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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?
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.
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 say so 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. A word, my lord.
Takes AGAMEMNON aside
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 composure a fool
could disunite.
ULYSSES
The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily
untie. Here comes Patroclus.
Re-enter 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
Achilles bids me say, he is much sorry,
If any thing 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 sake,
And after-dinner's breath.
AGAMEMNON
Hear you, Patroclus:
We are too well acquainted with these answers:
But his evasion, wing'd 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, 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 judgment; 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.
Exit
AGAMEMNON
In second voice we'll not be satisfied;
We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.
Exit ULYSSES
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 pride 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.
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