Achil.

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

Ther.

Here is such patchery^{1 note}, such juggling, and such knavery! all the argument is a cuckold, and a whore; a good quarrel, to draw emulous factions, and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo on the subject, and war and lechery confound all^{2 note}!

Agam.

Where is Achilles?

Patr.
Within his tent; but ill-dispos'd, my lord.

Agam.
Let it be known to him that we are here.

We sent our messengers 11Q0834^{3 note}; and we lay by
Our appertainments visiting of him:
Let him be told so, lest, perchance, he think
We dare not move the question of our place^{4 note}
,
Or know not what we are.

Patr.
I shall say so to him. [Exit.

Ulyss.
We saw him at the opening of his tent:
He is not sick.

Ajax.

Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart: you may call it melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, 'tis pride: but why? why? let him show us a cause.—A word, my lord^{5 note}.

Nest.

What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?

Ulyss.

Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.

Nest.

Who? Thersites?

Ulyss.

He.

Nest.

Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.

Ulyss.

No, you see, he is his argument, that has his argument, Achilles.

Nest.

All the better; their fraction is more our wish, than their faction: but it was a strong composure, a fool could disunite.

Ulyss.

The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. Here comes Patroclus.

Nest.

No Achilles with him.

Re-enter Patroclus.

Ulyss.

The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for 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 noble state,
To call upon him: he hopes, it is no other,
But, for your health and your digestion sake,
An after-dinner's breath.

Agam.
Hear you, Patroclus.
We are too well acquainted with these answers;
But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn,
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 unwholesome 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 underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance; yea, watch
His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if 11Q0835
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide^{6 note}




. Go, tell him this: and add,

That, if he overhold 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 cannot 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.

Agam.
In second voice we'll not be satisfied,
We come to speak with him.—Ulysses, enter you^{7 note}. [Exit Ulysses.

Ajax.

What is he more than another?

Agam.

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?

Agam.

No question.

Ajax.

Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is?

Agam.

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 pride is.

Agam.

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.

Ajax.

I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.

Nest.

Yet he loves himself: is't not strange?

Re-enter Ulysses.

Ulyss.
Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.

Agam.
What's his excuse?

Ulyss.
He doth rely on none;
But carries on the stream of his dispose
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.

Agam.
Why will he not, upon our fair request,
Untent his person, and share the air with us?

Ulyss.
Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
He makes important. Possess'd he is with greatness;
And speaks not to himself, but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath: imagin'd worth
Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse,
That, 'twixt his mental and his active parts,
Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,
And batters down himself^{8 note}: what should I say?
He is so plaguy proud, that the death tokens of it
Cry—“No recovery.”

Agam.
Let Ajax go to him.—
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent:
'Tis said, he holds you well; and will be led,
At your request, a little from himself.

Ulyss.
O Agamemnon! let it not be so.
We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles: shall the proud lord,
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam^{9 note},
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts,—save such as doth revolve
And ruminate himself,—shall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol more than he?

No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is^{1 note}, by going to Achilles:
That were to enlard his fat-already pride;
And add more coals to Cancer, when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid;
And say in thunder—“Achilles, go to him.”

Nest.
O! this is well; he rubs the vein of him. [Aside.

Dio.
And how his silence drinks up this applause! [Aside.

Ajax.
If I go to him, with my armed fist
I'll pash him o'er the face.

Agam.
O, no! you shall not go.

Ajax.
An 'a be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride^{2 note}.
Let me go to him.

Ulyss.
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

Ajax.
A paltry, insolent fellow!

Nest.
How he describes
Himself? [Aside.

Ajax.
Can he not be sociable?

Ulyss.
The raven
Chides blackness. [Aside.

Ajax.
I'll let his humours blood^{3 note}.

Agam.
He will be the physician, that should be the patient. [Aside.

Ajax.
An all men were o' my mind,—

Ulyss.
Wit would be out of fashion. [Aside.

Ajax.
'A should not bear it so,
'A should eat swords first: shall pride carry it?

Nest.
An 'twould, you'd carry half. [Aside.

Ulyss.
'A would have ten shares^{4 note}. [Aside.

Ajax.
I will knead him; I will make him supple.

Nest.
He's not yet thorough warm: force him with praises.
Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. [Aside.

Ulyss.
My lord, you feed too much on this dislike. [To Agamemnon.

Nest.
Our noble general, do not do so.

Dio.
You must prepare to fight without Achilles.

Ulyss.
Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm.
Here is a man—but 'tis before his face;
I will be silent.

Nest.
Wherefore should you so?
He is not emulous, as Achilles is.

Ulyss.
Know the whole world, he is as valiant.

Ajax.
A whoreson dog, that shall palter thus with us!
Would, he were a Trojan!

Nest.
What a vice
Were it in Ajax now—

Ulyss.
If he were proud?

Dio.
Or covetous of praise?

Ulyss.
Ay, or surly borne?

Dio.
Or strange, or self-affected?

Ulyss.
Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure;
Praise him that got thee, her that gave thee suck:
Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice-fam'd, beyond all erudition^{5 note};
But he that disciplin'd thine arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts: here's Nestor,
Instructed by the antiquary times,
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax, and your brain so temper'd,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

Ajax.
Shall I call you father?

Nest.
Ay, my good son^{6 note}.

Dio.
Be rul'd by him, lord Ajax.

Ulyss.
There is no tarrying here: the hart Achilles
Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war:
Fresh kings are come to Troy; to-morrow,
We must with all our main of power stand fast:
And here's a lord,—come knights from east to west,
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.

Agam.
Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep:
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep^{7 note}. [Exeunt.

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