SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. Troilus and Cressida  Shakespeare homepage  |  Troiles and Cressida  | Act 2, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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, 

 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 PATROCLUS  PATROCLUS  Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail. 

 THERSITES  If 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? 

 PATROCLUS  What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer? 

 THERSITES  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 

 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  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 

 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  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 of the prover. It suffices me thou 

 art. Look you, who comes here? 

 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 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 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. 

 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  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 

 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  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 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  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 

 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: 

 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. 

 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  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 pride 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. 

 AJAX  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, 

 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: 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.' 

 AGAMEMNON  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! 

 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.' 

 NESTOR  [Aside to DIOMEDES]  O, this is well; he rubs the 

 vein of him. 

 DIOMEDES  [Aside to NESTOR]  And how his silence drinks up 

 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  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  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: 

 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: 

 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. 

 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  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  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 

 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. 

 AJAX  Shall I call you father? 

 NESTOR  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; 

 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: 

 Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. 



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