TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


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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]

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