Ulyss. He'd have ten shares. [Aside. Ajax. I'll knead him, I will make him supple: Nest. He's not yet thorough warm: force* him with praises: Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. [Aside. Ulyss. My lord, you feed too much on this dislike. [To AGAMEMNON. Nest. O noble general, do not do so. Dio. You must prepare to fight without Achilles. Ulyss. Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man-But 'tis before his face; I will be silent. Nest. Wherefore should you so? He is not emulous,† as Achilles is. Ulyss. Know the whole world, he is as valiant. Ajax. A whoreson dog, that shall palter‡ thus with us! Ay, or surly borne? Dio. Or covetous of praise? Ulyss. Dio. Or strange, or self-affected? Ulyss. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure; Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck: Fam❜d be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature Thrice fam❜d beyond all erudition: But he that disciplin'd thy arms to fight, To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom + Envious. * Stuff. + Trifle. § Titles. He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;- Ajax. Nest. Ay, my good son. Dio. Shall I call you father? Be rui'd by him, lord Ajax. Ulyss. 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; To-morrow, 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. Agam. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep; Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. ACT III. AN EXPECTING LOVER. No, Pandarus, I stalk about her door, # I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. 'I'hat enchants my sense: What will it be, As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom. CONSTANCY IN LOVE PROTESTED. Tro. True swains in love shall, in the world to come, Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes, As truth's authentic author to be cited, Cres. Prophet may you be' If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy And mighty states characterless are grated From false to false, among false maids in love, false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, PRIDE CURES PRIDE. Pride hath no other glass To show itself, but pride; for supple knees † Conclude it. GREATNESS CONTEMPTIBLE WHEN ON THE DECLINE, 'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune, Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd is, As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies, Hath any honour; but honour for those honours Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, HONOUR MUST BE ACTIVE TO PRESERVE ITS Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past: which are de vour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: Preservance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang In monumental mockery. Take the instant way, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, [present, O'er-run and trampled on: Then what they do in Though less then yours in past, must o'ertop yours: For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,- More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. The present eye praises the present object. LOVE SHOOK OFF BY A SOLDIER. Sweet, rouse yourself: and the weak wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, Be shook to air. THERSITES MIMICKING AJAX. Ther. A wonder! Achil. What? [himself. Ther. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for Achil. How so? Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector: and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in saying nothing. Achil. How can that be? Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like a hostess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say there were wit in this head, an 'twould out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he'll break it himself in vainglory. He knows not me; I said, Good-morrow, Ajax; and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon. What * New-fashioned toys. |