- Home >
- Primary Sources >
- Books & Plays >
- William Shakespeare >
- William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene III
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
Scene IIIThe Grecian camp. Before Achilles’ tentEnter Thersites, solusThersitesHow 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 PatroclusPatroclusWho’s there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.ThersitesIf 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?PatroclusWhat, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer?ThersitesAy: the heavens hear me!Enter AchillesAchillesWho’s there?PatroclusThersites, my lord.AchillesWhere, 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?ThersitesThy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?PatroclusThy lord, Thersites: then tell me, I pray thee, what’s thyself?ThersitesThy knower, Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?PatroclusThou mayst tell that knowest.AchillesO, tell, tell.ThersitesI’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus’ knower, and Patroclus is a fool.PatroclusYou rascal!ThersitesPeace, fool! I have not done.AchillesHe is a privileged man. Proceed, Thersites.ThersitesAgamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.AchillesDerive this; come.ThersitesAgamemnon 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.PatroclusWhy am I a fool?ThersitesMake that demand of the prover. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here?AchillesPatroclus, I’ll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.ExitThersitesHere 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 AjaxAgamemnonWhere is Achilles?PatroclusWithin his tent; but ill disposed, my lord.AgamemnonLet it be known to him that we are here. 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.PatroclusI shall say so to him.ExitUlyssesWe saw him at the opening of his tent: He is not sick.AjaxYes, 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 asideNestorWhat moves Ajax thus to bay at him?UlyssesAchilles hath inveigled his fool from him.NestorWho, Thersites?UlyssesHe.NestorThen will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.UlyssesNo, you see, he is his argument that has his argument, Achilles.NestorAll the better; their fraction is more our wish than their faction: but it was a strong composure a fool could disunite.UlyssesThe amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. Here comes Patroclus.Re-enter PatroclusNestorNo Achilles with him.UlyssesThe elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.PatroclusAchilles 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.AgamemnonHear 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.PatroclusI shall; and bring his answer presently.ExitAgamemnonIn second voice we’ll not be satisfied; We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.Exit UlyssesAjaxWhat is he more than another?AgamemnonNo more than what he thinks he is.AjaxIs he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am?AgamemnonNo question.AjaxWill you subscribe his thought, and say he is?AgamemnonNo, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.AjaxWhy should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is.AgamemnonYour 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.AjaxI do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.NestorAsideYet he loves himself: is’t not strange?Re-enter UlyssesUlyssesAchilles will not to the field to-morrow.AgamemnonWhat’s his excuse?UlyssesHe 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.AgamemnonWhy will he not upon our fair request Untent his person and share the air with us?UlyssesThings 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 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.‘AgamemnonLet 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.UlyssesO 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 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, 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.‘NestorAside to DiomedesO, this is well; he rubs the vein of him.DiomedesAside to NestorAnd how his silence drinks up this applause!AjaxIf I go to him, with my armed fist I’ll pash him o’er the face.AgamemnonO, no, you shall not go.AjaxAn a’ be proud with me, I’ll pheeze his pride: Let me go to him.UlyssesNot for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.AjaxA paltry, insolent fellow!NestorHow he describes himself!AjaxCan he not be sociable?UlyssesThe raven chides blackness.AjaxI’ll let his humours blood.AgamemnonHe will be the physician that should be the patient.AjaxAn all men were o’ my mind,—UlyssesWit would be out of fashion.AjaxA’ should not bear it so, a’ should eat swords first: shall pride carry it?NestorAn ’twould, you’ld carry half.UlyssesA’ would have ten shares.AjaxI will knead him; I’ll make him supple.NestorHe’s not yet through warm: force him with praises: pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.UlyssesTo AgamemnonMy lord, you feed too much on this dislike.NestorOur noble general, do not do so.DiomedesYou must prepare to fight without Achilles.UlyssesWhy, ’tis this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man—but ’tis before his face; I will be silent.NestorWherefore should you so? He is not emulous, as Achilles is.UlyssesKnow the whole world, he is as valiant.AjaxA whoreson dog, that shall pelter thus with us! Would he were a Trojan!NestorWhat a vice were it in Ajax now,—UlyssesIf he were proud,—DiomedesOr covetous of praise,—UlyssesAy, or surly borne,—DiomedesOr strange, or self-affected!UlyssesThank 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 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 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: 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.AjaxShall I call you father?NestorAy, my good son.DiomedesBe ruled by him, Lord Ajax.UlyssesThere 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 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.AgamemnonGo we to council. Let Achilles sleep: Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.Exeunt
William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act II
.com/t/lit/shakespeare-plays/troilus-act2-3.html
Sources +
Our Common Sources
.com/t/lit/shakespeare-plays/troilus-act2-3.html
Sources +
Our Common Sources
Our Common Sources
William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene III
- William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene III
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
- Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
- The Twelve Dancing Princesses
- Current Events This Week: January 2023
- African Americans by the Numbers
- Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
- The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
