Ajax
Well, go to, go to.
Thersites
I serve here voluntarily.
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 have a great catch, if he 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 wars.
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 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 clotpoles, 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
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?
Achilles
I know not: ’tis put to lottery; otherwise
He knew his man.
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
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 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?
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 reasons,
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 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.
Hector
Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
The holding.
Troilus
What is 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 attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected merit.
Troilus
I take to-day 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 judgment: 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 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 clapp’d your hands
And cried ‘Inestimable!’— why do you now
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 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
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 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.
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 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!
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 ransack’d 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 bestow’d 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,
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed, 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 distemper’d 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 render’d 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-order’d 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 return’d: 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 spritely brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still,
For ’tis a cause that hath no mean dependance
Upon our joint and several dignities.
Troilus
Why, there you touch’d the life of our design:
Were 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 dun and factious nobles of the Greeks
Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits:
I was advertised their great general slept,
Whilst emulation in the army crept:
This, I presume, will wake him.
Exeunt
SCENE III. THE GRECIAN CAMP. BEFORE ACHILLES’ TENT.
Enter Thersites, solus
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 enginer! 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 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
Patroclus
W
ho’s there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.
Thersites
If I could have 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 corse, I’ll be sworn and sworn upon’t she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where’s Achilles?
Patroclus
What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer?
Thersites
Ay: the heavens hear me!
Enter Achilles
Achilles
Who’s there?
Patroclus
Thersites, my lord.
Achilles
Where, where? Art thou come? why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to 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 thyself?
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
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 of the prover. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here?
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 cuckold and a whore; 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
Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, and Ajax
Agamemnon
Where is Achilles?
Patroclus
Within his tent; but ill disposed, my lord.
Complete Plays, The Page 79
