That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,

In change of him. Let him be sent, great princes, And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence Shall quite strike off all service I have done,

In most accepted pain.1

Aga.

Let Diomedes bear him,

And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have

What he requests of us.

Good Diomed,

Furnish you fairly for this interchange :

Withal, bring word, if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge. Ajax is ready.
Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

[Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUs, before their tent.

Ulys. Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent.Please it our general to pass strangely by him, As if he were forgot;—and, princes all,

Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:

I will come last. "Tis like, he 'll question me, Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on him :

If so, I have derision medicinable,

To use between your strangeness and his pride,

1 i. e. even in those labors which were most accepted.

Which his own will shall have desire to drink,
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Aga. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along :
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully; which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

Ach. What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind; I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.

Aga. What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

Nes. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

Ach. No.

Nes. Nothing, my lord.

Aga. The better.

Ach. Good day, good day.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor.

[Exit Menelaus.

Men. How do you? how do you?

Ach. What, does the cuckold scorn me?

Ajax. How now, Patroclus?

Ach. Good morrow, Ajax.

Ajax. Ha?

Ach. Good morrow.

Ajax. Ay, and good next day too.

[Exit Ajax.

Ach. What mean these fellows? know they not

Achilles?

Pat. They pass by strangely: they were used to

bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles ;

To come as humbly, as they used to creep

Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honor; but honor for those honors
That are without him, as place, riches, and favor,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy

At ample point all that I did possess,

Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find

out

Something not worth in me such rich beholding

As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;

I'll interrupt his reading.

How now, Ulysses?

Ulys.

Ach. What are you reading?

Ulys.

Now, great Thetis' son?

A strange fellow here

Writes me, -that man, how dearly ever parted,1
How much in having, or without, or in,-

Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others,
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Ach.
This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty, that is borne here in the face,
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself
(That most pure spirit of sense) behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
Salutes each other with each other's form.

For speculation turns not to itself,

Till it hath travell'd, and is married there

Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.
Ulys. I do not strain at the position,-

It is familiar; but at the author's drift:
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves-
That no man is the lord of any thing,

(Though in and of him there be much consisting)

Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught,
Till he behold them form'd in the applause

Where they are extended; which, like an arch, reverberates

1 However excellently endowed.
In the detail of his argument.

The voice again; or, like a gate of steel

Fronting the sun, receives and renders back

His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this; And apprehended here immediately

The unknown Ajax.1

Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse,

That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are,

Most abject in regard, and dear in use!"

What things again most dear in the esteem,

And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow,
An act that very chance doth throw upon him;
Ajax renown'd.
O heavens, what some men do,

While some men leave to do!

How some men creep in skittish Fortune's hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!-why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder;
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
And great Troy shrieking.

Ach. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me,
As misers do by beggars; neither gave to me
Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?
Ulys. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

Ajax, who has abilities, which were never brought into view or use.