TROILUS & CRESSIDA. William Shakespeare

       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 conduce 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 Ariachne’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,

       The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,

       The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics

       Of her o’er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

       ULYSSES.

       May worthy Troilus be half-attach’d

       With that which here his passion doth express?

       TROILUS.

       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

       In his descent than shall my prompted sword

       Falling on Diomed.

       THERSITES.

       He’ll tickle it for his concupy.

       TROILUS.

       O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!

       Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,

       And they’ll seem glorious.

       ULYSSES.

       O, contain yourself;

       Your passion draws ears hither.

       [Enter AENEAS.]

       AENEAS.

       I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.

       Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;

       Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.

       TROILUS.

       Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.

       Fairwell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,

       Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head.

       ULYSSES.

       I’ll bring you to the gates.

       TROILUS.

       Accept distracted thanks.

       [Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS. and ULYSSES.]

       THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything 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.]