As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed, And seen thee scorning forfeits and subduements a, And I have seen thee pause, and take thy breath, ENE. T is the old Nestor. HECT. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle, That hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time :Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee. NEST. I would my arms could match thee in contention, As they contend with thee in courtesy. HECT. I would they could. NEST. Ha! By this white beard, I 'd fight with thee to-morrow Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time. ULYSS. I wonder now how yonder city stands, When we have here her base and pillar by us. Ah, sir, there 's many a Greek and Trojan dead, In Ilion, on your Greekish embassy. ULYSS. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue : For yonder walls, that pertly front your town, НЕСТ. I must not believe you: Will one day end it. a So the folio; the quarto, "Despising many forfeits and subduements." ACHIL. Thou art too brief; I will the second time, But there's more in me than thou understand'st. And make distinct the very breach whereout As to prenominate in nice conjecture Where thou wilt hit me dead? ACHIL. I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well; AJAX. We have had peltinga wars, since you refus'd The Grecians' cause. ACHIL. Dost thou entreat me, Hector? НЕСТ. Thy hand upon that match. AGAM. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent; [Exeunt all but TROILUS and ULYSSES. TRO. My lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you, In what place of the field doth Calchas keep? TRO. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to thee so much, As gentle tell me, of what honour was This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there, TRO. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars, a Pelting-petty. You in the folio; the quarto, we. [Exeunt. SCENE I.-The Grecian Camp. Before Achilles' Tent. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS ACHIL. I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, Patroclus, let us feast him to the height. PATR. Here comes Thersites. Enter THERSITES. ACHIL. How now, thou core of envy? Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news? THER. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot-worshippers, here's a letter for thee. ACHIL. From whence, fragment? THER. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy. PATR. Who keeps the tent now? THER. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound. PATR. Well said, Adversity! and what need these tricks? THER. Prithee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet. PATR. Male varlet, you rogue! what's that? THER. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, gutsgriping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ach, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries a! PATR. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus? THER. Do I curse thee? PATR. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no. THER. NO? why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sley'd silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies; diminutives of nature! PATR. Out, gall! THER. Finch egg! ACHIL. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle. Here is a letter from queen Hecuba; A token from her daughter, my fair love; Both taxing me, and gaging me to keep An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it: [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS. Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent; This night in banqueting must all be spent. Away, Patroclus. THER. With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad; but if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I'll be a curer of madmen. Here's Agamemnon,-an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as ear-wax : And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's leg,-to what form, but that he is, should wit larded with malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass were nothing; This is the reading of the quarto. The folio shortens the enumeration of loathsome diseases with "and the like." |