THERSITES Ay, do, do! Thou sodden-witted lord, thou hast in thy skull no more brain than I have in mine elbows. An asnico 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 You cur.
⌈He strikes Thersites⌉
THERSITES Mars his idiot! Do, rudeness! Do, camel, do, do!
Enter Achilles and Patroclus
ACHILLES
Why, how now, Ajax? Wherefore do ye 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 whosomever 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 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.
ACHILLES What?
THERSITES I say, this Ajax—
⌈Ajax threatens to strike him⌉
ACHILLES Nay, good Ajax.
THERSITES Has not so much wit—
⌈Ajax threatens to strike him⌉
ACHILLES (to Ajax) 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 (to Ajax) Will you set your wit to a fool’s?
THERSITES No, I warrant you, for a fool’s will shame it.
PATROCLUS Good words, Thersites.
ACHILLES (to Ajax) 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.
AJAX Well, go to, go to.
THERSITES I serve here voluntary.
ACHILLES Your last service was sufferance. ‘Twas not voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.
THERSITES 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 an a knock out either of your brains. A were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.
ACHILLES What, with me too, Thersites?
THERSITES 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 war.
ACHILLES What? What?
THERSITES Yes, good sooth. To Achilles! To, Ajax, to—
AJAX I shall cut out your tongue.
THERSITES ’Tis no matter. I shall speak as much wit as thou afterwards.
PATROCLUS No more words, Thersites, peace.
THERSITES I will hold my peace when Achilles’ brach bids me, shall I?
ACHILLES There’s for you, Patroclus.
THERSITES I will see you hanged like clodpolls ere I come any more to your tents. I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools.
Exit
PATROCLUS A good riddance.
ACHILLES (to Ajax)
Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:
That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,
Will with a trumpet ‘twixt our tents and Troy
Tomorrow 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?
ACHILLES
I know not. ‘Tis put to lott’ry. Otherwise,
He knew his man. ⌈Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus⌉
AJAX O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.
⌈Exit⌉
2.2 ⌈Sennet.⌉ Enter King Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris, and Helenus
PRIAM
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?
HECTOR
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 called
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To th’ bottom of the worst. Let Helen go.
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe-soul, ’mongst many thousand dimes,
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?
TROILUS
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!
HELENUS
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 reason
Because your speech hath none that tells him so?
TROILUS
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 employed 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 disorbed? 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 crammed reason. Reason and respect
Make livers pale and lustihood deject.
HECTOR
Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
The holding.
TROILUS What’s aught but as ’tis valued?
HECTOR
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 inclinable
To what infectiously itself affects
Without some image of th’affected merit.
TROILUS
I take today a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
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 spoiled them; nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sewer
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 touched 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 launched above a thousand ships
And turned crowned kings to merchants.
If you’ll avouch ’twas wisdom Paris went—
As you must needs, for you all cried, ‘Go, go!’;
If you’ll confess he brought home noble prize—
As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands
And cried, ‘Inestimable!’—why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that never fortune 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 stol’n,
That in their country did them that disgrace
We fear to warrant in our native place.
CASSANDRA ⌈within⌉
Cry, Trojans, cry!
PRIAM What noise? What shriek is this?
TROILUS
’Tis our mad sister. I do know her voice.
CASSANDRA ⌈within⌉ Cry, Trojans!
HECTOR It is Cassandra.
⌈Enter Cassandra raving, with her hair about her ears⌉
CASSANDRA
Cry, Trojans, cry! Lend me ten thousand eyes
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.
HECTOR Peace, sister, peace.
CASSANDRA
Virgins and boys, mid-age, and wrinkled old,
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 Ilium stand.
Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! Ah Helen, and ah woe!
Cry, cry ‘Troy burns!’—or else let Helen go. Exit
HECTOR
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?
TROILUS
Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than the event doth form it,
Nor once deject the courage of our minds
Because Cassandra’s mad. Her brainsick 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 touched 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.
PARIS
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
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms?
What propugnation is in one man’s valour
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet I protest,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris should ne’er retract what he hath done
Nor faint in the pursuit.
PRIAM
Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights.
You have the honey still, but these the gall.
So to be valiant is no praise at all.
PARIS
Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it,
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wiped off in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransacked queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up
On terms of base compulsion? Can it be
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
There’s not the meanest spirit on our party
Without a heart to dare or sword to draw
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble
Whose life were ill bestowed or death unfamed
Where Helen is the subject. Then I say:
Well may we fight for her whom we know well
The world’s large spaces cannot parallel.
HECTOR
Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,
But on the cause and question now in hand
Have glossed but superficially—not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distempered blood
Than to make up a free determination
‘Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be rendered to their owners. Now,
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same,
There is a law in each well-ordered nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen then be wife to Sparta’s king,
As it is known she is, these moral laws
Of nature and of nations speak aloud
To have her back returned. Thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector’s opinion
Is this in way of truth—yet ne’ertheless,
My sprightly brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still;
For ’tis a cause that hath no mean dependence
Upon our joint and several dignities.
TROILUS
Why, there you touched the life of our design.
W
ere it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us—
For I presume brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promised glory
As smiles upon the forehead of this action
For the wide world’s revenue.
HECTOR
I am yours,
You valiant offspring of great Priamus.
I have a roisting challenge sent amongst
The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks
Will shriek amazement to their drowsy spirits.
I was advertised their great general slept
Whilst emulation in the army crept;
This I presume will wake him.
⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt
2.3 Enter Thersites
THERSITES How now, Thersites? What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury? Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me and I rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that I could beat him whilst he railed at me. ‘Sfoot, I’ll learn to conjure and raise devils but I’ll see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there’s Achilles: a rare engineer. If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods; and Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little, little, less than little wit from them that they have—which short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant-scarce it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp—or rather, the Neapolitan bone-ache, for that methinks is the curse dependent on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers, and devil Envy say ‘Amen’.—What ho! My lord Achilles!
Enter Patroclus ⌈at the door to the tent⌉
PATROCLUS Who’s there? Thersites? Good Thersites, come in and rail. ⌈Exit⌉
THERSITES If I could ha’ remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have slipped out of my contemplation; but it is no matter. Thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death! Then if she that lays thee out says thou art a fair corpse, I’ll be sworn and sworn upon’t she never shrouded any but lazars.
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 246
