1    How now, Thersites! what lost in the labyrinth of
2    thy fury! Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He
3    beats me, and I rail at him: O, worthy satisfaction!
4    would it were otherwise; that I could beat him,
5    whilst he railed at me. 'Sfoot, I'll learn to
6    conjure and raise devils, but I'll see some issue of
7    my spiteful execrations. Then there's Achilles, a
8    rare enginer! If Troy be not taken till these two
9    undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of
10   themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus,
11   forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods and,
12   Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy
13   caduceus, if ye take not that little, little less
14   than little wit from them that they have! which
15   short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant
16   scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly
17   from a spider, without drawing their massy irons and
18   cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the
19   whole camp! or rather, the bone-ache! for that,
20   methinks, is the curse dependent on those that war
21   for a placket. I have said my prayers and devil Envy
22   say Amen. What ho! my Lord Achilles!

23   Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.

24   If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou
25   wouldst not have slipped out of my contemplation: but
26   it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! The common
27   curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in
28   great revenue! heaven bless thee from a tutor, and
29   discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy
30   direction till thy death! then if she that lays thee
31   out says thou art a fair corse, I'll be sworn and
32   sworn upon't she never shrouded any but lazars.
33   Amen. Where's Achilles?

34   What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer?

35   Ay: the heavens hear me!

36   Who's there?

37   Thersites, my lord.

38   Where, where? Art thou come? why, my cheese, my
39   digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to
40   my table so many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon?

41   Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus,
42   what's Achilles?

43   Thy lord, Thersites: then tell me, I pray thee,
44   what's thyself?

45   Thy knower, Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus,
46   what art thou?

47   Thou mayst tell that knowest.

48   O, tell, tell.

49   I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands
50   Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus'
51   knower, and Patroclus is a fool.

52   You rascal!

53   Peace, fool! I have not done.

54   He is a privileged man. Proceed, Thersites.

55   Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites
56   is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.

57   Derive this; come.

58   Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles;
59   Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon;
60   Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool, and
61   Patroclus is a fool positive.

62   Why am I a fool?

63   Make that demand of the prover. It suffices me thou
64   art. Look you, who comes here?

65   Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody.
66   Come in with me, Thersites.

67   Here is such patchery, such juggling and such
68   knavery! all the argument is a cuckold and a
69   whore; a good quarrel to draw emulous factions
70   and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo on
71   the subject! and war and lechery confound all!

72   Where is Achilles?

73   Within his tent; but ill disposed, my lord.

74   Let it be known to him that we are here.
75   He shent our messengers; and we lay by
76   Our appertainments, visiting of him:
77   Let him be told so; lest perchance he think
78   We dare not move the question of our place,
79   Or know not what we are.

80   I shall say so to him.

81   We saw him at the opening of his tent:
82   He is not sick.

83   Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart: you may call it
84   melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my
85   head, 'tis pride: but why, why? let him show us the
86   cause. A word, my lord.

87   What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?

88   Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.

89   Who, Thersites?

90   He.

91   Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.

92   No, you see, he is his argument that has his
93   argument, Achilles.

94   All the better; their fraction is more our wish than
95   their faction: but it was a strong composure a fool
96   could disunite.

97   The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily
98   untie. Here comes Patroclus.

99   No Achilles with him.

100  The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy:
101  his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.

102  Achilles bids me say, he is much sorry,
103  If any thing more than your sport and pleasure
104  Did move your greatness and this noble state
105  To call upon him; he hopes it is no other
106  But for your health and your digestion sake,
107  And after-dinner's breath.

108  Hear you, Patroclus:
109  We are too well acquainted with these answers:
110  But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn,
111  Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
112  Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
113  Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues,
114  Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
115  Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss,
116  Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
117  Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him,
118  We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin,
119  If you do say we think him over-proud
120  And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
121  Than in the note of judgment; and worthier
122  than himself
123  Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
124  Disguise the holy strength of their command,
125  And underwrite in an observing kind
126  His humorous predominance; yea, watch
127  His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if
128  The passage and whole carriage of this action
129  Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add,
130  That if he overhold his price so much,
131  We'll none of him; but let him, like an engine
132  Not portable, lie under this report:
133  'Bring action hither, this cannot go to war:
134  A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
135  Before a sleeping giant.' Tell him so.

136  I shall; and bring his answer presently.

137  In second voice we'll not be satisfied;
138  We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.

139  What is he more than another?

140  No more than what he thinks he is.

141  Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a
142  better man than I am?

143  No question.

144  Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is?

145  No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as
146  wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether
147  more tractable.

148  Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I
149  know not what pride is.

150  Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the
151  fairer. He that is proud eats up himself: pride is
152  his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle;
153  and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours
154  the deed in the praise.

155  I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.

156  Yet he loves himself: is't not strange?

157  Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.

158  What's his excuse?

159  He doth rely on none,
160  But carries on the stream of his dispose
161  Without observance or respect of any,
162  In will peculiar and in self-admission.

163  Why will he not upon our fair request
164  Untent his person and share the air with us?

165  Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
166  He makes important: possess'd he is with greatness,
167  And speaks not to himself but with a pride
168  That quarrels at self-breath: imagined worth
169  Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse
170  That 'twixt his mental and his active parts
171  Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages
172  And batters down himself: what should I say?
173  He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it
174  Cry 'No recovery.'

175  Let Ajax go to him.
176  Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent:
177  'Tis said he holds you well, and will be led
178  At your request a little from himself.

179  O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
180  We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
181  When they go from Achilles: shall the proud lord
182  That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
183  And never suffers matter of the world
184  Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve
185  And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp'd
186  Of that we hold an idol more than he?
187  No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
188  Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired;
189  Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
190  As amply titled as Achilles is,
191  By going to Achilles:
192  That were to enlard his fat already pride
193  And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
194  With entertaining great Hyperion.
195  This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,
196  And say in thunder 'Achilles go to him.'

Aside to DIOMEDES
197   O, this is well; he rubs the
198  vein of him.

Aside to NESTOR
199   And how his silence drinks up
200  this applause!

201  If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the face.

202  O, no, you shall not go.

203  An a' be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride:
204  Let me go to him.

205  Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

206  A paltry, insolent fellow!

207  How he describes himself!

208  Can he not be sociable?

209  The raven chides blackness.

210  I'll let his humours blood.

211  He will be the physician that should be the patient.

212  An all men were o' my mind,--

213  Wit would be out of fashion.

214  A' should not bear it so, a' should eat swords first:
215  shall pride carry it?

216  An 'twould, you'ld carry half.

217  A' would have ten shares.

218  I will knead him; I'll make him supple.

219  He's not yet through warm: force him with praises:
220  pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.

To AGAMEMNON
221   My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

222  Our noble general, do not do so.

223  You must prepare to fight without Achilles.

224  Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm.
225  Here is a man--but 'tis before his face;
226  I will be silent.

227  Wherefore should you so?
228  He is not emulous, as Achilles is.

229  Know the whole world, he is as valiant.

230  A whoreson dog, that shall pelter thus with us!
231  Would he were a Trojan!

232  What a vice were it in Ajax now,--

233  If he were proud,--

234  Or covetous of praise,--

235  Ay, or surly borne,--

236  Or strange, or self-affected!

237  Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure;
238  Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck:
239  Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
240  Thrice famed, beyond all erudition:
241  But he that disciplined thy arms to fight,
242  Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
243  And give him half: and, for thy vigour,
244  Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
245  To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
246  Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
247  Thy spacious and dilated parts: here's Nestor;
248  Instructed by the antiquary times,
249  He must, he is, he cannot but be wise:
250  Put pardon, father Nestor, were your days
251  As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd,
252  You should not have the eminence of him,
253  But be as Ajax.

254  Shall I call you father?

255  Ay, my good son.

256  Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax.

257  There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
258  Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
259  To call together all his state of war;
260  Fresh kings are come to Troy: to-morrow
261  We must with all our main of power stand fast:
262  And here's a lord,--come knights from east to west,
263  And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.

264  Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep:
265  Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.