SCENE I.-The Grecian Camp. Before ACHILLES' Tent.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

Achil. 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.

Achil.

Enter THERSITES.

How now, thou core of envy? Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news ? Ther. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, 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'y thee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male

varlet.

Patr. Male varlet, you rogue! what's that? Ther. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i' the palm, incurable

bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries !

Patr. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?

Ther. Do I curse thee?

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

Ther. No? why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's 's purse, thou ? Ah, how the poor world is pestered 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 battle. 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, Greeks; fail, fame; honour, or go or stay; My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent; This night in banqueting must all be spent.Away, Patroclus.

[Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS. 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 madmen. Here's Agamemnon -an honest

fellow enough, and one that loves quails; but he has 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 shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's leg-to what form but that he is, should wit larded with malice, and malice forced 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 louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! spirits and fires!

Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights.

Agam. We go wrong, we go wrong.

Ajax. No, yonder 'tis ;

There, where we see the lights.

Achil. Come, come, enter my tent.

[Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR.

Ther. That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers, than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretel it; it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than not to dog him: they say, he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll after.-Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets!

[Exit.

pledge!

Thy master now lies thinking in his bed
Of thee and me; and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,

As I kiss thee.-Nay, do not snatch it from me;
He that takes that, must take my heart withal.

Dio. I had your heart before; this follows it. Tro. I did swear patience.

Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; 'faith you shall not;

I'll give you something else.

Dio. I will have this; whose was it?

Cres. By all Diana's waiting-women yonder, And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

Dio. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm; And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it. Tro. Wert thou the devil, and wor'st it on thy horn,

It should be challenged.

Cres. Well, well, 't is done, 'tis past: and yet it is not;

I will not keep my word.

Dio. Why then, farewell;

Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

Cres. You shall not go:-one cannot speak a word,

But it straight starts you.

Dio.

I do not like this fooling.

Ther. Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you, pleases me best.

Tro. Let it not be believed for womanhood! Think we had mothers; do not give advantage To stubborn critics-apt, without a theme, For depravation to square the general sex By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid. Ulys. What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?

Tro. Nothing at all, unless that this were she. Ther. Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?

Tro. This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida : If beauty have a soul, this is not she; If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimony, If sanctimony be the gods' delight, If there be rule in unity itself,

This was not she. O, madness of discourse, That cause sets up with and against itself! Bifold authority! where reason can revolt Without perdition, and loss assume all reason Without revolt; this is, and is not, Cressid! Within my soul there doth commence a fight

Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifice for a point, as subtile
As is Arachne's broken woof, to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and
loosed;

And with another knot, five-finger tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy reliques
Of her o'er eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.
Ulys. May worthy Troilus be half attached
With that which here his passion doth express?

Tro. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
In characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflamed with Venus: never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fixed a soul.

Hark, Greek ;-as much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed:
That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm;
Were it a casque composed by Vulcan's skill,
My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constringed in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
In his descent, than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy.

Tro. O, Cressid! O, false Cressid! false, false, false !

Let all untruths stand by thy stainéd name,
And they'll seem glorious.

Ulys.

O, contain yourself; Your passion draws ears hither.

Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,'
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
Ulys. I'll bring you to the gates.
Tro. Accept distracted thanks.

[Exeunt TROILUS, ENEAS, and ULYSSES. Ther. 'Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not do more for an almond, than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery; still wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion: a burning devil take them. [Exit.