The Grecian Camp.
 Flourish.
 Enter ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AGAMEMNON, AJAX,
 MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Calchas	Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
	Th' advantage of the time prompts me aloud
	To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind
	That, through the sight I bear in things to come,
	I have abandoned Troy, left my possession,
	Incurred a traitor's name, exposed myself
	From certain and possessed conveniences
	To doubtful fortunes, sequest'ring from me all
	That time, acquaintance, custom and condition
	Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
	And here, to do you service, am become
	As new into the world, strange, unacquainted.
	I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
	To give me now a little benefit
	Out of those many registered in promise
	Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.

Agamemnon	What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.

Calchas	You have a Trojan prisoner called Antenor
	Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.
	Oft have you - often have you thanks therefore-
	Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,
	Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor
	I know is such a wrest in their affairs
	That their negotiations all must slack,
	Wanting his manage, and they will almost
	Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
	In change of him. Let him be sent, great princes,
	And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
	Shall quite strike off all service I have done
	In most accepted pain.

Agamemnon								Let Diomedes bear him,
	And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
	What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
	Furnish you fairly for this interchange;
	Withal bring word if Hector will tomorrow
	Be answered in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

Diomedes	This shall I undertake, and 'tis a burden
	Which I am proud to bear.
												[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS.

             Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS before their tent.

Ulysses	Achilles stands i'th' entrance of his tent;
	Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
	As if he were forgot; and, princes all,
	Lay negligent and loose regard upon him;
	I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me
	Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turned on him;
	If so, I have derision medicinable
	To use between your strangeness and his pride,
	Which his own will shall have desire to drink.
	It may do good: pride hath no other glass
	To show itself but pride; for supple knees
	Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.

Agamemnon	We'll execute your purpose, and put on
	A form of strangeness as we pass along.
	So do each lord, and either greet him not
	Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
	Than if not looked on. I will lead the way.

Achilles	What, comes the general to speak with me?
	You know my mind; I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.

Agamemnon	What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

Nestor	Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

Achilles	No.

Nestor	Nothing, my lord.

Agamemnon	The better.
												[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR.
Achilles	Good day, good day.

Menelaus	How do you? How do you?
												[Exit.
Achilles	What, does the cuckold scorn me?

Ajax	How now, Patroclus?

Achilles	Good morrow, Ajax.

Ajax	Ha?

Achilles	Good morrow.

Ajax	Ay, and good next day too.
												[Exit.
Achilles	What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

Patroclus	They pass by strangely. They were used to bend,
	To send their smiles before them to Achilles,
	To come as humbly as they use to creep
	To holy altars.

Achilles						What, am I poor of late?
	'Tis certain, greatness once fall'n out with fortune
	Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,
	He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
	As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
	Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,
	And not a man for being simply man
	Hath any honour, but honoured for those honours
	That are without him - as place, riches, and favour:
	Prizes of accident as oft as merit,
	Which, when they fall, as being slippery standers,
	The love that leaned on them, as slippery too,
	Doth one pluck down another, and together
	Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
	Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
	At ample point all that I did possess,
	Save these men's looks; who do methinks find out
	Something not worth in me such rich beholding
	As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
	I'll interrupt his reading. How now, Ulysses?

Ulysses	Now, great Thetis' son.

Achilles	What are you reading?

Ulysses							A strange fellow here
	Writes me that man - how dearly ever parted,
	How much in having, or without or in-
	Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
	Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
	As when his virtues shining upon others
	Heat them, and they retort that heat again
	To the first giver.

Achilles							This is not strange, Ulysses.
	The beauty that is borne here in the face
	The bearer knows not, but commends itself
	To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself,
	That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,
	Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
	Salutes each other with each other's form.
	For speculation turns not to itself
	Till it hath travelled, and is mirrored there
	Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

Ulysses	I do not strain at the position
	- It is familiar - but at the author's drift,
	Who in his circumstance expressly proves
	That no man is the lord of anything
	- Though in and of him there be much consisting-
	Till he communicate his parts to others;
	Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
	Till he behold them formd in th' applause
	Where they're extended; who, like an arch, reverb'rate
	The voice again, or, like a gate of steel
	Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
	His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this,
	And apprehended here immediately
	The unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!
	A very horse, that has he knows not what!
	Nature, what things there are,
	Most abject in regard and dear in use!
	What things again most dear in the esteem
	And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow,
	An act that very chance doth throw upon him,
	Ajax renowned. O heavens, what some men do
	While some men leave to do!
	How some men creep in skittish Fortune's hall
	Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
	How one man eats into another's pride
	While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
	To see these Grecian lords! Why, even already
	They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
	As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
	And great Troy shrinking.

Achilles	I do believe it, for they passed by me
	As misers do by beggars - neither gave to me
	Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?

Ulysses	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 devoured
	As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
	As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
	Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
	Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
	In monumental mock'ry. Take the instant way,
	For honour travels in a strait so narrow
	Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,
	For emulation hath a thousand sons
	That one by one pursue; if you give way,
	Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
	Like to an entered tide they all rush by
	And leave you hindmost;
	Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
	Lie there for pavement for the abject rear,
	O'errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
	Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
	For Time is like a fashionable host
	That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand,
	And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
	Grasps in the comer: the welcome ever smiles,
	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,
	Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
	To envious and calumniating time.
	One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
	That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
	Though they are made and moulded of things past,
	And give to dust that is a little gilt
	More laud than gilt o'erdusted.
	The present eye praises the present object:
	Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
	That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,
	Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
	Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
	And still it might, and yet it may again,
	If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,
	And case thy reputation in thy tent,
	Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late
	Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
	And drave great Mars to faction.

Achilles									Of this my privacy
	I have strong reasons.

Ulysses								But 'gainst your privacy
	The reasons are more potent and heroical.
	'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
	With one of Priam's daughters.

Achilles										Ha, known?

Ulysses	Is that a wonder?
	The providence that's in a watchful state
	Knows almost every grain of Pluto's gold,
	Finds bottom in th' uncomprehensive deeps,
	Keeps place with thought, and almost like the gods
	Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
	There is a mystery, with whom relation
	Durst never meddle, in the soul of state,
	Which hath an operation more divine
	Than breath or pen can give expressure to.
	All the commerce that you have had with Troy
	As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
	And better would it fit Achilles much
	To throw down Hector than Polyxena.
	But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
	When fame shall in our islands sound her trump
	And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing
	"Great Hector's sister did Achilles win,
	But our great Ajax bravely beat down him."
	Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak;
	The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.
												[Exit.
Patroclus	To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you.
	A woman impudent and mannish grown
	Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
	In time of action: I stand condemned for this.
	They think my little stomach to the war
	And your great love to me restrains you thus.
	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.

Achilles						Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

Patroclus	Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

Achilles	I see my reputation is at stake;
	My fame is shrewdly gored.

Patroclus									O then beware:
	Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves.
	Omission to do what is necessary
	Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
	And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
	Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

Achilles	Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.
	I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
	T'invite the Trojan lords after the combat
	To see us here unarmed. I have a woman's longing,
	An appetite that I am sick withal,
	To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,

                             Enter THERSITES.

	To talk with him, and to behold his visage
	Even to my full of view. - A labour saved!

Thersites	A wonder!

Achilles	What?

Thersites	Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

Achilles	How so?

Thersites	He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so 
	prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves 
	in saying nothing.

Achilles	How can that be?

Thersites	Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock - a stride and a 
	stand; ruminates like an 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, and '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'th' combat, he'll break't himself in 
	vainglory. He knows not me: I said "Good morrow, Ajax" and 
	he replies "Thanks, Agamemnon". What think you of this man 
	that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land-fish, 
	languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear 
	it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

Achilles	Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Thersites	Who, I? Why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not 
	answering: speaking is for beggars, he wears his tongue in's 
	arms. I will put on his presence - let Patroclus make his 
	demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

Achilles	To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax 
	to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my 
	tent, and to procure safe-conduct for his person of the 
	magnanimous and most illustrious six or seven times honoured 
	captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, et cetera. 
	Do this.

Patroclus	Jove bless great Ajax!

Thersites	Hum.

Patroclus	I come from the worthy Achilles-

Thersites	Ha?

Patroclus	- who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent-
	

Thersites	Hum.

Patroclus	- and to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon.

Thersites	Agamemnon?

Patroclus	Ay, my lord.

Thersites	Ha!

Patroclus	What say you to't?

Thersites	God-buy-you, with all my heart.

Patroclus	Your answer, sir.

Thersites	If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven a'clock it will go one 
	way or other; howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.

Patroclus	Your answer, sir.

Thersites	Fare you well, with all my heart.

Achilles	Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

Thersites	No, but he's out a'tune thus. What music will be in him when 
	Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not; but I am sure 
	none, unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make 
	catlings on.

Achilles	Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

Thersites	Let me carry another to his horse, for that's the more 
	capable creature.

Achilles	My mind is troubled like a fountain stirred,
	And I myself see not the bottom of it.
											[Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

Thersites	Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I 
	might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep 
	than such a valiant ignorance.
												[Exit.
