The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/22/02_03

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 13KB | 371 lines

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 engineer! 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 thou 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 Neapolitan 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 corpse, 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 a 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 know'st.

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 to the Creator; it suffices me thou art.
    Look you, who comes here?

      Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, AJAX and CALCHAS.

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 whore and a cuckold; 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.
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 sate 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 so say 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 it is
    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 council that a fool could
    disunite.

Ulysses    The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.

                           Re-enter PATROCLUS.

    Here comes 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 anything 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,
    An after-dinner's breath.

Agamemnon                                Hear you, Patroclus:
    We are too well acquainted with these answers;
    But his evasion winged 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 came to speak with him, and you shall not sin
    If you do say we think him overproud
    And underhonest, in self-assumption greater
    Than in the note of judgement; 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 it 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.

                            Re-enter ULYSSES.

Ajax    I do hate a proud man as I hate the engendering of toads.

Nestor    [Aside.] And yet he loves himself - is't not strange?

Ulysses    Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.

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; possessed 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 swoll'n and hot discourse
    That 'twixt his mental and his active parts
    Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages
    And batters 'gainst 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 worshipped
    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.] O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him.

Diomedes    [Aside.] And how his silence drinks up this applause!

Ajax    If I go to him, with my armd fist
    I'll pash him o'er the face.

Agamemnon                                        O no, you shall not go.

Ajax    And a' be proud with me, I'll feeze his pride.
    Let me go to him.

Ulysses    Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

Ajax    A paltry, insolent fellow.

Nestor    [Aside.] How he describes himself!

Ajax    Can he not be sociable?

Ulysses    [Aside.] The raven chides blackness.

Ajax    I'll let his humours' blood.

Agamemnon    [Aside.] He will be the physician that should be the
    patient.

Ajax    And all men were o' my mind-

Ulysses    [Aside.] Wit would be out of fashion.

Ajax    - a' should not bear it so; a' should eat swords first.
    Shall pride carry it?

Nestor    [Aside.] And 'twould, you'd carry half.

Ulysses    [Aside.] A' would have ten shares.

Ajax    I will knead him, I'll make him supple.

Nestor    [Aside.] 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 doth 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 palter 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, beyond all erudition;
    But he that disciplined thine 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;
    But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
    As green as Ajax', and your brain so tempered,
    You should not have the eminence of him,
    But be as Ajax.

Ajax            [To NESTOR.] 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. Tomorrow
    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.
                                                [Exeunt.