Grecian Camp.
Enter Thersites solus.
How now, Thersites? what, lost in the labyrinth of
thy 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 thou great thunder-darter
of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove the King of
Gods; and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy
Caduceus, if thou take not that little, little, less than
little wit from them that they have; which short-arm'd
ignorance it self knows is so abundant scarce, it will not
in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without
drawing the massy irons and cutting the web. After this,
the vengeance on the whole camp! or rather the bone-ach,
for that, methinks, is the Curse dependant on those
that war for a Placket. I have said my prayers, and
devil Envy say Amen. What ho! my lord Achilles!
Enter Patroclus.
Patr.
Who's there? Thersites? Good Thersites, come
in and rail.
Ther.
If I could have remember'd a gilt counter, thou
could'st not have slip'd out of my contemplation; but it
is no matter, thy self upon thy self! The common curse
of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great
revenue! heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline
come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction 'till
thy death, then if she, that lays thee out, says thou art
a fair coarse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't, she never
shrowded any but Lazars; Amen. Where's Achilles?
-- 47 --
Patr.
What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer?
Ther.
Ay, the heav'ns hear me!
Enter Achilles.
Achil.
Who's there?
Patr.
Thersites, my lord.
Achil.
Where, where? art thou come? why, my
cheese, my digestion—why hast thou not served
thy self up to my table, so many meals? come, what's
Agamemnon?
Ther.
Thy commander, Achilles; then tell me, Patroclus,
what's Achilles?
Patr.
Thy lord, Thersites: then tell me, I pray thee,
what's thy self?
Ther.
Thy knower, Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus,
what art thou?
Patr.
Thou may'st tell, that know'st.
Achil.
O tell, tell,—
Ther.
I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon
commands Achilles, Achilles is my lord, I am Patroclus's
knower, and Patroclus is a fool.
Patr.
You rascal—
Ther.
Peace, fool, I have not done.
Achil.
He is a privileg'd man. Proceed, Thersites.
Ther.
Agamemnon is a fool, Achilles is a fool, Thersites
is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.
Achil.
Derive this; come.
Ther.
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 Patroclus is a fool
positive.
Patr.
Why am I a fool?
Ther.
Make that Demand to thy Creator;—it suffices
me, thou art.
Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax,
and Calchas.
Look you, who comes here?—
Achil.
Patroclus, I'll speak with no body: come in
with me, Thersites.
[Exit.
-- 48 --
Ther.
Here is such patchery, such jugling, and such
knavery: all the argument is a cuckold and a whore,
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!
[Exit.
Aga.
Where is Achilles?
Patr.
Within his Tent, but ill dispos'd, my lord.
Aga.
Let it be known to him that we are here.
He shent our messengers, and we lay by (22) note
Our appertainments, visiting of him:
Let him be told so, lest, perchance, he think
We dare not move the question of our place;
Or know not what we are.
Patr.
I shall so say to him.
[Exit.
Ulys.
We saw him at the opening of his Tent,
He is not sick.
Ajax.
Yes, lion-sick, sick of a proud heart: you may
call it melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by
my head, 'tis pride; but why, why?—let him shew us
the cause. A word, my lord.
[To Agamemnon.
Nest.
What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?
Ulys.
Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.
Nest.
Who, Thersites?
Ulys.
He.
Nest.
Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his
argument.
-- 49 --
Ulys.
No, you see, he is his argument, that has his
argument, Achilles.
Nest.
All the better; their fraction is more our wish
than their faction; but it was a strong counsel, that a
fool could disunite.
Ulys.
The amity, that wisdom knits not, folly may
easily untye.
Enter Patroclus.
Here comes Patroclus.
Nest.
No Achilles with him?
Ulys.
The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesie;
His legs are for necessity, not flexure.
Patr.
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 on him; he hopes, it is no other,
But for your health and your digestion-sake;
An after-dinner's breath.
Aga.
Hear you, Patroclus;
We are too well acquainted with these answers:
But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn,
Cannot outflie our apprehensions.
Much Attribute he hath, 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;
And, like fair fruit in an unwholesom 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,
In self-assumption greater than in note
Of judgment: say, men worthier than himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And under-goe in an observing kind
His humourous predominance; yea, watch
His course and times, his ebbs and flows; as if
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add,
-- 50 --
That if he over-hold his price so much,
We'll none of him; but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lye under this report,
“Bring action hither, this can't go to war:
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give,
Before a sleeping gyant; tell him so.
Patr.
I shall, and bring his answer presently.
[Exit.
Aga.
In second voice we'll not be satisfied,
We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter.
[Exit Ulysses.
Ajax.
What is he more than another?
Aga.
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?
Aga.
No question.
Ajax.
Will you subscribe his thought, and say, he is?
Aga.
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 doth pride
grow? I know not what it is.
Aga.
Your mind is 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 it self but in the deed, devours the deed
in the praise.
Re-enter Ulysses.
Ajax.
I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendring
of toads.
Nest.
Yet he loves himself: is't not strange?
Ulys.
Achilles will not to the field to morrow.
Aga.
What's his excuse?
Ulys.
He doth rely on none;
But carries on the stream of his dispose,
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar, and in self-admission.
Aga.
Why will he not, upon our fair request,
Un-tent his person, and share the air with us?
-- 51 --
Ulys.
Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
He makes important: he's possest with Greatness,
And speaks not to himself, but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin'd worth
Holds in his blood such swoln 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.
Aga.
Let Ajax go to him.
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent;
'Tis said, he holds you well, and will be led
At your request a little from himself.
Ulys.
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 matters of the world
Enter his thoughts, (save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself,) shall he be worship'd
Of That, we hold an idol more than he?
No, this thrice-worthy and right-valiant lord
Must 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 t' inlard his pride, already fat,
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!
Nest.
O, this is well, he rubs the vein of him.
Dio.
And how his silence drinks up this applause!
Ajax.
If I go to him—with my armed fist
I'll pash him o'er the face.
Aga.
O no, you shall not go.
Ajax.
An he be proud with me, I'll pheese his pride;
let me go to him.
Ulys.
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.
Ajax.
A paltry insolent fellow—
-- 52 --
Nest.
How he describes himself!
Ajax.
Can he not be sociable?
Ulys.
The raven chides blackness.
Ajax.
I'll let his humours blood.
Aga.
He'll be the physician, that should be the patient.
Ajax.
And all men were o'my mind—
Ulys.
Wit would be out of fashion.
Ajax.
He should not bear it so, he should eat swords
first: shall pride carry it?
Nest.
An 'twould, you'd carry half.
Ulys.
He would have ten shares.
Ajax.
I will knead him, I'll make him supple,—
Nest.
He's not yet through warm:(23) note
force him
with praises; pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.
Ulys.
My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.
Nest.
Our noble General, do not do so.
Dio.
You must prepare to fight without Achilles.
Ulys.
Why, 'tis this naming of him doth him harm.
Here is a man—but 'tis before his face—
I will be silent.
Nest.
Wherefore should you so?
He is not emulous, as Achilles is.
Ulys.
Know the whole world, he is as valiant.
Ajax.
A whorson dog! that palters thus with us—
Would he were a Trojan!
Nest.
What a vice were it in Ajax now—
Ulys.
If he were proud.
Dio.
Or covetous of praise.
Ulys.
Ay, or surly borne.
Dio.
Or strange, or self-affected.
Uly.
Thank the heav'ns, lord, thou art of sweet composure;
-- 53 --
Praise him that got thee, her that gave thee suck:
Fam'd be thy Tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice-fam'd beyond, beyond all erudition;
But he that disciplin'd thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And gave him half; and for thy vigor,
Bull-bearing Milo his Addition yields
To sinewy Ajax; I'll not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy 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?
Ulys.
Ay, my good son.
Dio.
Be rul'd by him, lord Ajax.
Ulys.
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: to morrow, friends,
We must with all our main of pow'r stand fast:
And here's a lord, come Knights from East to West,
And cull their flow'r, Ajax shall cope the best.
Aga.
Go we to Council, let Achilles sleep;
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
[Exeunt.
-- 54 --
Lewis Theobald [1733], The works of Shakespeare: in seven volumes. Collated with the Oldest Copies, and Corrected; With notes, Explanatory and Critical; By Mr. Theobald (Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch [and] J. Tonson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11201].
