It may do good. Pride hath no other glass

To show itself but pride; for supple knees

Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

AGAMEMNON

We’ll execute your purpose and put on

A form of strangeness as we pass along.

So do each lord, and either greet him not

Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more

Than if not looked on. I will lead the way.

They pass by the tent, in turn

ACHILLES

What, comes the general to speak with me?

You know my mind: I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.

AGAMEMNON (to Nestor)

What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

NESTOR (to Achilles)

Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

ACHILLES

No.

NESTOR (to Agamemnon)

Nothing, my lord.

AGAMEMNON

The better.

⌈Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor⌉

ACHILLES ⌈to Menelaus⌉ Good day, good day.

MENELAUS How do you? How do you?

⌈Exit⌉

ACHILLES (to Patroclus)

What, does the cuckold scorn me?

AJAX

How now, Patroclus?

ACHILLES

Good morrow, Ajax.

AJAX

Ha?

ACHILLES

Good morrow.

AJAX Ay, and good next day too.

Exit

ACHILLES (to Patroclus)

What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

PATROCLUS

They pass by strangely. They were used to bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles,

To come as humbly as they use to creep

To holy altars.

ACHILLES What, am I poor of late?

‘Tis certain, greatness once fall’n out with fortune

Must fall out with men too. What the declined is

He shall as soon read in the eyes of others

As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,

Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,

And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honour, but honour for those honours

That are without him—as place, riches, and favour:

Prizes of accident as oft as merit;

Which, when they fall, as being slippery standers—

The love that leaned on them, as slippery too—

Doth one pluck down another, and together

Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me.

Fortune and I are friends. I do enjoy

At ample point all that I did possess,

Save these men’s looks—who do methinks find out

Something not worth in me such rich beholding

As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;

I’ll interrupt his reading. How now, Ulysses?

ULYSSES Now, great Thetis’ son.

ACHILLES What are you reading?

ULYSSES A strange fellow here

Writes me that man, how dearly ever parted,

How much in having, or without or in,

Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,

Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection—

As when his virtues, shining upon others,

Heat them, and they retort that heat again

To the first givers.

ACHILLES This is not strange, Ulysses.

The beauty that is borne here in the face

The bearer knows not, but commends itself

To others’ eyes. Nor doth the eye itself,

That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,

Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed

Salutes each other with each other’s form.

For speculation turns not to itself

Till it hath travelled and is mirrored there

Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

ULYSSES

I do not strain at the position—

It is familiar—but at the author’s drift;

Who in his circumstance expressly proves

That no man is the lord of anything,

Though in and of him there be much consisting,

Till he communicate his parts to others.

Nor doth he of himself know them for aught

Till he behold them formed in th‘applause

Where they’re extended—who, like an arch, reverb’rate

The voice again; or, like a gate of steel

Fronting the sun, receives and renders back

His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this,

And apprehended here immediately

The unknown Ajax.

Heavens, what a man is there! A very horse,

That has he knows not what. Nature, what things

there are,

Most abject in regard and dear in use.

What things again, most dear in the esteem

And poor in worth. Now shall we see tomorrow

An act that very chance doth throw upon him.

Ajax renowned? O heavens, what some men do,

While some men leave to do.

How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall

Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes;

How one man eats into another’s pride

While pride is fasting in his wantonness.

To see these Grecian lords! Why, even already

They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,

As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast

And great Troy shrinking.

ACHILLES I do believe it,

For they passed by me as misers do by beggars,

Neither gave to me good word nor look.

What, are my deeds forgot?

ULYSSES Time hath, my lord,

A wallet at his back, wherein he puts

Alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster

Of ingratitudes. Those scraps are good deeds past,

Which are devoured as fast as they are made,