⌈Enter Patroclus⌉
Amen.—Where’s Achilles?
PATROCLUS What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?
THERSITES Ay. The heavens hear me!
PATROCLUS Amen.
Enter Achilles
ACHILLES Who’s there?
PATROCLUS Thersites, my lord.
ACHILLES Where? Where? O where?—Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself into my table so many meals? Come: what’s Agamemnon?
THERSITES Thy commander, Achilles.—Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?
PATROCLUS Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what’s Thersites?
THERSITES Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?
PATROCLUS Thou mayst tell, that knowest.
ACHILLES O tell, tell.
THERSITES I’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles, Achilles is my lord, I am Patroclus’ knower, and Patroclus is a fool.
PATROCLUS You rascal.
THERSITES Peace, fool, I have not done.
ACHILLES (to Patroclus) He is a privileged man.—Proceed, Thersites.
THERSITES Agamemnon is a fool, Achilles is a fool, Thersites is a fool, and as aforesaid Patroclus is a fool.
ACHILLES Derive this. Come.
THERSITES Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and Patroclus is a fool positive.
PATROCLUS Why am I a fool?
THERSITES Make that demand to the Creator. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here?
Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax, and Calchas
ACHILLES Patroclus, I’ll speak with nobody.—Come in with me, Thersites. Exit
THERSITES Here is such patchery, such juggling and such knavery. All the argument is a whore and a cuckold. A good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on the subject, and war and lechery confound all. Exit
AGAMEMNON (to Patroclus) Where is Achilles?
PATROCLUS
Within his tent; but ill-disposed, my lord.
AGAMEMNON
Let it be known to him that we are here.
He faced our messengers, and we lay by
Our appertainments, visiting of him.
Let him be told so, lest perchance he think
We dare not move the question of our place,
Or know not what we are.
PATROCLUS I shall so say to him.
⌈Exit⌉
ULYSSES
We saw him at the opening of his tent.
He is not sick.
AJAX Yes, lion-sick: sick of proud heart. You may call it ‘melancholy’ if you will favour the man, but by my head ’tis pride. But why? Why? Let him show us the cause. ⌈To Agamemnon⌉ A word, my lord.
⌈Ajax and Agamemnon talk apart⌉
NESTOR What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?
ULYSSES Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.
NESTOR Who? Thersites?
ULYSSES He.
NESTOR Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.
ULYSSES No, you see, he is his argument that has his argument: Achilles.
NESTOR All the better—their fraction is more our wish than their faction. But it was a strong council that a fool could disunite.
ULYSSES The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.
Enter Patroclus
Here comes Patroclus.
NESTOR No Achilles with him.
ULYSSES The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.
PATROCLUS (to Agamemnon)
Achilles bids me say he is much sorry
If anything more than your sport and pleasure
Did move your greatness and this noble state
To call upon him. He hopes it is no other
But for your health and your digestion’s sake: no
An after-dinner’s breath.
AGAMEMNON
Hear you, Patroclus.
We are too well acquainted with these answers.
But his evasion, winged thus swift with scorn,
Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues,
Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss,
Yea, and like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish
Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him
We come to speak with him—and you shall not sin
If you do say we think him over-proud
And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
Than in the note of judgement. And worthier than
himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance—yea, watch
His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add
That if he overhold his price so much
We’ll none of him, but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report:
‘Bring action hither, this cannot go to war.’
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.
PATROCLUS
I shall, and bring his answer presently.
AGAMEMNON
In second voice we’ll not be satisfied;
We come to speak with him.—Ulysses, enter you.
Exit Ulysses ⌈with Patroclus⌉
AJAX What is he more than another?
AGAMEMNON No more than what he thinks he is.
AJAX Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am?
AGAMEMNON No question.
AJAX Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is?
AGAMEMNON No, noble Ajax. You are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.
AJAX Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what it is.
AGAMEMNON Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle—and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed in the praise.
Enter Ulysses
AJAX I do hate a proud man as I hate the engendering of toads.
NESTOR (aside) Yet he loves himself. Is’t not strange?
ULYSSES
Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.
AGAMEMNON
What’s his excuse?
ULYSSES
He doth rely on none,
But carries on the stream of his dispose
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.
AGAMEMNON
Why, will he not, upon our fair request,
Untent his person and share the air with us?
ULYSSES
Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only,
He makes important. Possessed he is with greatness,
And speaks not to himself but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath. Imagined worth
Holds in his blood such swoll’n and hot discourse
That ‘twixt his mental and his active parts
Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages
And batters ’gainst himself. What should I say?
He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it
Cry ‘No recovery’.
AGAMEMNON
Let Ajax go to him.
(To Ajax) Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent.
; ’Tis said he holds you well and will be led,
At your request, a little from himself.
ULYSSES
O Agamemnon, let it not be so.
We’ll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself—shall he be worshipped
Of that we hold an idol more than he?
No, this thrice-worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired,
Nor by my will assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles’ is,
By going to Achilles—
That were to enlard his fat-already pride
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him? Jupiter forbid,
And say in thunder ‘Achilles, go to him’.
NESTOR (aside to Diomedes)
O this is well. He rubs the vein of him.
DIOMEDES (aside to Nestor)
And how his silence drinks up this applause.
AJAX
If I go to him, with my armed fist
I’ll pash him o’er the face.
AGAMEMNON O no, you shall not go.
AJAX
An a be proud with me, I’ll feeze his pride.
Let me go to him.
ULYSSES
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.
AJAX A paltry insolent fellow.
NESTOR (aside) How he describes himself!
AJAX Can he not be sociable?
ULYSSES (aside) The raven chides blackness.
AJAX I’ll let his humour’s blood.
AGAMEMNON (aside) He will be the physician that should be the patient.
AJAX An all men were o’ my mind—
ULYSSES (aside) Wit would be out of fashion.
AJAX A should not bear it so. A should eat swords first.
Shall pride carry it?
NESTOR (aside) An’t would, you’d carry half.
⌈AJAX⌉ A would have ten shares.
⌈ULYSSES⌉ (aside) I will knead him; I’ll make him supple.
He’s not yet through warm.
NESTOR (aside) Farce him with praises. Pour in, pour in!
His ambition is dry.
ULYSSES (to Agamemnon)
My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.
NESTOR (to Agamemnon)
Our noble general, do not do so.
DIOMEDES (to Agamemnon)
You must prepare to fight without Achilles.
ULYSSES
Why, ‘tis this naming of him does him harm.
Here is a man—but ’tis before his face.
I will be silent.
NESTOR Wherefore should you so?
He is not emulous, as Achilles is.
ULYSSES
Know the whole world he is as valiant—
AJAX A whoreson dog, that shall palter thus with us—would he were a Trojan!
NESTOR
What a vice were it in Ajax now—
ULYSSES
If he were proud—
DIOMEDES Or covetous of praise—
ULYSSES
Ay, or surly borne—
DIOMEDES Or strange, or self-affected.
ULYSSES (to Ajax)
Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure.
Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck.
Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice famed beyond, beyond all erudition.
But he that disciplined thine arms to fight—
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half. And for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which like a bourn, a pale, a shore confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here’s Nestor,
Instructed by the antiquary times:
He must, he is, he cannot but be, wise.
But pardon, father Nestor: were your days
As green as Ajax’, and your brain so tempered,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.
AJAX Shall I call you father?
ULYSSES
Ay, my good son.
DIOMEDES Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax.
ULYSSES (to Agamemnon)
There is no tarrying here: the hart Achilles
Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war.
Fresh kings are come today to Troy; tomorrow
We must with all our main of power stand fast.
And here’s a lord, come knights from east to west
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.
AGAMEMNON
Go we to counsel. Let Achilles sleep.
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw
deep. Exeunt
3.1 Music sounds within. Enter Pandarus ⌈at one door⌉ and a Servant ⌈at another door⌉
PANDARUS Friend? You. Pray you, a word. Do not you follow the young Lord Paris?
SERVANT Ay, sir, when he goes before me.
PANDARUS You depend upon him, I mean.
SERVANT Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.
PANDARUS You depend upon a notable gentleman; I must needs praise him.
SERVANT The Lord be praised!
PANDARUS You know me—do you not?
SERVANT Faith, sir, superficially.
PANDARUS Friend, know me better. I am the Lord Pandarus.
SERVANT I hope I shall know your honour better.
PANDARUS I do desire it.
SERVANT You are in the state of grace?
PANDARUS Grace? Not so, friend. ‘Honour’ and ‘lordship’ are my titles. What music is this?
SERVANT I do but partly know, sir. It is music in parts.
PANDARUS Know you the musicians?
SERVANT Wholly, sir.
PANDARUS Who play they to?
SERVANT To the hearers, sir.
PANDARUS At whose pleasure, friend?
SERVANT At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.
PANDARUS ‘Command’ I mean, friend.
SERVANT Who shall I command, sir?
PANDARUS Friend, we understand not one another. I am too courtly and thou too cunning. At whose request do these men play?
SERVANT That’s to’t indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who’s there in person; with him, the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love’s visible soul—
PANDARUS Who, my cousin Cressida?
SERVANT No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?
PANDARUS It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressid. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus. I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes.
SERVANT Sodden business! There’s a stewed phrase, indeed.
Enter Paris and Helen, attended ⌈by musicians⌉
PANDARUS Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company. Fair desires in all fair measure fairly guide them—especially to you, fair Queen. Fair thoughts be your fair pillow.
HELEN Dear lord, you are full of fair words.
PANDARUS You speak your fair pleasure, sweet Queen. (To Paris) Fair prince, here is good broken music.
PARIS You have broke it, cousin, and by my life you shall make it whole again. You shall piece it out with a piece of your performance.—Nell, he is full of harmony.
PANDARUS Truly, lady, no.
HELEN O sir.
⌈She tickles him⌉
PANDARUS Rude, in sooth, in good sooth very rude.
PARIS Well said, my lord. Will you say so
in fits?
PANDARUS I have business to my lord, dear Queen.—My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?
HELEN Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We’ll hear you sing, certainly.
PANDARUS Well, sweet Queen, you are pleasant with me.—But marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus—
HELEN My lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord.
PANDARUS Go to, sweet Queen, go tot—commends himself most affectionately to you.
HELEN You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our melancholy upon your head.
PANDARUS Sweet Queen, sweet Queen, that’s a sweet
Queen. Ay, faith—
HELEN And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.
PANDARUS Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words. No, no.—And, my lord, he desires you that, if the King call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.
HELEN My lord Pandarus.
PANDARUS What says my sweet Queen, my very very sweet Queen?
PARIS What exploit’s in hand? Where sups he tonight?
HELEN Nay, but my lord—
PANDARUS What says my sweet Queen? My cousin will fall out with you.
HELEN (to Paris) You must not know where he sups.
PARIS I’ll lay my life, with my dispenser Cressida.
PANDARUS No, no! No such matter. You are wide. Come, your dispenser is sick.
PARIS Well, I’ll make’s excuse.
PANDARUS Ay, good my lord. Why should you say
Cressida? No, your poor dispenser’s sick.
PARIS ‘I spy.’
PANDARUS You spy? What do you spy?—⌈To a musician⌉
Come, give me an instrument.—Now, sweet Queen.
HELEN Why, this is kindly done!
PANDARUS My niece is horrible in love with a thing you have, sweet Queen.
HELEN She shall have it, my lord—if it be not my lord Paris.
PANDARUS He? No, she’ll none of him. They two are twain.
HELEN Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.
PANDARUS Come, come, I’ll hear no more of this. I’ll sing you a song now.
HELEN Ay, ay, prithee. Now by my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.
⌈She strokes his forehead⌉
PANDARUS Ay, you may, you may.
HELEN Let thy song be love. ‘This love will undo us all.’
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 247
