Patroclus.
Achilles.
I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night,
Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.
Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
Patr.
Here comes Thersites.
Enter Thersites.
Achil.
How now, thou core of envy?
6 noteThou crusty batch of Nature, what's the news?
Ther.
Why, thou picture of what thou seem'st, and
idol of idiot—worshippers, here's a letter for thee.
Achil.
From whence, fragment?
Ther.
Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
Pat.
Who keeps the tent now?
Ther.
7 noteThe surgeon's box, or the patient's wound.
Patr.
Well said, adversity; and what need these tricks?
Ther.
Pr'ythee, be silent, boy, I profit not by thy
talk. Thou art thought to be Achilles's male-varlet.
Patr.
8 noteMale-varlet, you rogue? what's that?
-- 519 --
Ther.
Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten
diseases of the south, guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs,
loads o' gravel i'th' back, letharges, 9 note
cold palsies, raw
eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full
of imposthume, sciatica's, lime-kilns i'th' palme, incurable
bone-ach, and the rivell'd fee-simple of the tetter,
take and take again such preposterous discoveries.
Patr.
Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou,
what meanest thou to curse thus?
Ther.
Do I curse thee?
Patr.
Why, no, 1 noteyou ruinous butt, you whoreson
indistinguishable cur.
Ther.
No? why art thou then exasperate, 2 notethou
idle immaterial skein of sley'd silk, thou green sarcenet
flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse,
thou. Ah, how the poor world is pester'd with such
water flies, diminutives of Nature.
Patr.
3 noteOut, gall!
Ther.
4 noteFinch egg!
Achil.
My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in to morrow's battle.
-- 520 --
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
5 noteA token from her daughter, my fair love,
Both taxing me, and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it;
Fall Greeks, fail fame, honour, or go, or stay,
My major vow lies here; this I'll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent,
This night in banquetting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus.
[Exeunt.
Ther.
With too much blood, and too little brain,
these two may run mad; but if with too much brain,
and too little blood, they do, I'll be a curer of madmen.
Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough,
and one that loves quails, but he hath not so much
brain as ear-wax; 6 note
and the goodly transformation of
Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue,
-- 521 --
and obelisque memorial of cuckolds; a thirfty
shooing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's leg;
to what form, but that he is, should wit larded with
malice, and malice 7 note
forced with wit, turn him? To
an ass were nothing, he is both ass and ox. To an
ox were nothing, he is both ox and ass. To be a dog,
a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizzard, an owl, a
puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care;
but to be a Menelaus—I would conspire against Destiny.
Ask me not what I would be, if I were not
Thersites; for I care not, to be the louse of a lazar,
so I were not Menelaus.
Hey-day, 8 notespirits and fires!
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].
