That hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time:
Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.

Nest. I would my arms could match thee in contention, As they contend with thee in courtesy.

Hect. I would they could.

Nest. Ha!

By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow.
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time-
Ulyss. I wonder now how yonder city stands
When we have here her base and pillar by us.

Hect. I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.
Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead,
Since first I saw yourself and Diomed

In Ilion, on your Greekish embassy.

Ulyss. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue : My prophecy is but half his journey yet;

For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,

Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.

Hect.

I must not believe you :

There they stand yet; and modestly I think,
The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost

A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all;
And that old common arbitrator, Time,

Will one day end it.

Ulyss.

So to him we leave it.

Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome!
After the general, I beseech you next

To feast with me, and see me at my tent.

Achil. I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, there.27.
Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
I have with éxact view perused thee, Hector,

27 There is equivalent to in that matter, or on that point.

And quoted 28 joint by joint.

Hect.

Achil. I am Achilles.

Is this Achilles?

Hect. Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.
Achil. Behold thy fill.

Hect.

Nay, I have done already.

Achil. Thou art too brief: I will the second time,

As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

Hect. O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er; But there's more in me than thou understand'st.

Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?

Achil. Tell me, you Heavens, in which part of his body Shall I destroy him? whether there, or there, or there? That I may give the local wound a name,

And make distinct the very breach whereout

Hector's great spirit flew

answer me, Heavens !

Hect. It would discredit the bless'd gods, proud man,

To answer such a question. Stand again :

Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly

As to prenominate in nice conjecture 29

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 30 Mars his helm,
I'll kill thee everywhere, yea, o'er and o'er. -
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag,
His insolence draws folly from my lips;

28 Quoted is observed or scanned. See vol. xiv. page 190, note 21.— Perused has much the same meaning. See vol. xiv. page 284, note 29.

23 Foretell, or name beforehand, by particular or precise calculation. 30 Stith is the old word for anvil; hence the verb to stithy, for to forge, or the work done upon an anvil. See vol. xiv. page 228, note 9.

But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,

Or may I never-
Ajax.

Do not chafe thee, cousin ;
And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,
Till accident or purpose bring you to't:
You may have every day enough of Hector,
If you have stomach;31 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 32 wars, since you refused
The Grecians' cause.

Achil.

Dost thou entreat me, Hector?

To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;

To-night all friends.

Hect.

Thy hand upon that match.

Agam. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
There in the full convive 33 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 but TROILUS and ULYSSES.
Tro. 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 upon the heaven nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

31 Here, again, stomach is courage. See page 235, note 15.

32 Pelting is petty or insignificant. See vol. xv. page 63, note 4.

33 To convive is to feast together, whether on mental or gastric cookery. So Hutton: "The sitting of friends together at a table our ancestors have well called convivium, a banket; because it is a living of men together."

Tro. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you 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?

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

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

The Grecian Camp. Before ACHILLES' Tent.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

Achil. I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.

Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

Patr. Here comes Thersites.

Achil.

Enter THERSITES.

How now, thou core of envy !

Thou crusty botch 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? 1

Ther. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

[Gives letter.

1 Thersites is called a fragment, probably because he is unfinished; a

thing broken off in the process of making.

Patr. Who keeps the tent now?

Ther. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound.2

Patr. Well said, perversity! and what need these tricks? Ther. Pr'ythee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male harlot.

Patr. Male harlot, you rogue ! what's that?

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, dirtrotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume,3 sciaticas, limekilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivell'd fee-simple 4 of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoverers !5

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

Ther. Do I curse thee?

Patr. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

2 Thersites is punning on tent, which was used for probe.

3 Impostume is an old corruption of the Latin apostema, which means an abscess, or any tumour filled with purulent matter. So in Bacon's Essay Of Seditions: "For he that turneth the humors backe, and maketh the wound bleed inwards, endangereth maligne ulcers and pernicious impostumations."

4 Rivell'd is wrinkled or withered. So in Holland's Plutarch: "The white head and gray beard, the crow-foot about the eies, the furrowes in the forehead, the rivels and wringles in the face besides appearing, beare witness of long experience." - Fee-simple is absolute and perpetual tenure, as opposed to a tenure for life and with conditions. See vol. xiii. page 182, note 2.Sciatica is a painful disease in the hips and loins; said to have some connection with syphilis. - What disease is meant by limekilns in the palm seems to be unknown.

5 The meaning here is not very apparent. Lettsom says, "surely discov erers, with the epithet preposterous, can mean nothing but 'masculine whores." And he takes it in the sense of uncover or denude, quoting Isaiah, lvii. 8: "Thou hast discovered thyself to another than me."

6 Taunting Thersites with his deformity, as if his several parts were jumbled into instinctness. So in Milton's description of Death: "The other