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The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.
[Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS]
ACHILLES
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I'll heat | his blood | with Greek|ish wine |
tonight,
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Which with my scimitar I'll cool tomorrow.
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Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
PATROCLUS
Here comes Thersites.
[Enter THERSITES]
ACHILLES
How now, thou core of envy?
Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?
THERSITES
Why thou picture of what thou seemst, and idol of idiot worshippers, here's
a letter for thee.
ACHILLES
From whence, fragment?
THERSITES
Why thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
PATROCLUS
Who keeps the tent now?
THERSITES
The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound.
PATROCLUS
Well said adversity, and what need these tricks?
THERSITES
Prithee be silent boy, I profit not by thy talk, thou art thought to be
Achilles' male varlet.
PATROCLUS
Male varlet you rogue? What's that?
THERSITES
Why his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, guts-griping
ruptures, catarrhs, loads of gravel in the back, lethargies, cold palsies,
and the like, take and take again, such preposterous discoveries.
PATROCLUS
Why thou damnable box of envy thou, what meanst thou to curse thus?
THERSITES
Do I curse thee?
PATROCLUS
Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur.
THERSITES
No? Why art thou then exasperate, thou idle, immaterial skein of
sleave-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
waterflies, diminutives of nature.
PATROCLUS
Out gall.
THERSITES
Finch egg.
ACHILLES
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My sweet | Patroc|lus, I | am thwar|ted quite
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From my / great pur|pose in to|morrow's | battle:
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Here is | a let|ter from / Queen Hec|uba,
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A tok|en from | her daught|er, my / fair love,
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Both^tax|ing me,| and ga|ging me | to keep
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An oath | that I | have sworn.| I will / not
break it,
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Fall Greeks, fail | fame, honor or go, or stay,
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My ma|jor vow | lies^here;| this I'll | obey:
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Come, come Thersites, help to trim my tent,
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This night | in ban|queting | must^all | be
spent.
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Away | Patroc|lus. \\
[Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS]
THERSITES
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 earwax; 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; he
is both ass and ox; to an ox were nothing, he is both ox and ass: To be a
dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a
herring without a roe, I would not care: but to be Menelaus, I would
conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not
Thersites: for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not
Menelaus. Hey-day, spirits and fires.
[Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, MENELAUS, and
DIOMEDES, with lights]
AGAMEMNON
We go wrong, we go wrong.
AJAX
No yonder 'tis, there, where we see the light.
HECTOR
I trouble you.
AJAX
No, not a whit.
ULYSSES
Here comes himself to guide you?
ACHILLES
Welcome brave Hector, welcome princes all.
AGAMEMNON
So now fair prince of Troy, I bid good night, Ajax commands the guard to
tend on you.
HECTOR
Thanks, and good night to the Greeks' general.
MENELAUS
Good night my lord.
HECTOR
Good night sweet lord Menelaus.
THERSITES
Sweet draft: sweet quoth he? Sweet sink, sweet sewer.
ACHILLES
Good night and welcome, both at once, to those that go, or tarry.
AGAMEMNON
Good night.
[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS]
ACHILLES
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Old^Nes|tor tar|ries, and / you too | Diomed*,
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Keep^Hec|tor comp|any | an hour,| or two.
DIOMEDES
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I can|not lord,| I have im|portant | business,
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The tide | whereof | is now,| good night |
great^Hec||tor.
HECTOR
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Give | me your hand. (pickup)
ULYSSES
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Follow | his torch,| he goes | to Cal|chas' tent,
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I'll keep | you comp|any. (picked up)
TROILUS
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Sweet* sir,| you hon|or me.
HECTOR
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And so | good night.
[Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following]
ACHILLES
Come, come, enter my tent.
[Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR]
THERSITES
That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no
more trust him when he leers, than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will
spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he performs,
astronomers foretell it, that it is prodigious, there will come some change:
the sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave
to see Hector, than not to dog him: they say, he keeps a Troyan drab, and
uses the traitor Calchas' tent. I'll after-- nothing but lechery? All
incontinent varlets.
[Exit]