PATROCLUS Thou mayst tell, that knowest.

ACHILLES O tell, tell.

THERSITES I’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands 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 (to Patroclus) He is a privileged man.—Proceed, Thersites.

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?

Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax, and Calchas

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 whore and a cuckold. 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

AGAMEMNON (to Patroclus) 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 so say 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. ⌈To Agamemnon⌉ A word, my lord.

⌈Ajax and Agamemnon talk apart⌉

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 council that a fool could disunite.

ULYSSES The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.

Enter Patroclus

Here comes 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 (to Agamemnon)

Achilles bids me say he is much sorry

If anything 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’s sake: no

An after-dinner’s breath.

AGAMEMNON

Hear you, Patroclus.

We are too well acquainted with these answers.

But his evasion, winged 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, and 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 judgement. 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.

AGAMEMNON

In second voice we’ll not be satisfied;

We come to speak with him.—Ulysses, enter you.

Exit Ulysses ⌈with Patroclus⌉

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 it 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.

Enter Ulysses

AJAX I do hate a proud man as I hate the engendering of toads.

NESTOR (aside) Yet he loves himself. Is’t not strange?

ULYSSES

Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.

AGAMEMNON

What’s his excuse?

ULYSSES

He 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.

AGAMEMNON

Why, will he not, upon our fair request,

Untent his person and share the air with us?

ULYSSES

Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only,

He makes important. Possessed 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 swoll’n and hot discourse

That ‘twixt his mental and his active parts

Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages