Patroclus

To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you:
A woman impudent and mannish grown

Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemned for this;
They think, my little stomach to the war,

And your great love to me, restrains you thus:
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dewdrop from the lion's mane,

Be shook to air.

Achilles

Patroclus

Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

Ay; and, perhaps, receive much honor by him.

O, then beware;

Those wounds heal ill, that men do give themselves:
Omission to do what is necessary

Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
Achilles-

Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus:
I'll send the food to Ajax, and desire him
To invite the Trojan lords after the combat,
To see us here unarmed: I have a woman's longing,

An appetite that I am sick withal,

To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;

To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full view. A labor saved!

Enter THERSITES.

Thersites — Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself. Achilles- -How so?

Thersites He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector; and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgeling, that he raves in saying nothing.

Achilles-How can that be?

Thersites-Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock; a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say-there were wit in this head, an 'twould

out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone forever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he'll break it himself in vain glory. He knows not me: I said, Good morrow, Ajax; and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He has grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

Achilles-Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Thersites-Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not answering; speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in his I will put on his presence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

arms.

Achilles-To him, Patroclus: tell him, I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person, of the magnanimous, and most illustrious, six-or-seven-times honored captain general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon. Do this.

Patroclus-Jove bless great Ajax!

Thersites Humph!

I come from the worthy Achilles,

Thersites-Ha!

Patroclus-Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to

his tent,

Thersites - Humph!

Patroclus-And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.

Thersites

If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will go one way or other; howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me. Patroclus- Your answer, sir.

Thersites Fare you well, with all my. heart.

Achilles-Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

Thersites-No, but he's out o' tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not: but, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.

Achilles-Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

Thersites -Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more capable creature.

Achilles My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred; and I myself see not the bottom of it. [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

Thersites 'Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a valiant ignorance.

[Exit.

Scene: Troy. A Street. Enter, at one side, ÆNEAS and Servant, with a Torch; at the other, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES, and others, with Torches.

Paris

See, ho! who's that there?

Deiphobus

Eneas

'Tis the lord Æneas.

Is the prince there in person?

Had I so good occasion to lie long,

As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
Should rob my bed mate of my company.
Diomedes-

That's

Paris

my

mind too. Good morrow, lord Æneas.

-

A valiant Greek, Eneas; take his hand:
Witness the process of your speech, wherein
You told-how Diomed, a whole week by days,
Did haunt you in the field.

Eneas

Health to you, valiant sir, During all question of the gentle truce:

But when I meet you armed, as black defiance,

As heart can think, or courage execute.

The one and other Diomed embraces.

Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health:
But when contention and occasion meet,

By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life,
With all my force, pursuit, and policy.
Eneas

And thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly
With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,
Welcome, indeed! by Venus' hand I swear,
No man alive can love, in such a sort,

The thing he means to kill, more excellently.
Diomedes-

We sympathize:-Jove, let Æneas live,
If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
A thousand complete courses of the sun!
But, in mine emulous honor, let him die,
With every joint a wound: and that to-morrow!
Eneas-

We know each other well.

We do; and long to know each other worse.
Paris-

This is the most despiteful gentle greeting,
The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.
What business, lord, so early?

Eneas

I was sent for to the king; but why, I know not.
Paris-

His purpose meets you: 'twas to bring this Greek
To Calchas' house; and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid:
Let's have your company: or, if you please,
Haste there before us: I constantly do think,
(Or, rather, call my thought a certain knowledge,)
My brother Troilus lodges there to-night;
Rouse him, and give him note of our approach.
With the whole quality wherefore: I fear
We shall be much unwelcome.

Eneas

Paris

Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece,
Than Cressid borne from Troy.

That I assure you;

There is no help;

[Exit.

The bitter disposition of the time
Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.

Eneas-Good morrow, all.

A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD.

BETWEEN HELEN OF TROY AND MADAME DE MAINTENON.

BY ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD.

[ANNA LETITIA AIKIN: An English miscellaneous writer; born in 1743; married Rochemont Barbauld, a Huguenot refugee, in 1774. A volume of "Miscellaneous Pieces," written with her brother, but the best of them hers, gave her reputation. She wrote "Hymns in Prose for Children," "Devotional Pieces," " Early Lessons," etc. She died in 1825.]

Helen-Whence comes it, my dear Madame Maintenon, that beauty, which in the age I lived in produced such extraordinary effects, has now lost almost all its power?

Maintenon-I should wish first to be convinced of the fact, before I offer to give you a reason for it.

Helen-That will be very easy; for there is no occasion to

go any further than our own histories and experience to prove what I advance. You were beautiful, accomplished, and fortunate; endowed with every talent and every grace to bend the heart of man and mold it to your wish and your schemes were successful; for you raised yourself from obscurity and dependence to be the wife of a great monarch. But what is this to the influence my beauty had over sovereigns and nations! I occasioned a long ten years' war between the most celebrated heroes of antiquity; contending kingdoms disputed the honor of placing me on their respective thrones; my story is recorded by the father of verse; and my charms make a figure even in the annals of mankind. You were, it is true, the wife of Louis XIV., and respected in his court: but you occasioned no wars; you are not spoken of in the history of France, though you furnished materials for the memoirs of a court. Are the love and admiration that were paid you merely as an amiable woman to be compared with the enthusiasm I inspired, and the boundless empire I obtained over all that was celebrated, great, or powerful in the age I lived in?

Maintenon-All this, my dear Helen, has a splendid appearance, and sounds well in a heroic poem; but you greatly deceive yourself if you impute it all to your personal merit. Do you imagine that half the chiefs concerned in the war of Troy were at all influenced by your beauty, or troubled their heads what became of you, provided they came off with honor? Believe me, love had very little to do in the affair. Menelaus sought to revenge the affront he had received; Agamemnon was flattered with the supreme command; some came to share the glory, others the plunder; some because they had bad wives at home, some in hopes of getting Trojan mistresses abroad and Homer thought the story extremely proper for the subject of the best poem in the world. Thus you became famous; your elopement was made a national quarrel; the animosities of both nations were kindled by frequent battles: and the object was not the restoring of Helen to Menelaus, but the destruction of Troy by the Greeks. My triumphs, on the other hand, were all owing to myself and to the influence of personal merit and charms over the heart of man. My birth was obscure; my fortunes low; I had passed the bloom of youth, and was advancing to that period at which the generality of our sex lose all importance with the other. I had to do with a man of gallantry and intrigue, a monarch who had been