Cres. By the same token-you are a bawd.-
[Exit PANDARUS.
Words, vows, griefs, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
He offers in another's enterprize:
But more in Troilus thousand fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be:
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing:
That she belov'd knows nought, that knows not
this,-

Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet, as when desire did sue:
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach,-
Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:
Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear. [Exit.
SCENE III.-The Grecian Camp. Before
Agamemnon's Tent."

Ulyss. Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit, In whom the tempers and the minds of all Should be shut up,-hear what Ulysses speaks. Besides the applause and approbation, The which, most mighty for thy place and [To AGAMEMNON. And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life,— [TO NESTOR I give to both your speeches,-which were such, As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece

sway,

Agam. Princes,

What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition, that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below,
Fails in the promis'd largeness; checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd;
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us,
That we come short of our suppose so far,

--

As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,
Should with a bond of air, (strong as the axle-tree
On which heaven rides,) knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienced tongue,
- yet let it please
both,-
Thou great, and wise,-to hear Ulysses speak.
Agam. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and bet of
less expect

That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips: than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastiff jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

Ulyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,

Sith' every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works;
And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought

else

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love; for them, the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away:
And what hath mass, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance,
Lies the true proof of men: The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold
The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus' horse: Where's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rival'd greatness? either to harbor fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valor's show, and valor's worth, divide,
In storms of fortune: For, in her ray and bright-

But for these instances.

The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
When that the general is not like the hive,
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,'
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: But when the planets,
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,

What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny?
What raging of the sea? shaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture? O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprize is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,

Peaceful commérce from dividable' shores,

The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets

In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong
(Between whose endless jar justice resides)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,

And, last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.

And this neglection of degree it is,

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next by him beneath: so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation:
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.
Nest. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd
The fever whereof all our power is sick.

Agam. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy?

Ulyss. The great Achilles,-whom opinion crowns The sinew and the forehand of our host,Having his ear full of his airy fame, Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent Lies mocking our designs: With him, Patroclus, Upon a lazy bed the live-long day, Breaks scurril jests;

And with ridiculous and awkward action
(Which, slanderer, he imitation calls)

He pageants' us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy topless reputation he puts on;
And, like a strutting player,-whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
"Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,"
Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested' seeming
He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,
"Tis like a chime a mending; with terms unsquared,
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
Cries-Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just.-
Now play me Nestor;-hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he, being drest to some oration.

That's done;-as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels; as like as Vulcan and his wife:
Yet good Achilles still cries, Excellent!
'Tis Nestor right! Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm.
And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and spit,
And with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet:-and at this sport,
Sir Valor dies; cries, O!-enough, Patroclus;-
Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen. And in this fashion,
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,

Excitements to the field, or speech for truce, Success, or loss, what is, or is not, serves As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

Nest. And in the imitation of these twain,
(Whom, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns
With an imperial voice,) many are infect.
Ajax is grown self-will'd; and bears his head
In such a rein, in full as proud a place
As broad Achilles: keeps his tent like him;
Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war,
Bold as an oracle: and sets Thersites

(A slave, whose gall coins slanders like a mint)
To match us in comparisons with dirt;
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger.

Ulyss. They tax our policy, and call it cowardice;
Count wisdom as no member of the war;
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand: the still and mental parts,-
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on; and know, by measure
Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight,-
Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:
They call this-bed-work, mappery, closet-war:
So that the ram, that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poize,
They place before his hand that made the engine:
Or those, that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

Nest. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Makes many Thetis' sons. [Trumpet sounded. Agam. What trumpet? look, Menelaus. Enter ENEAS.

What's your affair, I pray you?

Trumpet, blow loud,

Ene. Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;And every Greek of mettle, let him know, What Troy means fairly, shall be spoke aloud. [Trumpet sounds. We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince called Hector, (Priam is his father,) Who in this dull and long-continued truce Is rusty grown: he bade me take a trumpet, And to this purpose speak. Kings, princes, lords! If there be one among the fair'st of Greece, That holds his honor higher than his ease; That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril ; That knows his valor, and knows not his fear; That loves his mistress more than in confession, (With truant vows to her own lips he loves,) And dare avow her beauty and her worth, In other arms than hers,-to him this challenge. Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks, Shall make it good, or do his best to do it, He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer, Than ever Greek did compass in his arms; } And will to-morrow with his trumpet call, Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy, To rouse a Grecian that is true in love: If any come, Hector shall honor him; If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires, The Grecian dames are sun-burn'd, and not worth The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

Agam. This shall be told our lovers, lord Æneas; If none of them have soul in such a kind, We left them all at home: But we are soldiers; And may that soldier a mere recreant prove, That means not, hath not, or is not in love! If then one is, or hath, or means to be, That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

Nest. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now; But, if there be not in our Grecian host One noble man, that hath one spark of fire To answer for his love, tell him from me,I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver, And in my vantbrace' put this wither'd brawn; And, meeting him, will tell him, That my lady Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste As may be in the world: His youth in flood, I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood. Ene. Now heaven forbid such scarcity of youth! Ulyss. Amen.

Agam. Fair lord Æneas, let me touch your hand;
To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.
Achilles shall have word of this intent;

So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent:
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
And find the welcome of a noble foe.

It is most meet: Whom may you else oppose,
That can from Hector bring those honors off.
If not Achilles? Though't be a sportful combat,
Yet in the trial much opinion dwells;
For here the Trojans taste our dear'st repute
With their fin'st palate: And trust to me, Ulysses
Our imputation shall be oddly pois'd
In this wild action: for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling'
Of good or bad unto the general;
And in such indexes, although small pricks'
To their subséquent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass

Of things to come at large. It is suppos'd,
He, that meets Hector, issues from our choice:
And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
Makes merit her election; and doth boil,
As 'twere from forth us all, a man distill'd
Out of her virtues; Who miscarrying,
What heart receives from hence a conquering part,
To steel a strong opinion to themselves!
Which entertain'd, limbs are his instruments,
In no less working, than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.

Ulyss. Give pardon to my speech-
Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.
Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares,
And think, perchance, they'll sell; if not,
The lustre of the better shall exceed,
By showing the worst first. Do not consent,
That ever Hector and Achilles meet;
For both our honor and our shame, in this,
Are dogg'd with two strange followers.

Nest. I see them not with my old eyes; what

are they?

Ulyss. What glory our Achilles shares from

Hector,

Were he not proud, we all should share with him:
But he already is too insolent;

And we were better parch in Afric sun,
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
Should he 'scape Hector fair: If he were foil'd,
Why, then we did our main opinion' crush

Nest. What says Ulysses?

Ulyss. I have a young conception in my brain, Be you my time to bring it to some shape. Nest. What is 't?

2 An armor for the arm.

And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector: Among ourselves,
Give him allowance for the better man,
For that will physic the great Myrmidon,

Size, measure. volumes.

Small points compared with the

• Estimation of character.

Lot.

Ajax. You cur!

SCENE I-Another Part of the Grecian Camp. Enter AJAX and THERSITES.

Ajax. Dog,

Ther: Then would come some matter from him; I see none now.

Ajax. Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear! Feel then. [Strikes him. Ther. The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!

Ajax. Speak then, thou unsalted leaven, speak: I will beat thee into handsomeness.

Ther. 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. Toads-stool, learn me the proclamation. Ther. Dost thou think, I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?

Ajax. The proclamation,-

Ther. Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think. Ajax. Do not, porcupine, do not; my fingers itch. Ther. 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,

Ther. Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles : and thou art as full of envy at his greatness, as Cerberus is at Proserpina's beauty, ay, that thou barkest at him.

Ajax. Mistress Thersites!

Ther. Thou shouldest strike him.

9

[Beating him.

Ajax. Thou stool for a witch! Ther. 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 put 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!

Ther. You scurvy lord!

[Beating him.

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

do, do.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS. Achil. Why, how now, Ajax? wherefore do you thus?

How now, Thersites ? what's the matter, man?
Ther. You see him there, do you?
Achil. Ay; what's the matter?
Ther. Nay, look upon him.
Achil. So I do; What's the matter?
Ther. Nay, but regard him well.
Achil. Well, why I do so.

Ther. But yet you look not well upon him: for whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax. Achil. I know that, fool.

Ther. Ay, but that fool knows not himself.
Ajax. Therefore I beat thee.

Ther. 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 ninth 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.

Achil. What?

Ther. I say this, Ajax-
Achil. Nay, good Ajax.

[AJAX offers to strike him, ACHILLES
interposes.

Ther. Has not so much witAchil. Nay, I must hold you. Ther. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight.

Achil. Peace, fool!

Ther. 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

Achil. Will you set your wit to a fool's?
Ther. No, I warrant you; for a fool's will
shame it.

Patr. Good words, Thersites.
Achil. What's the quarrel?

Ajax. I bade the vile owl, go, learn me the tenor
of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.
Ther. I serve thee not.
Ajax. Well, go to, go to.
Ther. I serve here voluntary.

Achil. Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary; Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

Ther. Even so?-a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; 'a were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

Achil. What, with me too, Thersites ? 1 Provoke.

The membrane that protects the brain.

Ther. 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. Achil. What, what?

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? Tro. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest,

Ajax. I shall cut out your tongue.

Ther. "Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou, afterwards.

Patr. No more words, Thersites; peace. Ther. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach' bids me, shall I?

Achil. There's for you, Patroclus.

Ther. 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.

Patr. A good riddance.

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

That Hector, by the first 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?
Achil. I know not, it is put to lottery; otherwise,
He knew his man.

Ajax. O, meaning you :—I'll go learn more of it. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace. Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and

HELENUS.

In hot digestion of this cormorant war—
Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to't?
Hect. 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 spungy 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; not 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?

Tro.

Fye, fye, my brother!
Weigh you the worth and honor 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? fye, for godly shame!

Hel. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at

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 honor
Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their
thoughts

With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect'
Make livers pale, and lustihood deject.

Hect. Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
The holding.
Tro. What is aught, but as 'tis valued?
Hect. 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.
Is led on in the conduct of my will:
Tro. I take to-day a wife, and my election
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 honor:
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 with full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds (old wranglers) took a truce,
And did him service: he touch'd the ports desir'd;
And, for an old aunt,' whom the Greeks held captive,
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and
freshness

Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale 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 cry'd-Go, go,)
If you'll confess, he brought home noble prize,
(As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands,
And cry'd-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 priz'd
Richer than sea or land? O theft most base;
That we have stolen what we do fear to keep!
But, thieves unworthy of a thing so stolen,
That in their country did them that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!
Cas. [Within.] Cry, Trojans, cry!
Pri.
What noise? what shriek is this?
Tro. "Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.
• Shrink, or fly off.
* Priam's sister, Hesione.

• Caution.