Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  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 god 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 Valour 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.

  Nestor

  And in the imitation of these twain —

  Who, 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.

  Ulysses

  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 poise,

  They place before his hand that made the engine,

  Or those that with the fineness of their souls

  By reason guide his execution.

  Nestor

  Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse

  Makes many Thetis’ sons.

  A tucket

  Agamemnon

  What trumpet? look, Menelaus.

  Menelaus

  From Troy.

  Enter Aeneas

  Agamemnon

  What would you ’fore our tent?

  Aeneas

  Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

  Agamemnon

  Even this.

  Aeneas

  May one, that is a herald and a prince,

  Do a fair message to his kingly ears?

  Agamemnon

  With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm

  ’Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice

  Call Agamemnon head and general.

  Aeneas

  Fair leave and large security. How may

  A stranger to those most imperial looks

  Know them from eyes of other mortals?

  Agamemnon

  How!

  Aeneas

  Ay;

  I ask, that I might waken reverence,

  And bid the cheek be ready with a blush

  Modest as morning when she coldly eyes

  The youthful Phoebus:

  Which is that god in office, guiding men?

  Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

  Agamemnon

  This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy

  Are ceremonious courtiers.

  Aeneas

  Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm’d,

  As bending angels; that’s their fame in peace:

  But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,

  Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and,

  Jove’s accord,

  Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,

  Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips!

  The worthiness of praise distains his worth,

  If that the praised himself bring the praise forth:

  But what the repining enemy commends,

  That breath fame blows; that praise, sole sure, transcends.

  Agamemnon

  Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?

  Aeneas

  Ay, Greek, that is my name.

  Agamemnon

  What’s your affair I pray you?

  Aeneas

  Sir, pardon; ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.

  Agamemnon

  He hears naught privately that comes from Troy.

  Aeneas

  Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him:

  I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,

  To set his sense on the attentive bent,

  And then to speak.

  Agamemnon

  Speak frankly as the wind;

  It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour:

  That thou shalt know. Trojan, he is awake,

  He tells thee so himself.

  Aeneas

  Trumpet, blow loud,

  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 call’d 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 honour higher than his ease,

  That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,

  That knows his valour, 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

  Midway between your tents and walls of Troy,

  To rouse a Grecian that is true in love:

  If any come, Hector shall honour him;

  If none, he’ll say in Troy when he retires,

  The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth

  The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

  Agamemnon

  This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas;

  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.

  Nestor

  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 Grecia
n 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 grandam and as chaste

  As may be in the world: his youth in flood,

  I’ll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.

  Aeneas

  Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth!

  Ulysses

  Amen.

  Agamemnon

  Fair Lord Aeneas, 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.

  Exeunt all but Ulysses and Nestor

  Ulysses

  Nestor!

  Nestor

  What says Ulysses?

  Ulysses

  I have a young conception in my brain;

  Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

  Nestor

  What is’t?

  Ulysses

  This ’tis:

  Blunt wedges rive hard knots: the seeded pride

  That hath to this maturity blown up

  In rank Achilles must or now be cropp’d,

  Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil,

  To overbulk us all.

  Nestor

  Well, and how?

  Ulysses

  This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,

  However it is spread in general name,

  Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

  Nestor

  The purpose is perspicuous even as substance,

  Whose grossness little characters sum up:

  And, in the publication, make no strain,

  But that Achilles, were his brain as barren

  As banks of Libya,— though, Apollo knows,

  ’Tis dry enough,— will, with great speed of judgment,

  Ay, with celerity, find Hector’s purpose

  Pointing on him.

  Ulysses

  And wake him to the answer, think you?

  Nestor

  Yes, ’tis most meet: whom may you else oppose,

  That can from Hector bring his honour 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 finest palate: and trust to me, Ulysses,

  Our imputation shall be oddly poised

  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 subsequent volumes, there is seen

  The baby figure of the giant mass

  Of things to come at large. It is supposed

  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 us all, a man distill’d

  Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,

  What heart receives from hence the 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.

  Ulysses

  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 yet to show,

  Shall show the better. Do not consent

  That ever Hector and Achilles meet;

  For both our honour and our shame in this

  Are dogg’d with two strange followers.

  Nestor

  I see them not with my old eyes: what are they?

  Ulysses

  What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,

  Were he not proud, we all should share with him:

  But he already is too insolent;

  A nd 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

  In taint of our best man. No, make a lottery;

  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

  Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall

  His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends.

  If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,

  We’ll dress him up in voices: if he fail,

  Yet go we under our opinion still

  That we have better men. But, hit or miss,

  Our project’s life this shape of sense assumes:

  Ajax employ’d plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

  Nestor

  Ulysses,

  Now I begin to relish thy advice;

  And I will give a taste of it forthwith

  To Agamemnon: go we to him straight.

  Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone

  Must tarre the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.

  Exeunt

  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.