To answer for his love, tell him from me,-
I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn;
And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady
Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste
As may be in the world: his youth in flood,
I'll
prove this truth with my three drops of blood.
ENE. Now heavens forbid such scarcity of
youth! a

ULYSS. Amen.

AGAM. Fair lord Æneas, let me touch your hand;

To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.*
Achilles shall have word of this intent;
So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent:
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
And find the welcome of a noble foe.

[Exeunt all except ULYSSES and NESTOR. ULYSS. Nestor,

NEST. What says Ulysses?

ULYSS. I have a young conception in my brain, Be you my time to bring it to some shape. NEST. What is't?

To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertain'd, limbs are† his instruments,"
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.

ULYSS.
Give pardon to my speech;-
Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.
Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares,
And think, perchance, they'll sell; if not,
The lustre of the better yet to show,
Shall show the better." Do not consent
That ever Hector and Achilles meet;

For both our honour and our shame in this
Are dogg'd with two strange followers.

NEST. I see them not with my old eyes; what

are they?

ULYSS. What glory our Achilles shares from

Hector,

Were he not proud, we all should share with him:

But he already is too insolent;

And we were better parch in Afric sun
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
Should he 'scape Hector fair: if he were foil'd,
Why, then we did our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lottery;
And, by device, let blockish Ajax (4) draw
The sort to fight with Hector: among ourselves,

(*) First folio, first.

a Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth!] The quarto reads. Now heavens forfend such scarcity of men!

bimputation-] Mr. Collier, following his annotator, reads, "reputation," neither being aware that "imputation" was often used in that sense: see "Hamlet," Act V. Sc. 2,-"I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfellowed."

coadly-] That is, unequally.

d Which entertain'd. limbs are his instruments,-] This and the two following lines are omitted in the quarto.

THER. He would pun thee into shivers with his

fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit.

AJAX. You whoreson cur!

THER. Do, do!

c

[Beating him.

AJAX. Thou stool for a witch! THER. Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee. Thou scurvyvaliant ass! thou art here but to thrash Trojans ; and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit, like a Barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and tell what thou

art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou! AJAX. You dog!

THER. You scurvy lord!

AJAX. You cur!

[Beating him.

THER. Mars his idiot! do, rudeness! do, camel! do, do!

THER. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax,- who wears his wit in his belly, and his guts in his head, I'll tell you what I say of him.

ACHIL. What?

THER. I say, this Ajax

[AJAX offers to beat him, ACHILLES interposes. ACHIL. Nay, good Ajax.

THER. Has not so much wit

ACHIL. Nay, I must hold you.

THER. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight.

ACHIL. Peace, fool!

THER. I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there; that he; look you there.

AJAX. O, thou damned cur! I shallACHIL. Will you set your wit to a fool's? THER. No, I warrant you; for a fool's will shame it.

PATR. Good words, Thersites.

ACHIL. What's the quarrel?

AJAX. I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me. THER. I serve thee not.

AJAX. Well, go to, go to.

THER. I serve here voluntary.

ACHIL. Your last service was sufferance, 't was not voluntary, no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

THER. Even so?-a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; 'a* were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

ACHIL. What, with me too, Thersites ?

THER. There's Ulysses and old Nestor,-whose wit was mouldy ere your † grandsires had nails on their toes,-yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up the wars.

ACHIL. What, what?

SCENE II.-Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace. Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS.

PRI. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:-
Deliver Helen, and all damage else—
As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is con-
sum'd

In hot digestion of this cormorant war,-
Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to't?
HECт. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks
than I

As far as toucheth‡ my particular,

Yet, dread Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,
More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out-Who knows what follows?
Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,b
Hath been as dear as Helen,-I mean, of ours:

If we have lost so many tenths of ours,
To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten,
What merit's in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up?

TROIL.
Fie, fie, my brother!
Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,
So great as our dread father, in a scale

Of common ounces? will you with counters sum
The past-proportion of his infinite?

And buckle-in a waist most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame!
HEL. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at

TROIL. What's aught, but as 'tis valued ? HECT. But value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer: 'tis mad† idolatry,
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected merit.

TROIL. I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores

once.

(*) First folio, hard.

(+) First folio, made.
(1) First folio, inclineable.
See note (e), p. 144, Vol. II.

d And fly like chidden Mercury, &c.] This and the following line are transposed in the folio.