Dio. Give me some token for the surety of it. Cres. I'll fetch you one. [Exit. Fear me not, my lord; Ulyss. You have sworn patience. Tro. 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! Ulyss. Cres: No matter, now I hav'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. 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, 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. 5 This sleeve was given by Troilus to Cressida at their parting, and she gave him a glove in return. It was probably such a sleeve as was formerly worn at tournaments: one of which Spenser describes in his View of the State of Ireland, p. 43, ed. 1663. 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? Dio. Come, tell me whose it was. 'Tis no matter. 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 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 shalt 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. Ther. Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you, pleases me best. Dio. What, shall I come? the hour? Cres. Ay, come: O Jove! Do come:-I shall be plagu❜d. 6 i. e. the stars which she points to. The silver-shining queen he would disdain; Her twinkling hand-maids too, by him defil'd, - Through Night's black bosom should not peep again.' Milton, in his Elegy 1. v. 77, has imitated Shakspeare :cœlo scintillant astra sereno Endymioneæ turba ministra deæ.' Dio. Farewell till then. Cres. Good night. I pr'ythee, come.— [Exit DIOMEDes. Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee; Ther. A proof of strength, she could not publish Unless she said, My mind is now turn'd whore. Tro. It is. 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 9; As if those organs had deceptious functions, 7 The characters of Cressida and Pandarus are more immediately formed from Chaucer than from Lydgate; for though the latter mentions them both characteristically, he does not sufficiently dwell on either to have furnished Shakspeare with many circumstances to be found in this tragedy. Lydgate, speaking of Cressida, says only, 'She gave her heart and love to Diomede, 8 She could not publish a stronger proof. 9 i. e. turns the very testimony of seeing and hearing against themselves. 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 10! Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage To stubborn criticks11apt, 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 sanctimonies, If there be rule in unity itself 12, This was not she. O madness of discourse, 10 For the sake of womanhood. 11 Critick has here probably the signification of cynic. So in Love's Labour's Lost: And critick Timon laugh at idle toys.' So Iago says in Othello: 'I am nothing if not critical.' 12 If it be true that one individual cannot be two distinct persons. 13 The folio reads ' By foul authority,' &c. There is a madness in that disquisition, in which a man reasons at once for and against himself upon authority which he knows not to be valid. The words loss and perdition, in the subsequent line, are used in their common sense; but they mean the loss or perdition of reason. Without perdition, and loss assume all reason Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates; Ulyss. May worthy Troilus be half attach'd With that which here his passion doth express 19? 14 'Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting.' Hamlet. 15 i. e. the plighted faith of lovers. Troilus considers it inseparable, or at least that it ought never to be broken, though he has unfortunately found that it sometimes is. 16 One quarto copy reads Ariachna's; the other Ariathna's; the folio Ariachne's. It is evident Shakspeare intended to make Arachne a word of four syllables. Our ancestors were not very exact either in writing or pronouncing proper names, even of classical origin. Steevens thinks it not improbable that the poet may have written' Ariadne's broken woof,' confounding the two stories in his imagination, or alluding to the clue of thread, by the assistance of which Theseus escaped from the Cretan labyrinth. 17 A knot tied by giving her hand to Diomed. 18 The image is not of the most delicate kind. 'Her o'ereaten faith' means her troth plighted to Troilus, of which she was surfeited, and, like one who has o'er-eaten himself, had thrown off. So in Twelfth Night : Their over-greedy LOVE hath surfeited,' &c. 19 Can Troilus really feel, on this occasion, half of what he utters?' A question suitable to the calm Ulysses. |