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THERSITES
How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of fury? Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that I could beat him, whilst he rail’d at me! ‘Sfoot, I’ll learn to conjure and raise devils, but I’ll see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there’s Achilles, a rare engineer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of caduceus, if take not that little little less than little wit from them that they have! which short-arm’d ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan bone-ache! for that, , is the curse depending on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers; and devil Envy say ‘Amen.’ What ho! my Lord Achilles!
PATROCLUS
Who’s there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.
THERSITES
If I could a’ rememb’red a gilt counterfeit, not have slipp’d out of my contemplation; but it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be in great revenue! Heaven bless from a tutor, and discipline come not near ! Let blood be direction till death. Then if she that lays out says art a fair corse, I’ll be sworn and sworn upon’t she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where’s Achilles?
PATROCLUS
What, art devout? Wast in prayer?
THERSITES
Ay, the heavens hear me!
PATROCLUS
Amen.
ACHILLES
Who’s there?
PATROCLUS
Thersites, my lord.
ACHILLES
Where, where? O, where? Art come? Why, my cheese, my digestion, why not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come, what’s Agamemnon?
THERSITES
commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?
PATROCLUS
lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray , what’s Thersites?
THERSITES
knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art ?
PATROCLUS
must tell that knowest.
ACHILLES
O, tell, tell,
THERSITES
I’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus’ knower; and Patroclus is a fool.
PATROCLUS
You rascal!
THERSITES
Peace, fool! I have not done.
ACHILLES
He is a privileg’d man. Proceed, Thersites.
THERSITES
Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool; and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.
ACHILLES
Derive this; come.
THERSITES
Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive.
PATROCLUS
Why am I a fool?
THERSITES
Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me art. Look you, who comes here?
ACHILLES
Come, Patroclus, I’ll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.
THERSITES
Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery. All the argument is a whore and a cuckold—a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on the subject, and war and lechery confound all!
AGAMEMNON
Where is Achilles?
PATROCLUS
Within his tent; but ill-dispos’d, my lord.
AGAMEMNON
Let it be known to him that we are here. He shent our messengers; and we lay by Our appertainings, visiting of him. Let him be told so; lest, , he think We dare not move the question of our place Or know not what we are.
PATROCLUS
I shall say so to him.
ULYSSES
We saw him at the opening of his tent. He is not sick.
AJAX
Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, pride. But why, why? Let him show us a cause. A word, my lord.
NESTOR
What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?
ULYSSES
Achilles inveigled his fool from him.
NESTOR
Who, Thersites?
ULYSSES
He.
NESTOR
Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.
ULYSSES
No; you see he is his argument that has his argument, Achilles.
NESTOR
All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their faction. But it was a strong composure a fool could disunite!
ULYSSES
The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.
ULYSSES
Here comes Patroclus.
NESTOR
No Achilles with him.
ULYSSES
The elephant joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.
PATROCLUS
Achilles bids me say he is much sorry If any thing more than your sport and pleasure Did move your greatness and this noble state To call upon him; he hopes it is no other But for your health and your digestion sake, An after-dinner’s breath.
AGAMEMNON
Hear you, Patroclus. We are too well acquainted with these answers; But his evasion, wing’d thus swift with scorn, Cannot outfly our apprehensions. Much attribute he , and much the reason Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues, Not virtuously on his own part beheld, Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss; Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish, Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin If you do say we think him over-proud And under-honest, in self-assumption greater Than in the note of judgement; and worthier than himself Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on, Disguise the holy strength of their command, And underwrite in an observing kind His humorous predominance; yea, watch His course and time, his ebbs and flows, as if The passage and whole stream of this commencement Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add That if he overhold his price so much We’ll none of him, but let him, like an engine Not portable, lie under this report: Bring action ; this cannot go to war. A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.
PATROCLUS
I shall, and bring his answer .
AGAMEMNON
In second voice we’ll not be satisfied; We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.
AJAX
What is he more than another?
AGAMEMNON
No more than what he thinks he is.
AJAX
Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am?
AGAMEMNON
No question.
AJAX
Will you subscribe his thought and say he is?
AGAMEMNON
No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.
AJAX
Why should a man be proud? How pride grow? I know not what pride is.
AGAMEMNON
Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed in the praise.
AJAX
I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend’ring of toads.
NESTOR
And yet he loves himself: is’t not strange?
ULYSSES
Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.
AGAMEMNON
What’s his excuse?
ULYSSES
He rely on none; But carries on the stream of his dispose, Without observance or respect of any, In will peculiar and in self-admission.
AGAMEMNON
Why will he not, upon our fair request, Untent his person and share th’air with us?
ULYSSES
Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only, He makes important; possess’d he is with greatness, And speaks not to himself but with a pride That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin’d worth Holds in his blood such swol’n and hot discourse That ’twixt his mental and his active parts Kingdom’d Achilles in commotion rages, And batters down himself. What should I say? He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it Cry ‘No recovery.’
AGAMEMNON
Let Ajax go to him. Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent. said he holds you well; and will be led At your request a little from himself.
ULYSSES
O Agamemnon, let it not be so! We’ll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord That bastes his arrogance with his own seam And never suffers matter of the world Enter his thoughts, save such as revolve And ruminate himself—shall he be worshipp’d Of that we hold an idol more than he? No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir’d, Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit, As amply titled as Achilles is, By going to Achilles. That were to enlard his fat-already pride, And add more coals to Cancer when he burns With entertaining great Hyperion. This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid, And say in thunder ‘Achilles go to him.’
NESTOR
O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him.
DIOMEDES
And how his silence drinks up this applause!
AJAX
If I go to him, with my armed fist I’ll pash him the face.
AGAMEMNON
O, no, you shall not go.
AJAX
An a’ be proud with me I’ll pheeze his pride. Let me go to him.
ULYSSES
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.
AJAX
A paltry, insolent fellow!
NESTOR
How he describes himself!
AJAX
Can he not be sociable?
ULYSSES
The raven chides blackness.
AJAX
I’ll let his humours blood.
AGAMEMNON
He will be the physician that should be the patient.
AJAX
And all men were o’ my mind—
ULYSSES
Wit would be out of fashion.
AJAX
A’ should not bear it so, a’ should eat’s words first. Shall pride carry it?
NESTOR
And ’twould, you’d carry half.
ULYSSES
A’ would have ten shares.
AJAX
I will knead him, I’ll make him supple.
NESTOR
He’s not yet through warm. Force him with praises; pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.
ULYSSES
My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.
NESTOR
Our noble general, do not do so.
DIOMEDES
You must prepare to fight without Achilles.
ULYSSES
Why this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man—but before his face; I will be silent.
NESTOR
should you so? He is not emulous, as Achilles is.
ULYSSES
Know the whole world, he is as valiant.
AJAX
A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus! Would he were a Trojan!
NESTOR
What a vice were it in Ajax now—
ULYSSES
If he were proud.
DIOMEDES
Or covetous of praise.
ULYSSES
Ay, or surly borne.
DIOMEDES
Or strange, or self-affected.
ULYSSES
Thank the heavens, lord, art of sweet composure. Praise him that gat , she that gave suck; Fam’d be tutor, and parts of nature Thrice fam’d beyond, beyond all erudition; But he that disciplin’d arms to fight— Let Mars divide eternity in twain And give him half; and, for vigour, Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise wisdom, Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines spacious and dilated parts. Here’s Nestor, Instructed by the antiquary times— He must, he is, he cannot but be wise; But pardon, father Nestor, were your days As green as Ajax’ and your brain so temper’d, You should not have the eminence of him, But be as Ajax.
AJAX
Shall I call you father?
NESTOR
Ay, my good son.
DIOMEDES
Be rul’d by him, Lord Ajax.
ULYSSES
There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles Keeps thicket. Please it our great general To call together all his state of war; Fresh kings are come to Troy. Tomorrow We must with all our main of power stand fast; And here’s a lord—come knights from east to west And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.
AGAMEMNON
Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep. Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.