TPTT The History of Troilus and Cressida: ACT II
Introduction
PROLOGUE
ACT I
ACT II
SCENE I. A part of the Grecian camp.
SCENE II. Troy. A room in Priam's palace.
SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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,
5     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
10    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
15    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,
20    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
      Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.
THERSITES
      If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou
25    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
30    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
35    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
40    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
45    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
50    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
55    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;
60    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
65    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
70    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.
75    He shent 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
80    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
85    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
90    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
95    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
100   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
105   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:
110   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,
115   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
120   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,
125   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,
130   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
135   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
140   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
145   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
150   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.
AJAX
155   I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.
NESTOR
      Yet he loves himself: is't not strange?
Aside
Re-enter ULYSSES
ULYSSES
      Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.
AGAMEMNON
      What's his excuse?
ULYSSES
      He doth rely on none,
160   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
165   Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
      He makes important: possess'd 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 swoln and hot discourse
170   That 'twixt his mental and his active parts
      Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages
      And batters down himself: what should I say?
      He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it
      Cry 'No recovery.'
AGAMEMNON
175   Let Ajax go to him.
      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!
180   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
185   And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp'd
      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,
190   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.
195   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
200   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 pheeze his pride:
      Let me go to him.
ULYSSES
205   Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.
AJAX
      A paltry, insolent fellow!
NESTOR
      How he describes himself!
AJAX
      Can he not be sociable?
ULYSSES
      The raven chides blackness.
AJAX
210   I'll let his humours blood.
AGAMEMNON
      He will be the physician that should be the patient.
AJAX
      An all men were o' my mind,--
ULYSSES
      Wit would be out of fashion.
AJAX
      A' should not bear it so, a' should eat swords first:
215   shall pride carry it?
NESTOR
      An 'twould, you'ld carry half.
ULYSSES
      A' would have ten shares.
AJAX
      I will knead him; I'll make him supple.
NESTOR
      He's not yet through warm: force him with praises:
220   pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.
ULYSSES
      (To AGAMEMNON) My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.
NESTOR
      Our noble general, do not do so.
DIOMEDES
      You must prepare to fight without Achilles.
ULYSSES
      Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm.
225   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
230   A whoreson dog, that shall pelter 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
235   Ay, or surly borne,--
DIOMEDES
      Or strange, or self-affected!
ULYSSES
      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
240   Thrice famed, beyond all erudition:
      But he that disciplined thy arms to fight,
      Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
      And give him half: and, for thy vigour,
      Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
245   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:
250   Put pardon, father Nestor, were your days
      As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd,
      You should not have the eminence of him,
      But be as Ajax.
AJAX
      Shall I call you father?
NESTOR
255   Ay, my good son.
DIOMEDES
      Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax.
ULYSSES
      There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
      Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
      To call together all his state of war;
260   Fresh kings are come to Troy: to-morrow
      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 council. Let Achilles sleep:
265   Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
Exeunt
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