'As done: perseverance keeps honour bright:
To have done, is to hang quite out of fashion,
Like rusty Mail in monumental mockery.
For honour travels in a freight so narrow,
Where one but goes abreaft; keep then the path.
For Emulation hath a thousand fons,

That one by one pursue; if you give way
Or turn aside from the direct forth-right,
Like to an entred tide they all rush by,
And leave you hindermoft; and there you lye
Like to a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
For pavement to the abject, near o'er-run
And trampled on: Then what they do in present,
Tho' less than yours in past, muft o'er-top yours.
For time is like a fashionable host,

That flightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand;
But with his arms out-ftretch'd, as he would fly,

Grafps in the comer; Welcome ever smiles,

‹ And Farewel goes out fighing. O let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit, high birth, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Tho' they are made and moulded of things paft;
The prefent eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and compleat man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,

*

Than

t

Than what not stirs. The cry went once for thee,

And still it might, and yet it may again,

If thou would'st not entomb thy felf alive,

And cafe thy reputation in thy tent;

Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late
Made emulous miffions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.

Achil. Of my privacy

I have strong reasons.

Ulyf. 'Gainst your privacy

The reasons are more potent and heroical. 'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam's daughters.

Achil. Ha! known!

Uly. Is that a wonder?

The providence that's in a watchful state,
Knows almost ev'ry grain of Pluto's gold;
Finds bottom in th' uncomprehenfive deep;
Keeps place with thought; and almoft like the gods
Does ev❜n our thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles:
There is a mystery (with which relation
Durft never meddle) in the foul of state;
Which hath an operation more divine,
Than breath of pen can give expreffure to.
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours, as yours, my lord.
And better would it fit Achilles much,
To throw down Hector, than Polyxena.

But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When fame shall in his ifland found her trump;
And all the Greekish girls fhall tripping fing,
Great Hector's fifter did Achilles win;
But our great Ajax bravely beat down "Hector.

t went out on thee.

u him.

Fare

Farewel, my lord ----I, as your lover, speak;
The fool flides o'er the ice that you should break.

Patr. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd you; A woman, impudent and mannish grown, Is not more loath'd than an effeminate m an In time of act. Iftand condemn'd for this; They think my little ftomach to the war, And your great love to me, restrains you thus: 'Oh rouse your self; and the weak wanton Cupid • Shall from your neck unloose his am'rous fold, And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,

Be fhook to air.

Achil. Shall Ajax fight with Hector! -

Patr. Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.
Achil. I fee my reputation is at stake,

My fame is fhrewdly gor❜d.

Patr. O then beware:

Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves:

Omiffion to do what is neceffary

Seals a commiffion to a blank of danger;

And danger, like an ague, fubtly taints

Even then when we fit idly in the sun.

Achil. Go call Therfites hither, fweet Patroclus:
I'll fend the fool to Ajax, and defire him
T'invite the Trojan lords, after the combat,
To fee us here: I have a woman's longing,
An appetite that I am fick withal,

To fee great Hector in the weeds of peace,
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Ev'n to my full of view.----- A labour fav'd!

[Exit.

SCENE

Ther. A wonder!

Achil. What?

SCENE. IX.

Enter Therfites.

Ther. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.
Achil. How fo?

Ther. He must fight fingly to-morrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in faying nothing.

Achil. How can that be?

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetick but her brain, to set down her reckoning; bites his lip with a politick regard, as who should say, there were wit in his head, if 'twou'd out; and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not fhew without knocking. The man's undone for ever: for if Hector break not his neck i'th' combat, he'll break❜t himself in vain-glory. He knows not me: I said, good morrow Ajax. And he replies, thanks Agamemnon. What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? he's grown a very land-fifh, language-less, a monster. A plague of opinion, a man may wear it on both fides, like a leather jer

kin.

Achil. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Therfites.

Ther. Who I?---- why he'll answer no body; he professes not anfwering; fpeaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in's arms. I will put on his prefence; let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall fee the pageant of Ajax.

Achil. To him, Patroclus

tell him, I humbly defire the valiant Ajax, to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm'd to my tent, and to procure fafe conduct for his perfon of the

magna

magnanimous and moft illuftrious, fix or feven times honour'd captain, general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, &c. Do this. Patr. Jove blefs great Ajax.

Ther. Hum---

Patr. I come from the worthy Achilles.

Ther. Ha!

Patr. Who most humbly defires you to invite Hector to his

tent.

Ther. Hum

Patr. And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.

Ther. Agamemnon! ---

Patr. Ay, my lord.

Ther. Ha!

Patr. What fay you to't?

Ther. God be wi'you, with all my heart.

Patr. Your answer, Sir.

Ther. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven a clock it will go one way or other; howfoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me. Patr. Your answer, Sir.

Ther. Fare ye well with all my heart.

Achil. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

Ther. No, but he's out a tune thus; what musick will be in him, when Hector has knock'd out his brains, I know not. But I am fure none; unless the fidler Apollo get his finews to make Catlings on.

Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

Ther. Let me carry another to his horse; for that's the more

capable creature.

Achil. My mind is troubled like a fountain stirr'd,

And I my self fee not the bottom of it.

[Exit.

Ther. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that

I might water an ass at it; I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than

[Exeunt.

ACT