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. Ajar. 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?

Ajar. I bade the vile owl, go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.

Ther. I serve thee not.
Ajar. 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 ?

Ther. Yes, good sooth; To, Achilles! to, Ajax! to! 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.

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 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? fye, for godly shame!

Hel. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at

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.
Tro. 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 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 and 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.
Cas. [Within.] Cry, Trojans !

Hect. It is Cassandra.

Enter CASSANDRa, raving.

Cas. Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes, And I will fill them with prophetick tears.

Hect. Peace, sister, peace.

Cas. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled elders,

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 fire-brand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen, and a woe:
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go. [Exit.
Hect. 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?

Tro.
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 engag'd
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!

Par. 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.

Pri.
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.

Par. 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
Wip'd 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 unfam'd,
Where Helen is the subject: then, I say,
Weil may we fight for her, whom, we know well,
The world's large spaces cannot parallel.

Hect. Paris, and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have gloz'd,
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.

Tro. 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,

-a

Ther. 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, rare engineer. 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 dependant on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers; and devil, envy, say Amen. What, ho! my lord Achilles !

Enter PATROCLUS.

Patr. Who's there? Thersites? good Thersites, come in and rail.

Ther. If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldest 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?

Patr. What, art thou devout? wast thou in

Patr. Within his tent; but ill-dispos'd, my lord. Agam. 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
Pat.

I shall say so to him.
[Exit.
Ulyss. We saw him at the opening of his tent;
He is not sick.

Ajar. 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 a cause. - A word, my lord.

[Takes AGAMEMNON aside.

Nest. What moves Ajax thus to bay at him? Ulyss. Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him. Nest. Who? Thersites ?

Ulyss. He.

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

Ulyss. No; you see, he is his argument, that has his argument; Achilles.

Nest. All the better; their fraction is more our wish, than their faction: But it was a strong composure, a fool could disunite.

Ulyss. The amity, that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. Here comes Patroclus.

Re-enter PATROCLUS.

Nest. No Achilles with him.

Ulyss. The elephant hath joints, but none for

sorry,

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.

Patr. I shall; and bring his answer presently. [Exit. Agam. In second voice we'll not be satisfied, We come to speak with him. — Ulysses, enter. [Exit ULYSSES.

Ajax. What is he more than another? Agum. 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?

Agam. 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..

Agam. Your mind's 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.

Ajar. I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.

Nest. And yet he loves himself: Is it not strange?

Re-enter ULYSSES.

[Aside.

Ulyss. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow. Agam. What's his excuse? Ulyss. He doth rely on none; But carries on the stream of his dispose,

Agam. Why will he not, upon our fair request, Untent his person, and share the air with us?" Ulyss. 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: imagin'd 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.

---

Agam.
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.

Ulyss. 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 acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,

By going to Achilles :

O, no, you shall not go.
Ajax. An he be proud with me, I'll pheeze his
pride :
Let me go to him.

Ulyss. Not for the worth that hangs upon our
quarrel.
Ajax. A paltry, insolent fellow,
Nest.

How he describes

[Aside.

The raven

[Aside.

Ajax. I will let his humours blood. Agam. He'll be physician, that should be the patient. [Aside. Ajar. An all men Were o'my mind, Ulyss.

Wit would be out of fashion. [Aside.

Ajax. He should not bear it so,

He should eat swords first: Shall pride carry it?
Nest. An 'twould, you'd carry half. [Aside.
Ulyss.
He'd have ten shares.
[Aside.
Ajax. I'll knead him, I will make him supple :-