And leave you hindmost;
Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
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Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;
For Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’ hand,
And, with his arms outstretched as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,
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And Farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
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To envious and calumniating Time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
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More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
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Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
And case thy reputation in thy tent,
Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late
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Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves
And drave great Mars to faction.
ACHILLES Of this my privacy
I have strong reasons.
ULYSSES But ’gainst your privacy
The reasons are more potent and heroical.
’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
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With one of Priam’s daughters.
ACHILLES Ha? Known?
ULYSSES Is that a wonder?
The providence that’s in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Pluto’s gold,
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Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps,
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery – with whom relation
Durst never meddle – in the soul of state,
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Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to.
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much
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To throw down Hector than Polyxena.
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When Fame shall in our islands sound her trump
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing:
‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win,
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But our great Ajax bravely beat down him’.
Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak;
The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.
Exit.
PATROCLUS To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you.
A woman impudent and mannish grown
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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
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Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold
And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane,
Be shook to air.
ACHILLES Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
PATROCLUS
Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.
ACHILLES I see my reputation is at stake.
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My fame is shrewdly gored.
PATROCLUS 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
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Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
ACHILLES Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.
I’ll send the fool to Ajax and desire him
T’invite the Trojan lords after the combat
To see us here unarmed. I have a woman’s longing,
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An appetite that I am sick withal,
To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,
Enter THERSITES.
To talk with him, and to behold his visage
Even to my full of view. – A labour saved.
THERSITES A wonder!
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ACHILLES What?
THERSITES Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for
himself.
ACHILLES How so?
THERSITES He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector,
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and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling
that he raves in saying nothing.
ACHILLES How can that be?
THERSITES Why, ’a stalks up and down like a peacock –
a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath
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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
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undone for ever, for if Hector break not his neck i’th’
combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. 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’s grown a very land-
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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
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professes not-answering; speaking is for beggars. He
wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence.
Let Patroclus make demands to me. You shall see the
pageant of Ajax.
ACHILLES To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire
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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-honoured captain-general of the
Grecian army, Agamemnon, et cetera. Do this.
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PATROCLUS [to Thersites, as though addressing Ajax] Jove
bless great Ajax!
THERSITES [Mimics Ajax’ manner.] H’m!
PATROCLUS I come from the worthy Achilles –
THERSITES Ha?
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PATROCLUS Who most humbly desires you to invite
HECTOR to his tent –
THERSITES H’m!
PATROCLUS And to procure safe-conduct from
AGAMEMNON.
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THERSITES Agamemnon?
PATROCLUS Ay, my lord.
THERSITES Ha!
PATROCLUS What say you to�
��t?
THERSITES God b’wi’ you, with all my heart.
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PATROCLUS Your answer, sir.
THERSITES If tomorrow 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.
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THERSITES Fare ye well, with all my heart.
[A pretended exit. Achilles applauds their concluded pantomime.]
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
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fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.
ACHILLES Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.
THERSITES Let me carry another to his horse, for that’s
the more capable creature.
ACHILLES My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred,
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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.
4.1 Enter, at one door, AENEAS and a torchbearer with a torch; at another, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES the Grecian and others with torches.
PARIS See, ho! Who is that there?
DEIPHOBUS It is the Lord Aeneas.
AENEAS Is the prince there in person?
Had I so good occasion to lie long
As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
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Should rob my bed-mate of my company.
DIOMEDES
That’s my mind too. – Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.
PARIS A valiant Greek, Aeneas; take his hand.
Witness the process of your speech, wherein
You told how Diomed, e’en a whole week by days,
10
Did haunt you in the field.
AENEAS 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.
15
DIOMEDES 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.
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AENEAS And thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly
With his face backward. – In human gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! Now by Anchises’ life,
Welcome indeed! By Venus’ hand I swear,
No man alive can love in such a sort
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The thing he means to kill more excellently.
DIOMEDES We sympathize. Jove, let Aeneas live,
If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
A thousand complete courses of the sun!
But in mine emulous honour let him die,
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With every joint a wound, and that tomorrow!
AENEAS We know each other well.
DIOMEDES We do, and long to know each other worse.
PARIS This is the most despiteful’st gentle greeting,
The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of.
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[to Aeneas] What business, lord, so early?
AENEAS
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.
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Let’s have your company, or, if you please,
Haste there before us.
[aside to Aeneas] I constantly do think –
Or rather, call my thought a certain knowledge –
My brother Troilus lodges there tonight.
Rouse him and give him note of our approach,
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With the whole quality wherefore. I fear
We shall be much unwelcome.
AENEAS [aside to Paris] That I assure you.
Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece
Than Cressid borne from Troy.
PARIS [aside to Aeneas] There is no help.
The bitter disposition of the time
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Will have it so. – On, lord; we’ll follow you.
AENEAS Good morrow, all. Exit with torchbearer.
PARIS And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true,
Even in the soul of sound good fellowship,
Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen most,
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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 515
