1    Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
2    The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
3    To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind
4    That, through the sight I bear in things to love,
5    I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
6    Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself,
7    From certain and possess'd conveniences,
8    To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all
9    That time, acquaintance, custom and condition
10   Made tame and most familiar to my nature,
11   And here, to do you service, am become
12   As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
13   I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
14   To give me now a little benefit,
15   Out of those many register'd in promise,
16   Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.

17   What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand.

18   You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,
19   Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.
20   Oft have you--often have you thanks therefore--
21   Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,
22   Whom Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor,
23   I know, is such a wrest in their affairs
24   That their negotiations all must slack,
25   Wanting his manage; and they will almost
26   Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
27   In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
28   And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
29   Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
30   In most accepted pain.

31   Let Diomedes bear him,
32   And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
33   What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
34   Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
35   Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow
36   Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.

37   This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
38   Which I am proud to bear.

39   Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent:
40   Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
41   As if he were forgot; and, princes all,
42   Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:
43   I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me
44   Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him:
45   If so, I have derision medicinable,
46   To use between your strangeness and his pride,
47   Which his own will shall have desire to drink:
48   It may be good: pride hath no other glass
49   To show itself but pride, for supple knees
50   Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.

51   We'll execute your purpose, and put on
52   A form of strangeness as we pass along:
53   So do each lord, and either greet him not,
54   Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
55   Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

56   What, comes the general to speak with me?
57   You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.

58   What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

59   Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

60   No.

61   Nothing, my lord.

62   The better.

63   Good day, good day.

64   How do you? how do you?

65   What, does the cuckold scorn me?

66   How now, Patroclus!

67   Good morrow, Ajax.

68   Ha?

69   Good morrow.

70   Ay, and good next day too.

71   What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

72   They pass by strangely: they were used to bend
73   To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
74   To come as humbly as they used to creep
75   To holy altars.

76   What, am I poor of late?
77   'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune,
78   Must fall out with men too: what the declined is
79   He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
80   As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
81   Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,
82   And not a man, for being simply man,
83   Hath any honour, but honour for those honours
84   That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
85   Prizes of accident as oft as merit:
86   Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
87   The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
88   Do one pluck down another and together
89   Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
90   Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy
91   At ample point all that I did possess,
92   Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
93   Something not worth in me such rich beholding
94   As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
95   I'll interrupt his reading.
96   How now Ulysses!

97   Now, great Thetis' son!

98   What are you reading?

99   A strange fellow here
100  Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted,
101  How much in having, or without or in,
102  Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
103  Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
104  As when his virtues shining upon others
105  Heat them and they retort that heat again
106  To the first giver.'

107  This is not strange, Ulysses.
108  The beauty that is borne here in the face
109  The bearer knows not, but commends itself
110  To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself,
111  That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,
112  Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
113  Salutes each other with each other's form;
114  For speculation turns not to itself,
115  Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there
116  Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

117  I do not strain at the position,--
118  It is familiar,--but at the author's drift;
119  Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
120  That no man is the lord of any thing,
121  Though in and of him there be much consisting,
122  Till he communicate his parts to others:
123  Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
124  Till he behold them form'd in the applause
125  Where they're extended; who, like an arch,
126  reverberates
127  The voice again, or, like a gate of steel
128  Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
129  His figure and his heat. I was much wrapt in this;
130  And apprehended here immediately
131  The unknown Ajax.
132  Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse,
133  That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are
134  Most abject in regard and dear in use!
135  What things again most dear in the esteem
136  And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow--
137  An act that very chance doth throw upon him--
138  Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,
139  While some men leave to do!
140  How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
141  Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
142  How one man eats into another's pride,
143  While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
144  To see these Grecian lords!--why, even already
145  They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
146  As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast
147  And great Troy shrieking.

148  I do believe it; for they pass'd by me
149  As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me
150  Good word nor look: what, are my deeds forgot?

151  Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
152  Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
153  A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
154  Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
155  As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
156  As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
157  Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
158  Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
159  In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
160  For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
161  Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
162  For emulation hath a thousand sons
163  That one by one pursue: if you give way,
164  Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
165  Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by
166  And leave you hindmost;
167  Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
168  Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
169  O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present,
170  Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
171  For time is like a fashionable host
172  That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
173  And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
174  Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles,
175  And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not
176  virtue seek
177  Remuneration for the thing it was;
178  For beauty, wit,
179  High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
180  Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
181  To envious and calumniating time.
182  One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
183  That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,
184  Though they are made and moulded of things past,
185  And give to dust that is a little gilt
186  More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
187  The present eye praises the present object.
188  Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
189  That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
190  Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
191  Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
192  And still it might, and yet it may again,
193  If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
194  And case thy reputation in thy tent;
195  Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
196  Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves
197  And drave great Mars to faction.

198  Of this my privacy
199  I have strong reasons.

200  But 'gainst your privacy
201  The reasons are more potent and heroical:
202  'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
203  With one of Priam's daughters.

204  Ha! known!

205  Is that a wonder?
206  The providence that's in a watchful state
207  Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold,
208  Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps,
209  Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods,
210  Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
211  There is a mystery--with whom relation
212  Durst never meddle--in the soul of state;
213  Which hath an operation more divine
214  Than breath or pen can give expressure to:
215  All the commerce that you have had with Troy
216  As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
217  And better would it fit Achilles much
218  To throw down Hector than Polyxena:
219  But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
220  When fame shall in our islands sound her trump,
221  And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,
222  'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win,
223  But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.'
224  Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak;
225  The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.

226  To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you:
227  A woman impudent and mannish grown
228  Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
229  In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this;
230  They think my little stomach to the war
231  And your great love to me restrains you thus:
232  Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
233  Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
234  And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
235  Be shook to air.

236  Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

237  Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

238  I see my reputation is at stake
239  My fame is shrewdly gored.

240  O, then, beware;
241  Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves:
242  Omission to do what is necessary
243  Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
244  And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
245  Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

246  Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus:
247  I'll send the fool to Ajax and desire him
248  To invite the Trojan lords after the combat
249  To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing,
250  An appetite that I am sick withal,
251  To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,
252  To talk with him and to behold his visage,
253  Even to my full of view.
Enter THERSITES
254  A labour saved!

255  A wonder!

256  What?

257  Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

258  How so?

259  He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so
260  prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he
261  raves in saying nothing.

262  How can that be?

263  Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,--a stride
264  and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no
265  arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning:
266  bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should
267  say 'There were wit in this head, an 'twould out;'
268  and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire
269  in a flint, which will not show without knocking.
270  The man's undone forever; for if Hector break not his
271  neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself in
272  vain-glory. He knows not me: I said 'Good morrow,
273  Ajax;' and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think
274  you of this man that takes me for the general? He's
275  grown a very land-fish, language-less, a monster.
276  A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both
277  sides, like a leather jerkin.

278  Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

279  Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not
280  answering: speaking is for beggars; he wears his
281  tongue in's arms. I will put on his presence: let
282  Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the
283  pageant of Ajax.

284  To him, Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the
285  valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector
286  to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure
287  safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous
288  and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured
289  captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon,
290  et cetera. Do this.

291  Jove bless great Ajax!

292  Hum!

293  I come from the worthy Achilles,--

294  Ha!

295  Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent,--

296  Hum!

297  And to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon.

298  Agamemnon!

299  Ay, my lord.

300  Ha!

301  What say you to't?

302  God b' wi' you, with all my heart.

303  Your answer, sir.

304  If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will
305  go one way or other: howsoever, he shall pay for me
306  ere he has me.

307  Your answer, sir.

308  Fare you well, with all my heart.

309  Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

310  No, but he's out o' tune thus. What music will be in
311  him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know
312  not; but, I am sure, none, unless the fiddler Apollo
313  get his sinews to make catlings on.

314  Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

315  Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more
316  capable creature.

317  My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;
318  And I myself see not the bottom of it.

319  Would the fountain of your mind were clear again,
320  that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a
321  tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.