As to prenominate in nice conjecture, Where thou wilt hit me dead?

ACHIL.

I tell thee, yea.
HECT. Wert thou an* oracle to tell me so,
I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well,
For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
I'll kill thee every where, yea, o'er and o'er.-
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag,
His insolence draws folly from my lips;
But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,
I never-

Or
may
AJAX.
Do not chafe thee, cousin ;-
And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,
Till accident or purpose bring you to't:
You may havet every day enough of Hector,
If you have stomach; the general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.

HECT. I pray you, let us see you in the field;
We have had pelting wars, since you refus'd
The Grecians' cause.

ACHIL. Dost thou entreat me, Hector? To-morrow, do I meet thee, fell as death; To-night, all friends.

HECT. AGAM. First, all my tent;

(*) First folio, the.

Thy hand upon that match. you peers of Greece, go to

(t) First folio omits, have. - entreat him.] "Entreat" here signifies entertain; it is used

There in the full convive we: * afterwards,
As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.-
Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know!

[Exeunt all except TROILUS and ULYSSES. TROIL. My lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you, In what place of the field doth Calchas keep. ULYSS. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus :

There Diomed doth feast with him to-night;
Who neither looks on heaven, nor on earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

TROIL. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to yout so much,

After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?

ULYSS.

You shall command me, sir. As gentle tell me, of what honour was This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there, That wails her absence? [scars,

TROIL. O, sir, to such as boasting show their A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth : But, still, sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.

(*) First folio, you.

[Exeunt.

(†) First folio, thee.

by Achilles just above in its ordinary sense of solicit.

Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow,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. PAIR. Who keeps the tent now?

THER. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound.

amale varlet.] Some editors have seriously proposed to read, "male harlot," not being aware that the former word often represented the latter one: thus, in Middleton's "Roaring Girl," Act I. Sc. 1,-"She's a varlet." In Decker and Middleton's play called "The Honest Whore," Act I. Sc. 10, we have, indeed, the very expression of the text,

PATR. Well said, Adversity! and what need these tricks?

THER. Pr'ythee 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?

b

THER. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, 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-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

PATR. Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus ?

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:
Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay,
My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.-
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
This night in banqueting must all be spent.-
Away, Patroclus!

[Exeunt ACHILLES and 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; 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.-Hoyday! spirits and fires!

AGAM. So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night.

Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.

HECT. Thanks and good night to the Greeks' general.

MEN Good night, my lord.

HECT. Good night, sweet Menelaus.

THER. [Aside.] Sweet draught: sweet, quoth 'a! sweet sink, sweet sewer.

A CHIL. Good night, and welcome, both at once to those that go, or tarry. AGAM. Good night.

[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS. ACHIL. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,

Keep Hector company an hour or two.

Dro. I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now.-Good night, great Hector.

HECT. Give me your hand.

ULYSS. [Aside to TROIL.] Follow his torch, he

goes

To Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company. TROIL. Sweet sir, you honour me. HECT. And so good night. [Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following.

ACHIL. Come, come, enter my tent.

[Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR.

THER. 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; 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 Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll after.-Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets! [Exit.

SCENE II.-The same. Before 'Calchas' Tent.

Enter DIOMEDES.

Dio. What, are you up here, ho? speak.
CAL. [Within.] Who calls?

Dro. Diomed.-Calchas, I think.-Where's your daughter?

CAL. [Within.] She comes to you.

(*) First folio inserts, that.

b Sweet draught:] See note (c), p. 605, Vol. II.

CRES.

Dio.

Remember! yes.

Nay, but do then;

TROIL. Thy better must.
CRES.

Hark, one word in your ear.
TROIL. O, plague and madness!
ULYSS. You are mov'd, prince; let us depart,
I pray you,

Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous;
The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.
TROIL. Behold, I pray you!

ULYSS.
Now, my good lord, go off:
You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.
TROIL. I pr'ythee, stay.

ULYSS.

You have not patience; come.

Dio. Pho, pho! adieu; you palter.

CRES. In faith, I do not; come hither once

again.

ULYSS. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?

You will break out.

TROIL.

ULYSS.

She strokes his cheek!

Come, come. TROIL. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:

There is between my will and all offences

A guard of patience :-stay a little while.

THER. [Aside.] How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potatoe finger, tickles these together Fry, lechery, fry!

Dio. But will you then?

CRES. In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.
Dio. Give me some token for the surety of it.
CRES. I'll fetch you one.

ULYSS. You have sworn patience.

TROIL.

[Exit

Fear me not, sweet lord, I will not be myself, nor have cognition Of what I feel; I am all patience.

Re-enter CRESSIDA.

THER. [Aside.] Now the pledge; now, now, now CRES. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.(1) TROIL. O, beauty! where's thy faith? ULYSS. My lord,TROIL. I will be patient; outwardly I will. CRES. You look upon that sleeve; behold i well.He lov'd me- -O, false wench!-Give 't me again Dro. Whose was't?

CRES. It is no matter, now I have't again. I will not meet with you to-morrow night: I pr'ythee, Diomed, visit me no more. THER. [Aside.] Now she sharpens ;-well said whetstone. Dro. I shall have it.

CRES. O, all you gods!-O, pretty, pretty

pledge!

Thy master now lies thinking in his bed

Of thee and me; and sighs, and takes my glove, And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,

As I kiss thec.-Nay, do not snatch it from me;a He, that takes that, doth take* my heart withal. Dio. I had your heart before, this follows it. TROIL. I did swear patience.

CRES. You shall not have it, Diomed; faith you shall not;

I'll give you something else.

Dio. I will have this; whose was it?
CRES.

It is no matter.

I do not like this fooling.

THER. [Aside.] Nor I, by Pluto: but that that

likes not you, pleases me best.

Dio. What, shall I come? the hour?
CRES.

:-0, Jove!—

Ay, come:Do come:-I shall be plagu’d. DIO. Farewell till then. CRES. Good night. I pr'ythee, come.— [Exit DIOMEDEs. Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee; But with my heart the other eye doth see.Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind: What error leads, must err; O, then conclude, Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude. [Exit. THER. [Aside.] A proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she say,-My mind is now turn'd whore.

I cannot conjure, Trojan. TROIL. She was not, sure. ULYSS.

Most sure she was.

TROIL. Why, my negation hath no taste of

madness.

ULYSS. Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here

but now.

TROIL. Let it not be believ'd for womanhood! Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage. To stubborn critics-apt, without a theme, For depravation,-to square the general sex By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid.(2) ULYSS. What hath she e, prince, that can soil our mothers?

TROIL. Nothing at all, unless that this were she. THER. [Aside.] Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?

TROIL. This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida: If beauty have a soul, this is not she;

If souls guide vows, if vows bet sanctimony,
If sanctimony be the gods' delight,

If there be rule in unity itself,

This is not she. O, madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself! ‡
Bi-fold § authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt; this is, and is not, Cressid!
Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifice for a point, as subtle
As is Arachne's broken woof, to enter.
Instance, O, instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O, instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolv'd, and
loos'd;

(*) First folio, that test. (1) First folio, thy selfe.

usual sense, is questionable.

(+) First folio, are. (§) First folio, By foule.

d As is Arachne's broken woof, &c.] The quartos read, "Ariachna's' and "Ariathna's;" the folio, "Ariachne's broken woof," &c Capell, we believe, first introduced "is," though the credit of supplying it is given to Steevens.