AJAX You dog.

THERSITES You scurvy lord.

AJAX You cur.

⌈He strikes Thersites⌉

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, I do so.

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 bobbed 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 threatens to strike him⌉

ACHILLES Nay, good Ajax.

THERSITES Has not so much wit—

⌈Ajax threatens to strike him⌉

ACHILLES (to Ajax) 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 (to Ajax) Will you set your wit to a fool’s?

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

PATROCLUS Good words, Thersites.

ACHILLES (to Ajax) What’s the quarrel?

AJAX I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor 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 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 shall have a great catch an a 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 war.

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 wit 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 clodpolls 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 (to Ajax)

Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed 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. ⌈Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus⌉

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

⌈Exit⌉

2.2 ⌈Sennet.⌉ Enter King 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 called

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 dimes,

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 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 employed 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 disorbed? Nay, if we talk of reason,