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?
Thou 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.

Patr.

Who keeps the tent now?

Ther.

The 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.

Male-varlet, you rogue? what's that?

Ther.

Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel i'th' back, lethargies, cold palsies, † ^noteraw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of impostume, sciatica's, lime-kilns i'th' palme, incurable bone-ake, 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 mean'st thou to curse thus?

Ther.

Do I curse thee?

Patr.

Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur.

Ther.

No? why art thou then exasperate, thou 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.

Out gall!

Ther.

Finch egg!

Achil.
My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in to-morrow's battel:
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A 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 Greek, fail fame; honour, or go, or stay,
My major vow lyes here; this I'll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent,
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus. [Exit.

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 mad-men. Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails, but he hath not so much brain as ear-wax; and the goodly transformation of 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 ^{a note}farced with wit turn him to? 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 puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care: but to be 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 lowse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus.—

Hey-day, spirits and fires!