You
shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
-Cressida
Troilus And Cressida Act V, Scene ii, Line 86
Cressida is talking here about a sleeve. As far as I can
tell, a sleeve is just a sleeve. But in this case it’s a token. It’s a token
she received from Troilus (who just happens to be in the bushes spying on her,
apparently with one arm a little more exposed than the other) that she in turn gave to
Diomedes (don’t ask me why) and now she realizes that’s a mistake so she’s
taken it back and is telling Diomedes he can’t have it. Or, more specifically, “You
shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
Well I’m not going to get into that whole thing to try to
explain exactly what’s going on here. I’ve got something more important to
point out. It occurs to me that the play Troilus And Cressida is Will’s take on
the story of the Iliad. And as such, it seems to me that rather than just call it Troilus And Cressida,
perhaps he should have had a subtitle. Troilus And Cressida, Homer’s Iliad
Retold.
Now I can’t imagine where I got that idea.
Available at www.pursuingwillbooks.com
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