ARKCODEX
Act II, Scene 1
1A part of the Grecian camp.
2Enter Ajax and Thersites.
3AjaxThersites!
4ThersitesAgamemnon, how if he had boils? full, all over, generally?
5AjaxThersites!
6ThersitesAnd those boils did run? say so: did not the general run then? were not that a botchy core?
7AjaxDog!
8ThersitesThen would come some matter from him; I see none now.
9AjaxThou bitch-wolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Beating him. Feel, then.
10ThersitesThe plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!
11AjaxSpeak then, thou vinewedst leaven, speak: I will beat thee into handsomeness.
12ThersitesI shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness: but, I think, thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou canst strike, canst thou? a red murrain o’ thy jade’s tricks!
13AjaxToadstool, learn me the proclamation.
14ThersitesDost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?
15AjaxThe proclamation!
16ThersitesThou art proclaimed a fool, I think.
17AjaxDo not, porpentine, do not: my fingers itch.
18ThersitesI would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.
19AjaxI say, the proclamation!
20ThersitesThou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles, and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpine’s beauty, ay, that thou barkest at him.
21AjaxMistress Thersites!
22ThersitesThou shouldest strike him.
23AjaxCobloaf!
24ThersitesHe would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit.
25AjaxBeating him. You whoreson cur!
26ThersitesDo, do.
27AjaxThou stool for a witch!
28ThersitesAy, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee: thou scurvy-valiant 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!
29AjaxYou dog!
30ThersitesYou scurvy lord!
31AjaxBeating him. You cur!
32ThersitesMars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.
33Enter Achilles and Patroclus.
34AchillesWhy, how now, Ajax! wherefore do you thus? How now, Thersites! what’s the matter, man?
35ThersitesYou see him there, do you?
36AchillesAy; what’s the matter?
37ThersitesNay, look upon him.
38AchillesSo I do: what’s the matter?
39ThersitesNay, but regard him well.
40Achilles“Well!” why, I do so.
41ThersitesBut yet you look not well upon him; for, whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax.
42AchillesI know that, fool.
43ThersitesAy, but that fool knows not himself.
44AjaxTherefore I beat thee.
45ThersitesLo, 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 nineth 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.
46AchillesWhat?
47ThersitesI say, this Ajax—Ajax offers to beat him.
48AchillesNay, good Ajax.
49ThersitesHas not so much wit—
50AchillesNay, I must hold you.
51ThersitesAs will stop the eye of Helen’s needle, for whom he comes to fight.
52AchillesPeace, fool!
53ThersitesI would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there: that he: look you there.
54AjaxO thou damned cur! I shall—
55AchillesWill you set your wit to a fool’s?
56ThersitesNo, I warrant you; for a fools will shame it.
57PatroclusGood words, Thersites.
58AchillesWhat’s the quarrel?
59AjaxI bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.
60ThersitesI serve thee not.
61AjaxWell, go to, go to.
62ThersitesI serve here voluntary.
63AchillesYour last service was sufferance, ’twas not voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.
64ThersitesE’en so; a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains: a’ were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.
65AchillesWhat, with me too, Thersites?
66ThersitesThere’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.
67AchillesWhat, what?
68ThersitesYes, good sooth: to, Achilles! to, Ajax! to!
69AjaxI shall cut out your tongue.
70Thersites’Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou afterwards.
71PatroclusNo more words, Thersites; peace!
72ThersitesI will hold my peace when Achilles’ brach bids me, shall I?
73AchillesThere’s for you, Patroclus.
74ThersitesI will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools. Exit.
75PatroclusA good riddance.
76AchillesMarry, this, sir, is proclaim’d through all our host:
That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,
Will with a trumpet ’twixt our tents and Troy
To-morrow morning call some knight to arms
That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare
Maintain—I know not what: ’tis trash. Farewell.
77AjaxFarewell. Who shall answer him?
78AchillesI know not: ’tis put to lottery; otherwise
He knew his man.
79AjaxO, meaning you. I will go learn more of it. Exeunt.