Part 192

ULYSSES. The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns The sinew and the forehand of our host, Having his ear full of his airy fame, Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent Lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus Upon a lazy bed the livelong day Breaks scurril jests; And with ridiculous and awkward action— Which, slanderer, he imitation calls— He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon, Thy topless deputation he puts on; And like a strutting player whose conceit Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich To hear the wooden dialogue and sound ’Twixt his stretch’d footing and the scaffoldage— Such to-be-pitied and o’er-wrested seeming He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks ’Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar’d, Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp’d, Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff The large Achilles, on his press’d bed lolling, From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause; Cries ‘Excellent! ’Tis Agamemnon right! Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard, As he being drest to some oration.’ That’s done—as near as the extremest ends Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife; Yet god Achilles still cries ‘Excellent! ’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus, Arming to answer in a night alarm.’ And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit And, with a palsy fumbling on his gorget, Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport Sir Valour dies; cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus; Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all In pleasure of my spleen.’ And in this fashion All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, Severals and generals of grace exact, Achievements, plots, orders, preventions, Excitements to the field or speech for truce, Success or loss, what is or is not, serves As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

NESTOR. And in the imitation of these twain— Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns With an imperial voice—many are infect. Ajax is grown self-will’d and bears his head In such a rein, in full as proud a place As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him; Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites, A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint, To match us in comparisons with dirt, To weaken and discredit our exposure, How rank soever rounded in with danger.

ULYSSES. They tax our policy and call it cowardice, Count wisdom as no member of the war, Forestall prescience, and esteem no act But that of hand. The still and mental parts That do contrive how many hands shall strike When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure Of their observant toil, the enemies’ weight— Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity: They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet-war; So that the ram that batters down the wall, For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise, They place before his hand that made the engine, Or those that with the fineness of their souls By reason guide his execution.

NESTOR. Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse Makes many Thetis’ sons.

[_Tucket_.]

AGAMEMNON. What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.

MENELAUS. From Troy.

Enter Aeneas.

AGAMEMNON. What would you fore our tent?

AENEAS. Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

AGAMEMNON. Even this.

AENEAS. May one that is a herald and a prince Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?

AGAMEMNON. With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice Call Agamemnon head and general.

AENEAS. Fair leave and large security. How may A stranger to those most imperial looks Know them from eyes of other mortals?

AGAMEMNON. How?

AENEAS. Ay; I ask, that I might waken reverence, And bid the cheek be ready with a blush Modest as morning when she coldly eyes The youthful Phoebus. Which is that god in office, guiding men? Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

AGAMEMNON. This Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy Are ceremonious courtiers.

AENEAS. Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm’d, As bending angels; that’s their fame in peace. But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls, Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove’s accord, Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas, Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips. The worthiness of praise distains his worth, If that the prais’d himself bring the praise forth; But what the repining enemy commends, That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.

AGAMEMNON. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?

AENEAS. Ay, Greek, that is my name.

AGAMEMNON. What’s your affairs, I pray you?

AENEAS. Sir, pardon; ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.

AGAMEMNON He hears naught privately that comes from Troy.

AENEAS. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with him; I bring a trumpet to awake his ear, To set his sense on the attentive bent, And then to speak.

AGAMEMNON. Speak frankly as the wind; It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour. That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake, He tells thee so himself.

AENEAS. Trumpet, blow loud, Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents; And every Greek of mettle, let him know What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.

[_Sound trumpet_.]

We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince called Hector—Priam is his father— Who in this dull and long-continued truce Is resty grown; he bade me take a trumpet And to this purpose speak: Kings, princes, lords! If there be one among the fair’st of Greece That holds his honour higher than his ease, That feeds his praise more than he fears his peril, That knows his valour and knows not his fear, That loves his mistress more than in confession With truant vows to her own lips he loves, And dare avow her beauty and her worth In other arms than hers—to him this challenge. Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks, Shall make it good or do his best to do it: He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer, Than ever Greek did couple in his arms; And will tomorrow with his trumpet call Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy To rouse a Grecian that is true in love. If any come, Hector shall honour him; If none, he’ll say in Troy, when he retires, The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

AGAMEMNON. This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas. If none of them have soul in such a kind, We left them all at home. But we are soldiers; And may that soldier a mere recreant prove That means not, hath not, or is not in love. If then one is, or hath, or means to be, That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

NESTOR. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man When Hector’s grandsire suck’d. He is old now; But if there be not in our Grecian host A noble man that hath one spark of fire To answer for his love, tell him from me I’ll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver, And in my vambrace put this wither’d brawns, And meeting him, will tell him that my lady Was fairer than his grandam, and as chaste As may be in the world. His youth in flood, I’ll prove this troth with my three drops of blood.

AENEAS. Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!

ULYSSES. Amen.

AGAMEMNON. Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand; To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir. Achilles shall have word of this intent; So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent. Yourself shall feast with us before you go, And find the welcome of a noble foe.

[_Exeunt all but Ulysses and Nestor_.]

ULYSSES. Nestor!

NESTOR. What says Ulysses?

ULYSSES. I have a young conception in my brain; Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

NESTOR. What is’t?

ULYSSES. This ’tis: Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride That hath to this maturity blown up In rank Achilles must or now be cropp’d Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil To overbulk us all.

NESTOR. Well, and how?

ULYSSES. This challenge that the gallant Hector sends, However it is spread in general name, Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

NESTOR. True. The purpose is perspicuous even as substance Whose grossness little characters sum up; And, in the publication, make no strain But that Achilles, were his brain as barren As banks of Libya—though, Apollo knows, ’Tis dry enough—will with great speed of judgement, Ay, with celerity, find Hector’s purpose Pointing on him.

ULYSSES. And wake him to the answer, think you?

NESTOR. Why, ’tis most meet. Who may you else oppose That can from Hector bring those honours off, If not Achilles? Though ’t be a sportful combat, Yet in this trial much opinion dwells For here the Trojans taste our dear’st repute With their fin’st palate; and trust to me, Ulysses, Our imputation shall be oddly pois’d In this vile action; for the success, Although particular, shall give a scantling Of good or bad unto the general; And in such indexes, although small pricks To their subsequent volumes, there is seen The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come at large. It is suppos’d He that meets Hector issues from our choice; And choice, being mutual act of all our souls, Makes merit her election, and doth boil, As ’twere from forth us all, a man distill’d Out of our virtues; who miscarrying, What heart receives from hence a conquering part, To steel a strong opinion to themselves? Which entertain’d, limbs are his instruments, In no less working than are swords and bows Directive by the limbs.

ULYSSES. Give pardon to my speech. Therefore ’tis meet Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants, First show foul wares, and think perchance they’ll sell; If not, the lustre of the better shall exceed By showing the worse first. Do not consent That ever Hector and Achilles meet; For both our honour and our shame in this Are dogg’d with two strange followers.

NESTOR. I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?

ULYSSES. What glory our Achilles shares from Hector, Were he not proud, we all should share with him; But he already is too insolent; And it were better parch in Afric sun Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes, Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foil’d, Why, then we do our main opinion crush In taint of our best man. No, make a lott’ry; And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves Give him allowance for the better man; For that will physic the great Myrmidon, Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends. If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off, We’ll dress him up in voices; if he fail, Yet go we under our opinion still That we have better men. But, hit or miss, Our project’s life this shape of sense assumes— Ajax employ’d plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

NESTOR. Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice; And I will give a taste thereof forthwith To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight. Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone Must tarre the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.

[_Exeunt_.]

ACT II

SCENE I. The Grecian camp.

Enter Ajax and Thersites.

AJAX. Thersites!

THERSITES. Agamemnon—how if he had boils, full, all over, generally?

AJAX. Thersites!

THERSITES. And those boils did run—say so. Did not the general run then? Were not that a botchy core?

AJAX. Dog!

THERSITES. Then there would come some matter from him; I see none now.

AJAX. Thou bitch-wolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.

[_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES. The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!

AJAX. Speak, then, thou unsalted leaven, speak. I will beat thee into handsomeness.

THERSITES. I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness; but I think thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain o’ thy jade’s tricks!

AJAX. Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.

THERSITES. Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?

AJAX. The proclamation!

THERSITES. Thou art proclaim’d fool, I think.

AJAX. Do not, porpentine, do not; my fingers itch.

THERSITES. I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.

AJAX. I say, the proclamation.

THERSITES. Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles; and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpina’s beauty—ay, that thou bark’st at him.

AJAX. Mistress Thersites!

THERSITES. Thou shouldst strike him.

AJAX. Cobloaf!

THERSITES. He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit.

AJAX. You whoreson cur!

[_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES. Do, do.

AJAX. Thou stool for a witch!

THERSITES. Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an asinico may tutor thee. You 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!

[_Strikes him_.]

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, so I do.

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 bobb’d 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 offers to strike him_.]

ACHILLES. Nay, good Ajax.

THERSITES. Has not so much wit—

ACHILLES. 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. Will you set your wit to a fool’s?

THERSITES. No, I warrant you, the fool’s will shame it.

PATROCLUS. Good words, Thersites.

ACHILLES. What’s the quarrel?

AJAX. I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour 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 suff’rance; ’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 and 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 hang’d 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, 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.

AJAX. O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.

[_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. 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 consum’d 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 th’ 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’s, 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 of 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 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 keeping.

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 attributive 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 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 with full consent bellied his sails; The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce, And did him service. He touch’d the ports desir’d; 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 worthy 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 never Fortune did— Beggar the estimation which you priz’d 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 engag’d 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 Wip’d 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 unfam’d, 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.