Troilus and Cressida

ACT II

SCENE I. A part of the Grecian camp.

Enter AJAX and THERSITES

AJAX

Thersites!

THERSITES

Agamemnon, how if he had boils? full, all over,

generally?

AJAX

Thersites!

THERSITES

And those boils did run? say so: did not the

general run then? were not that a botchy core?

AJAX

Dog!

THERSITES

Then would come some matter from him, I see none now.

AJAX

Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear?

Beating him

Feel, then.

THERSITES

The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel

beef-witted lord!

AJAX

Speak then, thou vinewedst leaven, speak: I will

beat thee into handsomeness.

THERSITES

I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness: but,

I think, thy horse will sooner con an oration than

thou learn a prayer without book. Thou canst strike,

canst thou? a red murrain o' thy jade's tricks!

AJAX

Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.

THERSITES

Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?

AJAX

The proclamation!

THERSITES

Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think.

AJAX

Do not, porpentine, do not: my fingers itch.

THERSITES

I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had

the scratching of thee, I would make thee the

loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art forth in

the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.

AJAX

I say, the proclamation!

THERSITES

Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles,

and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as

Cerberus is at Proserpine's beauty, ay, that thou

barkest at him.

AJAX

Mistress Thersites!

THERSITES

Thou shouldest strike him.

AJAX

Cobloaf!

THERSITES

He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a

sailor breaks a biscuit.

AJAX

[Beating him] You whoreson cur!

THERSITES

Do, do.

AJAX

Thou stool for a witch!

THERSITES

Ay, do, do, thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no

more brain than I have in mine elbows, an assinego

may tutor thee: thou scurvy-valiant ass! thou art

here but to thrash Trojans, and thou art bought and

sold among those of any wit, like a barbarian slave.

If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and

tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no

bowels, thou!

AJAX

You dog!

THERSITES

You scurvy lord!

AJAX

[Beating him] You cur!

THERSITES

Mars his idiot! do, rudeness, do, camel, do, do.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS

ACHILLES

Why, how now, Ajax! wherefore do you thus? How now,

Thersites! what's the matter, man?

THERSITES

You see him there, do you?

ACHILLES

Ay, what's the matter?

THERSITES

Nay, look upon him.

ACHILLES

So I do: what's the matter?

THERSITES

Nay, but regard him well.

ACHILLES

'Well!' why, I do so.

THERSITES

But yet you look not well upon him, for whosoever you

take him to be, he is Ajax.

ACHILLES

I know that, fool.

THERSITES

Ay, but that fool knows not himself.

AJAX

Therefore I beat thee.

THERSITES

Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his

evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his

brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy

nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not

worth the nineth part of a sparrow. This lord,

Achilles, Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and

his guts in his head, I'll tell you what I say of

him.

ACHILLES

What?

THERSITES

I say, this Ajax--

Ajax offers to beat him

ACHILLES

Nay, good Ajax.

THERSITES

Has not so much wit--

ACHILLES

Nay, I must hold you.

THERSITES

As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he

comes to fight.

ACHILLES

Peace, fool!

THERSITES

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--

ACHILLES

Will you set your wit to a fool's?

THERSITES

No, I warrant you, for a fools will shame it.

PATROCLUS

Good words, Thersites.

ACHILLES

What's the quarrel?

AJAX

I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor of the

proclamation, and he rails upon me.

THERSITES

I serve thee not.

AJAX

Well, go to, go to.

THERSITES

I serve here voluntarily.

ACHILLES

Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not

voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was

here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

THERSITES

E'en so, a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your

sinews, or else there be liars. Hector have a great

catch, if he knock out either of your brains: a'

were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

ACHILLES

What, with me too, Thersites?

THERSITES

There's Ulysses and old Nestor, whose wit was mouldy

ere your grandsires had nails on their toes, yoke you

like draught-oxen and make you plough up the wars.

ACHILLES

What, what?

THERSITES

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

AJAX

I shall cut out your tongue.

THERSITES

'Tis no matter! I shall speak as much as thou

afterwards.

PATROCLUS

No more words, Thersites, peace!

THERSITES

I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall I?

ACHILLES

There's for you, Patroclus.

THERSITES

I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come

any more to your tents: I will keep where there is

wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.

Exit

PATROCLUS

A good riddance.

ACHILLES

Marry, this, sir, is proclaim'd through all our host:

That Hector, by the fifth 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 know not what: 'tis trash. Farewell.

AJAX

Farewell. Who shall answer him?

ACHILLES

I know not: 'tis put to lottery, otherwise

He knew his man.

AJAX

O, meaning you. I will go learn more of it.

Exeunt

SCENE II. Troy. A room in Priam's palace.

Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS

PRIAM

After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,

Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:

'Deliver Helen, and all damage else--

As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed

In hot digestion of this cormorant war--

Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't?

HECTOR

Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I

As far as toucheth my particular,

Yet, dread Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,

More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,

More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?'

Than Hector is: the wound of peace is surety,

Surety secure, but modest doubt is call'd

The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches

To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:

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 worth to us,

Had it our name, the value of one ten,

What merit's in that reason which denies

The yielding of her up?

TROILUS

Fie, fie, my brother!

Weigh you the worth and honour of a king

So great as our dread father in a scale

Of common ounces? will you with counters sum

The past proportion of his infinite?

And buckle in a waist most fathomless

With spans and inches so diminutive

As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame!

HELENUS

No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,

You are so empty of them. Should not our father

Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,

Because your speech hath none that tells him so?

TROILUS

You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest,

You fur your gloves with reason. 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,

Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour

Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat

their thoughts

With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect

Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

HECTOR

Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost

The holding.

TROILUS

What is aught, but as 'tis valued?

HECTOR

But value dwells not in particular will,

It holds his estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself

As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry

To make the service greater than the god

And the will dotes that is attributive

To what infectiously itself affects,

Without some image of the affected merit.

TROILUS

I take to-day a wife, and my election

Is led on in the conduct of my will,

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,

Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores

Of will and judgment: how may I avoid,

Although my will distaste what it elected,

The wife I chose? 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 them, nor the remainder viands

We do not throw in unrespective sieve,

Because we now are full. It was thought meet

Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:

Your breath of 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, and makes stale 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 brought home noble 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,

And do a deed that fortune never did,

Beggar the estimation which you prized

Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base,

That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!

But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stol'n,

That in their country did them that disgrace,

We fear to warrant in our native place!

CASSANDRA

[Within] Cry, Trojans, cry!

PRIAM

What noise? what shriek is this?

TROILUS

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

CASSANDRA

[Within] Cry, Trojans!

HECTOR

It is Cassandra.

Enter CASSANDRA, raving

CASSANDRA

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

And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

HECTOR

Peace, sister, peace!

CASSANDRA

Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,

Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,

Add to my clamours! 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

HECTOR

Now, youthful Troilus, do not these 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?

TROILUS

Why, brother Hector,

We may 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 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!

PARIS

Else might the world convince of levity

As well my undertakings as your counsels:

But 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 the difficulties

And had as ample power as I have will,

Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,

Nor faint in the pursuit.

PRIAM

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.

PARIS

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 your generous bosoms?

There's not the meanest spirit on our party

Without a heart to dare or sword to draw

When Helen is defended, nor 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.

HECTOR

Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,

And on the cause and question now in hand

Have glozed, but superficially: not much

Unlike young men, whom Aristotle 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 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 nation

To curb those raging appetites that are

Most disobedient and refractory.

If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,

As it is known she is, these moral laws

Of nature and of nations 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.

TROILUS

Why, there you touch'd the life of our design:

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.

HECTOR

I am yours,

You valiant offspring of great Priamus.

I have a roisting challenge sent amongst

The dun and factious nobles of the Greeks

Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits:

I was advertised their great general slept,

Whilst emulation in the army crept:

This, I presume, will wake him.

Exeunt

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.

Enter THERSITES, solus

THERSITES

How now, 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! 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 take not that little, little less

than little wit from them that they have! which

short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant

scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly

from a spider, without drawing their massy irons and

cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the

whole camp! or rather, the bone-ache! for that,

methinks, is the curse dependent on those that war

for a placket. I have said my prayers and devil Envy

say Amen. What ho! my Lord Achilles!

Enter PATROCLUS

PATROCLUS

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

THERSITES

If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou

wouldst 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 a fair corse, I'll be sworn and

sworn upon't she never shrouded any but lazars.

Amen. Where's Achilles?

PATROCLUS

What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer?

THERSITES

Ay: the heavens hear me!

Enter ACHILLES

ACHILLES

Who's there?

PATROCLUS

Thersites, my lord.

ACHILLES

Where, where? Art thou come? why, my cheese, my

digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to

my table so many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon?

THERSITES

Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus,

what's Achilles?

PATROCLUS

Thy lord, Thersites: then tell me, I pray thee,

what's thyself?

THERSITES

Thy knower, Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus,

what art thou?

PATROCLUS

Thou mayst tell that knowest.

ACHILLES

O, tell, tell.

THERSITES

I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands

Achilles, Achilles is my lord, I am Patroclus'

knower, and Patroclus is a fool.

PATROCLUS

You rascal!

THERSITES

Peace, fool! I have not done.

ACHILLES

He is a privileged man. Proceed, Thersites.

THERSITES

Agamemnon is a fool, Achilles is a fool, Thersites

is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.

ACHILLES

Derive this, come.

THERSITES

Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles,

Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon,

Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool, and

Patroclus is a fool positive.

PATROCLUS

Why am I a fool?

THERSITES

Make that demand of the prover. It suffices me thou

art. Look you, who comes here?

ACHILLES

Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody.

Come in with me, Thersites.

Exit

THERSITES

Here is such patchery, 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!

Exit

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and AJAX

AGAMEMNON

Where is Achilles?

PATROCLUS

Within his tent, but ill disposed, my lord.

AGAMEMNON

Let it be known to him that we are here.

He shent our messengers, 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,

Or know not what we are.

PATROCLUS

I shall say so to him.

Exit

ULYSSES

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 the

cause. A word, my lord.

Takes AGAMEMNON aside

NESTOR

What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?

ULYSSES

Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.

NESTOR

Who, Thersites?

ULYSSES

He.

NESTOR

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

ULYSSES

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

argument, Achilles.

NESTOR

All the better, their fraction is more our wish than

their faction: but it was a strong composure a fool

could disunite.

ULYSSES

The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily

untie. Here comes Patroclus.

Re-enter PATROCLUS

NESTOR

No Achilles with him.

ULYSSES

The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy:

his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.

PATROCLUS

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,

And after-dinner's breath.

AGAMEMNON

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

The passage and whole carriage of this action

Rode on his tide. 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.

PATROCLUS

I shall, and bring his answer presently.

Exit

AGAMEMNON

In second voice we'll not be satisfied,

We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.

Exit ULYSSES

AJAX

What is he more than another?

AGAMEMNON

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?

AGAMEMNON

No question.

AJAX

Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is?

AGAMEMNON

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.

AGAMEMNON

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.

NESTOR

Yet he loves himself: is't not strange?

Aside

Re-enter ULYSSES

ULYSSES

Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.

AGAMEMNON

What's his excuse?

ULYSSES

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.

AGAMEMNON

Why will he not upon our fair request

Untent his person and share the air with us?

ULYSSES

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: imagined 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: what should I say?

He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it

Cry 'No recovery.'

AGAMEMNON

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.

ULYSSES

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

And never suffers matter of the world

Enter his thoughts, save such as do 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 acquired,

Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,

As amply titled as Achilles is,

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.'

NESTOR

[Aside to DIOMEDES] O, this is well, he rubs the

vein of him.

DIOMEDES

[Aside to NESTOR] And how his silence drinks up

this applause!

AJAX

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

AGAMEMNON

O, no, you shall not go.

AJAX

An a' be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride:

Let me go to him.

ULYSSES

Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

AJAX

A paltry, insolent fellow!

NESTOR

How he describes himself!

AJAX

Can he not be sociable?

ULYSSES

The raven chides blackness.

AJAX

I'll let his humours blood.

AGAMEMNON

He will be the physician that should be the patient.

AJAX

An all men were o' my mind,--

ULYSSES

Wit would be out of fashion.

AJAX

A' should not bear it so, a' should eat swords first:

shall pride carry it?

NESTOR

An 'twould, you'ld carry half.

ULYSSES

A' would have ten shares.

AJAX

I will knead him, I'll make him supple.

NESTOR

He's not yet through warm: force him with praises:

pour in, pour in, his ambition is dry.

ULYSSES

[To AGAMEMNON] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

NESTOR

Our noble general, do not do so.

DIOMEDES

You must prepare to fight without Achilles.

ULYSSES

Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm.

Here is a man--but 'tis before his face,

I will be silent.

NESTOR

Wherefore should you so?

He is not emulous, as Achilles is.

ULYSSES

Know the whole world, he is as valiant.

AJAX

A whoreson dog, that shall pelter thus with us!

Would he were a Trojan!

NESTOR

What a vice were it in Ajax now,--

ULYSSES

If he were proud,--

DIOMEDES

Or covetous of praise,--

ULYSSES

Ay, or surly borne,--

DIOMEDES

Or strange, or self-affected!

ULYSSES

Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure,

Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck:

Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature

Thrice famed, beyond all erudition:

But he that disciplined thy 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:

Put 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?

NESTOR

Ay, my good son.

DIOMEDES

Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax.

ULYSSES

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.

AGAMEMNON

Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep:

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

Exeunt