While pride is feasting in his wantonness! As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast, ACHIL. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me As misers do by beggars; neither gave to me Good word, nor look: What, are my deeds forgot? ULYSS. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, O'errun and trampled on: Then what they do in present, For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; And Farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, V That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds, More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. The present eye praises the present object: Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee, If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive, Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, ACHIL. I have strong reasons. ULYSS. Of this my privacy But 'gainst your privacy The providence that 's in a watchful state Which hath an operation more divine All the commerce that you have had with Troy, To throw down Hector, than Polyxena: But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home, A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man [Exit. And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, Be shook to airy air a. ACHIL. Shall Ajax fight with Hector? PATR. Ay; and, perhaps, receive much honour by him. ACHIL. I see, my reputation is at stake; Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves : Seals a commission to a blank of danger; To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing, To see great Hector in his weeds of peace"; To talk with him, and to behold his visage, Even to my full of view. A labour sav'd! Enter THERSITES. THER. A wonder! ACHIL. What? THER. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself. ACHIL. How so? THER. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector; and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in saying nothing. ACHIL. How can that be? THER. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who would say, there were wit in this head, an 't would out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he 'll break it himself in vain glory. He knows not me: I said, "Good-morrow, Ajax;” and he replies, "Thanks, Agamemnon." What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He is grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin. ACHIL. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites. THER. Who, I? why, he 'll answer nobody; he professes not answering; speak ing is for beggars: he wears his tongue in his arms. I will put on his Airy air is the reading of the folio; the quarto has air, without the Shaksperean superlative. presence; let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax. ACHIL. To him, Patroclus: Tell him, I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous, and most illustrious, six-orseven-times honoured captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, &c. Do this. PATR. Jove bless great Ajax. THER. Humph! PATR. I come from the worthy Achilles, THER. Ha! PATR. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent,— PATR. And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon. THER. Agamemnon? PATR. Ay, my lord. THER. Ha! PATR. What say you to 't? THER. God be wi' you, with all my heart. PATR. Your answer, sir. THER. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will go one way or other; howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me. PATR. Your answer, sir. THER. Fare you well, with all my heart. ACHIL. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? THER. No, but he 's out o' tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not: But, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo gets his sinews to make catlings on. ACHIL. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight. THER. Let me carry another to his horse; for that's the more capable creature. ACHIL. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd; And I myself see not the bottom of it. [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS. THER. 'Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a valiant igno rance. [Exit. Enter, at one side, ENEAS, and Servant with a torch; at the other, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES, and others, with torches. PAR. See, ho! who 's that there? DEI. 'T is the lord Eneas. ENE. Is the prince there in person?— Had I so good occasion to lie long, As you, prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business Dio. That's my mind too.-Good morrow, lord Æneas. Witness the process of your speech, wherein |