SCENE VII.
Enter Patroclus.
Here comes Patroclus.
Nest.
No Achilles with him?
Ulys.
The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy;
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 1 notenoble 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,
-- 459 --
Cannot outfly 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;
Yea like fair fruit in an unwholsome 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 judgment; and worthier than himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And 2 noteunder-write in an observing kind
His humourous predominance; yea, watch
3 note
His pettish lunes, his ebbs and flows; as if
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add,
That if he over-hold his price so much,
We'll none of him; but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report,
“Bring action hither, this can't go to war:
“A stirring dwarf we do allowance give,
“Before a sleeping giant;” 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?
-- 460 --
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 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.
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
