by my ruin.
Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM.
Cas. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast: 70
He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
Fall all together.
Pri. Come, Hector, come; go back:
Thy wife hath dream’d; thy mother hath had visions; 75
Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt,
To tell thee that this day is ominous:
Therefore, come back.
Hect. Æneas is a-field; 80
And I do stand engag’d to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.
Pri. Ay, but thou shalt not go.
Hect. I must not break my faith. 85
You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
Let me not shame respect, but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice,