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 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!'

Ther. You scurvy lord!

Ajax. [Beating him] You cur!

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

Enter Achilles and Patroclus.

Achil. Why, how now, Ajax! wherefore do ye 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, so I do.

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.

Ther. Has not so much wit

Achil. Nay, I must hold you.

[Ajax offers to strike him.

[comes to fight.

Ther. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he

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 tenour 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. E'en 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. 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?

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' brooch 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.

Patr. A good riddance.

Achil. Marry, this, sir, is proclaim'd through all our host:
That Hector, by the fifth 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; 'tis put to lottery; otherwise

He knew his man.

[Exit.

Ajax. O, meaning you. I will go learn more of it. [Exeunt.

SCENE II

Troy. A room in Priam's palace.

Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris, and Helenus.

Pri. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks: 'Deliver Helen, and all damage else,

As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed
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 spongy 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, nor 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.

Fie, fie, 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? fie, for godly shame!

Hel. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,
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;
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your 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 honour

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's 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
11;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgement: 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 of full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,
And did him service: he touch'd the ports desired;
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's and makes stale 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

If

you

I'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went,
As you must needs, for you all cried Go, go,'
'll confess he brought home noble prize,
As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands,
And cried Inestimable!' why do you now

you

The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that Fortune never did,
Beggar the estimation which you prized

Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base,
That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!
But thieves unworthy of a thing so stoľ❜n,
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, with her hair about her ears.
Cas. Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

Hect. Peace, sister, peace!

Cas. Virgins and boys, mid age and wrinkled eld,
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 firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe:
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

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 engaged
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

C 155

[Exit.