SCENE I.
Achilles' tent.
Enter Achilles, and Patroclus.
Achil.
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.
-- 130 --
Enter Thersites.
Achil.
How now, thou core of envy?
6 note
Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?
Ther.
Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and
idol of ideot-worshippers, here's a letter for thee.
Achil.
From whence, fragment?
Ther.
Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
Patr.
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' male varlet.
Patr.
8 note
Male varlet, you rogue! what's that?
-- 131 --
Ther.
Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten
diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures,
catarrhs, loads o'gravel i'the back, lethargies, 9 notecold
palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs,
bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns
i' the palm, 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 note
you ruinous butt; you whoreson
indistinguishable cur, no.
Ther.
No? why art thou then exasperate, 2 notethou
idle immaterial skein of sleive 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!
-- 132 --
Ther.
4 note
Finch egg!
Achil.
My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.
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
-- 133 --
Jupiter there, his brother, the bull,—the primitive
statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty
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 lizard, an owl, a
-- 134 --
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!
Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, and Diomed, with lights.
Aga.
We go wrong, we go wrong.
Ajax.
No, yonder 'tis;
There, where we see the light.
Hect.
I trouble you.
Ajax.
No, not a whit.
Ulys.
Here comes himself to guide you.
Enter Achilles.
Achil.
Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes
all.
Aga.
So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night.
Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.
Hect.
Thanks, and good night, to the Greeks'
general.
Men.
Good night, my lord.
Hect.
Good night, sweet lord Menelaus.
Ther.
Sweet draught: Sweet, quoth a! sweet sink,
sweet sewer.
Achil.
Good night, and welcome, both at once, to those
That go, or tarry.
Aga.
Good night.
[Exeunt Agam. and Menel.
Achil.
Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
Keep Hector company an hour or two.
Dio.
I cannot, lord; I have important business,
-- 135 --
The tide whereof is now.—Good night, great Hector.
Hect.
Give me your hand.
Ulyss.
Follow his torch, he goes to Calchas' tent;
I'll keep you company.
[To Troilus.
Troi.
Sweet sir, you honour me.
Hect.
And so, good night.
Achil.
Come, come, enter my tent.
[Exeunt severally.
Ther.
That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a
most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when
he leers, than I will a serpent when he hisses: 9 notehe
will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabler the
hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretel
it; it is prodigious, there will come some change;
the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps
his word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than not
to dog him: 1 notethey say, he keeps a Trojan drab, and
uses the traitor Calchas his tent: I'll after.—Nothing
but lechery! all incontinent varlets!
[Exit.
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
