Achil.

Why, how now, Ajax! wherefore do ye thus ^note? How now, Thersites! what's the matter, man?

Ther.

You see him there, do you?

Achil.

Ay; what's the matter?

Ther.

Nay, look upon him.

Achil.

So I do: what's the matter?

Ther.

Nay, but regard him well.

Achil.

‘Well!’ why, so I do ^note.

Ther.

But yet you look not well upon him; for, whosoever ^note you take him to be, he is Ajax.

Achil.

I know that, fool.

Ther.

Ay, but that fool knows not himself.

Ajax.

Therefore I beat thee.

Ther.

Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions ^note have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones: I will ^note buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head, I'll tell ^note you what I say of him.

Achil.

What?

Ther.

I say, this Ajax—

Achil.

Nay, good Ajax.

Ther.

Has not so much wit—

Achil.

Nay, I must hold you.

Ther.

As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight.

Achil.

Peace, fool!

Ther.

I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there: that he: look you there!

Ajax.

O thou damned cur! I shall—

Achil.

Will you set your wit to a fool's?

Ther.

No, I warrant you; for a ^note fool's will shame it.

Patr.

Good words, Thersites ^note.

Achil.

What's the quarrel?

Ajax.

I bade the vile ^note owl go learn me the tenour ^note of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.

Ther.

I serve thee not.

Ajax.

Well, go to, go to.

Ther.

I serve here voluntary.

Achil.

Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

Ther.

E'en ^note so; ^note a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out ^note either of your brains: a' ^note were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

Achil.

What, with me too, Thersites?

Ther.

There's Ulysses and old Nestor, whose wit was mouldy ere your ^note grandsires had nails on their toes ^note, yoke you like draught-oxen, and make you plough up the wars ^note.

Achil.

What? what?

Ther.

Yes, good sooth: to, Achilles! to, Ajax! ^note to! ^note

Ajax.

I shall cut out your tongue.

Ther.

'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much ^note as thou afterwards.

Patr.

No more words, Thersites; peace! ^note

Ther.

I will hold my peace when Achilles' brooch ^note bids me, shall I?

Achil.

There's for you, Patroclus.

Ther.

I will see you hanged, like clotpoles ^note, ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools.

Patr.

A good riddance.

Achil.
Marry, this, sir, is proclaim'd through all our host:
That Hector, by the fifth ^note hour of the sun,
Will with a trumpet 'twixt our tents and Troy
To-morrow morning call some knight to arms
That hath a stomach, and such a one that dare
Maintain—I ^note know not what: 'tis trash. Farewell.

Ajax.
Farewell. ^note Who shall answer him?

Achil.
I know not; 'tis put to lottery; otherwise
He knew his man.

Ajax.
O, meaning you. I will ^note go learn more of it. [Exeunt. ^note

^note Scene II. [Footnote: Troy ^note. A room in Priam's palace. Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris, and Helenus.

Pri.
After so many hours ^note, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
‘Deliver Helen, and all damage ^note else,
As honour, loss of time, travail ^note, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed
In hot ^note digestion of this cormorant ^note war,
Shall be struck ^note off.’ Hector, what say you to't?

Hect.
Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I
As far as toucheth ^note my particular,
Yet, dread Priam, ^note
There is no lady of more softer ^note bowels,
More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out ‘Who knows what follows?’
Than Hector is: the wound ^note of peace is surety,
Surety ^note secure: but modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst ^note. Let Helen go. ^note
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,
Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
If we have lost so many tenths of ours,
To guard a thing not ours, nor ^note worth to us,

Had it our name, the value of one ten ^note,
What merit's ^note in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up?

Tro.
Fie, fie, my brother!
Weigh ^note you the worth and honour of a king,
So great as ^note our dread father ^note, in a scale
Of common ounces? will you with counters sum
The past ^note proportion ^note of his infinite?
And buckle in a waist ^note most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? fie, for godly ^note shame!

Hel.
No marvel, though you bite so sharp at ^note reasons,
You are so empty of them. Should not our father ^note
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons ^note,
Because your speech hath none that tells ^note him so?

Tro.
You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
You fur your gloves ^note with reason ^note. Here are your reasons:
You know an enemy intends you harm;
You know a sword employ'd is perilous,
And reason flies the object of all harm:
Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels,
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason, ^note
Let's ^note shut our gates, and sleep: manhood and honour
Should have hare hearts ^note, would they but fat their thoughts

With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect
Make ^note livers ^note pale and lustihood deject.

Hect.
Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
The holding ^{note note}.

Tro.
What's ^note aught, but as 'tis valued?

Hect.
But value dwells not in particular will;
It holds his ^note estimate and dignity
As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer: 'tis mad ^note idolatry
To make the service greater than the god ^note;
And the will dotes, that is attributive ^note
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected ^note merit.

Tro.
I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by ^note mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores ^note
Of will and judgement: how may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose ^note? ^note there can be no evasion
To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour.
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant
When we have soil'd ^note them, nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in ^note unrespective sieve ^note,
Because we now are ^note full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
Your breath of ^note full consent bellied his sails;

The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,
And did him service: he touch'd the ports desired;
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's ^note and makes stale ^note the morning.
Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt:
Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl,
Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,
And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.
If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went,
As you must needs, for you all cried ‘Go, go,’
If you'll confess he ^note brought home noble ^note prize,
As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands
And cried ‘Inestimable!’ why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate ^note,
And do a deed that Fortune never ^note did ^note,
Beggar the estimation which you prized
Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base,
That we have stol'n what ^note we do fear to keep!
But ^note thieves unworthy of a thing so stol'n,
That in ^note their country did them that disgrace
We fear to warrant in our native place! ^note

Cas. [Within ^note]
Cry, Trojans, cry!

Pri.
What noise? what shriek is this?

Tro.
'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.

Cas. [Within ^note]
Cry, Trojans!

Hect.
It is Cassandra. Enter ^note Cassandra, raving, with her hair about her ears. ^note

Cas.
Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,

And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

Hect.
Peace, sister, peace!

Cas.
Virgins and boys, mid age and wrinkled eld ^note,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst ^note but cry,
Add to my clamours ^note! let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears!
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe:
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go. [Exit.

Hect.
Now, youthful ^note Troilus, do not these ^note high strains
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse? or is your blood
So madly hot that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?

Tro.
Why, brother Hector,
We may ^note not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it;
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engaged
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touch'd ^note than all Priam's sons:
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain!

Par.
Else might the world convince ^note of levity
As well my undertakings as your counsels ^note:
But ^note I attest the gods, your full consent

Gave wings to my propension and cut off
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms?
What propugnation is in one man's valour,
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,
Were I alone to pass ^note the ^note difficulties
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.

Pri.
Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights:
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant is no praise at all.

Par.
Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wiped off, in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up
On terms of base compulsion! Can it be
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in ^note your generous bosoms?
There's ^note not the meanest spirit on our party,
Without a heart to dare or sword to draw
When Helen is defended, nor ^note none so noble,
Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfamed
Where Helen is the subject: then, I say,
Well may we fight for her, whom, we know well,
The world's large spaces cannot parallel.

Hect.
Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;
And ^note on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed, but ^note superficially; not much

Unlike young men, whom Aristotle ^note thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemper'd blood
Than to make up a free determination
'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders ^note to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be render'd to their owners: now,
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same,
There is a law in each well-order'd ^note nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory ^note.
If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,
As it is known she is, these moral laws
Of nature and of nations ^note speak aloud
To have her back return'd: thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion
Is this in way of truth: yet, ne'ertheless,
My spritely brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still;
For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance
Upon our joint and several dignities.

Tro.
Why, there you touch'd the life of our design ^note:
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown;
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,

Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us:
For, I presume, brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promised glory
As smiles upon the forehead of this action
For the wide world's revenue.

Hect.
I am yours,
You valiant offspring of great Priamus.
I have a roisting challenge sent amongst
The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks
Will strike ^note amazement to their drowsy spirits:
I was advertised their great general slept,
Whilst emulation in the army crept ^note:
This, I presume, will wake him. [Exeunt. ^note Scene III. [Footnote: The Grecian camp. ^note Before the tent of Achilles. ^note Enter Thersites, solus.

Ther.

How now ^note, 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 railed 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 enginer ^note. 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 ye ^note take not that

little little less than little wit from them that they have! which short-armed ^note ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without drawing their ^note massy irons ^note and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan ^note bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse dependant ^note on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers; and devil Envy say amen. What, ho! my Lord Achilles!

Patr. ^note

Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.

Ther.

If I could ha' ^note remembered a gilt counterfeit ^note, thou wouldst ^note not have slipped out of my contemplation: but it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! 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 ^note a fair corse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. ^note Where's Achilles?

Patr.

What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer ^note?

Ther.

Ay; the heavens hear me!

Patr.

Amen. ^note

Achil.

Who's there?

Patr.

Thersites, my lord.

Achil.

Where, where? ^note Art thou come? why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to ^note 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 thyself ^note?

Ther.

Thy knower, Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?

Patr.

Thou mayst ^note tell that knowest.

Achil.

O, tell, tell.

Ther.

I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus' knower, and Patroclus is a fool.

Patr.

You rascal!

Ther.

Peace, fool! I have not done.

Achil.

He is a privileged man. Proceed, Thersites.

Ther.

Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool. ^note

Achil.

Derive this; come.

Ther.

Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon ^note; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool, and Patroclus ^note is a fool positive.

Patr.

Why am I a fool?

Ther.

Make that demand of the prover ^note. It suffices ^noteme thou art. Look you, who comes here?

Achil.

Patroclus ^note, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.

Ther.

Here is such patchery, such juggling and such

knavery! all the argument is a cuckold and a whore ^note; a good quarrel to draw emulous ^note factions and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo ^note on the subject! and war and lechery confound all! ^note