I have been so tedious in three acts, that I shall contract myself in the two last. The beginning scenes of the fourth act are either added or changed wholly by me; the middle of it is Shakespeare altered, and mingled with my own; three or four of the last scenes are altogether new. And the whole fifth act, both the plot and the writing, are my own additions.

But having written so much for imitation of what is excellent, in that part of the preface which related only to myself, methinks it would neither be unprofitable nor unpleasant to inquire how far we ought to imitate our own poets, Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their tragedies; and this will occasion another inquiry, how those two writers differ between themselves: but since neither of these questions can be solved, unless some measures be first taken, by which we may be enabled to judge truly of their writings, I shall endeavour, as briefly as I can, to discover the grounds and reason of all criticism, applying them in this place only to Tragedy. Aristotle with his interpreters, and Horace, and Longinus, are the authors to whom I owe my lights; and what part soever of my own plays, or of this, which no mending could make regular, shall fall under the condemnation of such judges, it would be impudence in me to defend. I think it no shame to retract my errors, and am well pleased to suffer in the cause, if the art may be improved at my expence: I therefore proceed to

THE GROUNDS OF CRITICISM IN TRAGEDY.

Tragedy is thus defined by Aristotle (omitting what I thought unnecessary in his definition). It is an imitation of one entire, great, and probable action; not told, but represented; which, by moving in us fear and pity, is conducive to the purging of those two passions in our minds. More largely thus: Tragedy describes or paints an action, which action must have all the properties above named. First, it must be one or single; that is, it must not be a history of one man's life, suppose of Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, but one single action of theirs. This condemns all Shakespeare's historical plays, which are rather chronicles represented, than tragedies; and all double action of plays. As, to avoid a satire upon others, I will make bold with my own "Marriage A-la-mode," where there are manifestly two actions, not depending on one another; but in "OEdipus" there cannot properly be said to be two actions, because the love of Adrastus and Eurydice has a necessary dependence on the principal design into which it is woven. The natural reason of this rule is plain; for two different independent actions distract the attention and concernment of the audience, and consequently destroy the intention of the poet; if his business be to move terror and pity, and one of his actions he comical, the other tragical, the former will divert the people, and utterly make void his greater purpose. Therefore, as in perspective, so in tragedy, there must be a point of sight in which all the lines terminate; otherwise the eye wanders, and the work is false. This was the practice of the Grecian stage. But Terence made an innovation in the Roman: all his plays have double actions; for it was his custom to translate two Greek comedies, and to weave them into one of his, yet so, that both their actions were comical, and one was principal, the other but secondary or subservient. And this has obtained on the English stage, to give us the pleasure of variety.

As the action ought to be one, it ought, as such, to have order in it; that is, to have a natural beginning, a middle, and an end. A natural beginning, says Aristotle, is that which could not necessarily have been placed after another thing; and so of the rest. This consideration will arraign all plays after the new model of Spanish plots, where accident is heaped upon accident, and that which is first might as reasonably be last; an inconvenience not to be remedied, but by making one accident naturally produce another, otherwise it is a farce and not a play. Of this nature is the "Slighted Maid;" where there is no scene in the first act, which might not by as good reason be in the fifth. And if the action ought to be one, the tragedy ought likewise to conclude with the action of it. Thus in "Mustapha," the play should naturally have ended with the death of Zanger, and not have given us the grace-cup after dinner, of Solyman's divorce from Roxolana.

The following properties of the action are so easy, that they need not my explaining. It ought to be great, and to consist of great persons, to distinguish it from comedy, where the action is trivial, and the persons of inferior rank. The last quality of the action is, that it ought to be probable, as well as admirable and great. It is not necessary that there should be historical truth in it; but always necessary that there should be a likeness of truth, something that is more than barely possible; probable being that which succeeds, or happens, oftener than it misses. To invent therefore a probability and to make it wonderful, is the most difficult undertaking in the art of poetry; for that, which is not wonderful, is not great; and that, which is not probable, will not delight a reasonable audience. This action, thus described, must be represented and not told, to distinguish dramatic poetry from epic: but I hasten to the end or scope of tragedy, which is, to rectify or purge our passions, fear and pity.

To instruct delightfully is the general end of all poetry. Philosophy instructs, but it performs its work by precept; which is not delightful, or not so delightful as example. To purge the passions by example, is therefore the particular instruction which belongs to tragedy. Rapin, a judicious critic, has observed from Aristotle, that pride and want of commiseration are the most predominant vices in mankind; therefore, to cure us of these two, the inventors of tragedy have chosen to work upon two other passions, which are, fear and pity. We are wrought to fear, by their setting before our eyes some terrible example of misfortune, which happened to persons of the highest quality; for such an action demonstrates to us, that no condition is privileged from the turns of fortune; this must of necessity cause terror in us, and consequently abate our pride. But when we see that the most virtuous, as well as the greatest, are not exempt from such misfortunes, that consideration moves pity in us, and insensibly works us to be helpful to, and tender over, the distressed; which is the noblest and most godlike of moral virtues, Here it is observable, that it is absolutely necessary to make a man virtuous, if we desire he should be pitied: we lament not, but detest, a wicked man; we are glad when we behold his crimes are punished, and that poetical justice is done upon him. Euripides was censured by the critics of his time, for making his chief characters too wicked; for example, Phaedra, though she loved her son-in-law with reluctancy, and that it was a curse upon her family for offending Venus, yet was thought too ill a pattern for the stage. Shall we therefore banish all characters of villainy? I confess I am not of that opinion; but it is necessary that the hero of the play be not a villain; that is, the characters, which should move our pity, ought to have virtuous inclinations, and degrees of moral goodness in them. As for a perfect character of virtue, it never was in nature, and therefore there can be no imitation of it; but there are allays of frailty to be allowed for the chief persons, yet so that the good which is in them shall outweigh the bad, and consequently leave room for punishment on the one side, and pity on the other.

After all, if any one will ask me, whether a tragedy cannot be made upon any other grounds than those of exciting pity and terror in us;—Bossu, the best of modern critics, answers thus in general: That all excellent arts, and particularly that of poetry, have been invented and brought to perfection by men of a transcendent genius; and that, therefore, they, who practise afterwards the same arts, are obliged to tread in their footsteps, and to search in their writings the foundation of them; for it is not just that new rules should destroy the authority of the old. But Rapin writes more particularly thus, that no passions in a story are so proper to move our concernment, as fear and pity; and that it is from our concernment we receive our pleasure, is undoubted. When the soul becomes agitated with fear for one character, or hope for another; then it is that we are pleased in tragedy, by the interest which we take in their adventures.

Here, therefore, the general answer may be given to the first question, how far we ought to imitate Shakespeare and Fletcher in their plots; namely, that we ought to follow them so far only, as they have copied the excellencies of those who invented and brought to perfection dramatic poetry; those things only excepted, which religion, custom of countries, idioms of languages, &c. have altered in the superstructures, but not in the foundation of the design.

How defective Shakespeare and Fletcher have been in all their plots, Mr Rymer has discovered in his criticisms. Neither can we, who follow them, be excused from the same, or greater errors; which are the more unpardonable in us, because we want their beauties to countervail our faults. The best of their designs, the most approaching to antiquity, and the most conducing to move pity, is the "King and no King;" which, if the farce of Bessus were thrown away, is of that inferior sort of tragedies, which end with a prosperous event. It is probably derived from the story of OEdipus, with the character of Alexander the Great, in his extravagances, given to Arbaces. The taking of this play, amongst many others, I cannot wholly ascribe to the excellency of the action; for I find it moving when it is read. It is true, the faults of the plot are so evidently proved, that they can no longer be denied. The beauties of it must therefore lie either in the lively touches of the passion; or we must conclude, as I think we may, that even in imperfect plots there are less degrees of nature, by which some faint emotions of pity and terror are raised in us; as a less engine will raise a less proportion of weight, though not so much as one of Archimedes's making; for nothing can move our nature, but by some natural reason, which works upon passions. And, since we acknowledge the effect, there must be something in the cause.

The difference between Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their plottings, seems to be this; that Shakespeare generally moves more terror, and Fletcher more compassion: for the first had a more masculine, a bolder, and more fiery genius; the second, a more soft and womanish. In the mechanic beauties of the plot, which are the observation of the three unities, time, place, and action, they are both deficient; but Shakespeare most. Ben Jonson reformed those errors in his comedies, yet one of Shakespeare's was regular before him; which is, "The Merry Wives of Windsor." For what remains concerning the design, you are to be referred to our English critic. That method which he has prescribed to raise it, from mistake, or ignorance of the crime, is certainly the best, though it is not the only; for amongst all the tragedies of Sophocles, there is but one, OEdipus, which is wholly built after that model.

After the plot, which is the foundation of the play, the next thing to which we ought to apply our judgment, is the manners; for now the poet comes to work above ground. The ground-work, indeed, is that which is most necessary, as that upon which depends the firmness of the whole fabric; yet it strikes not the eye so much, as the beauties or imperfections of the manners, the thoughts, and the expressions.

The first rule which Bossu prescribes to the writer of an heroic poem, and which holds too by the same reason in all dramatic poetry, is to make the moral of the work; that is, to lay down to yourself what that precept of morality shall be, which you would insinuate into the people; as, namely, Homer's (which I have copied in my "Conquest of Granada,") was, that union preserves a commonwealth and discord destroys it. Sophocles, in his OEdipus, that no man is to be accounted happy before his death. It is the moral that directs the whole action of the play to one centre; and that action or fable is the example built upon the moral, which confirms the truth of it to our experience. When the fable is designed, then, and not before, the persons are to be introduced, with their manners, characters, and passions.

The manners, in a poem, are understood to be those inclinations, whether natural or acquired, which move and carry us to actions, good, bad, or indifferent, in a play; or which incline the persons to such or such actions. I have anticipated part of this discourse already, in declaring that a poet ought not to make the manners perfectly good in his best persons; but neither are they to be more wicked in any of his characters, than necessity requires. To produce a villain, without other reason than a natural inclination to villainy, is, in poetry, to produce an effect without a cause; and to make him more a villain than he has just reason to be, is to make an effect which is stronger than the cause.

The manners arise from many causes; and are either distinguished by complexion, as choleric and phlegmatic, or by the differences of age or sex, of climates, or quality of the persons, or their present condition. They are likewise to be gathered from the several virtues, vices, or passions, and many other common-places, which a poet must be supposed to have learned from natural philosophy, ethics, and history; of all which, whosoever is ignorant, does not deserve the name of poet.

But as the manners are useful in this art, they may be all comprised under these general heads: First, they must be apparent; that is, in every character of the play, some inclinations of the person must appear; and these are shown in the actions and discourse. Secondly, the manners must be suitable, or agreeing to the persons; that is, to the age, sex, dignity, and the other general heads of manners: thus, when a poet has given the dignity of a king to one of his persons, in all his actions and speeches, that person must discover majesty, magnanimity, and jealousy of power, because these are suitable to the general manners of a king[1]. The third property of manners is resemblance; and this is founded upon the particular characters of men, as we have them delivered to us by relation or history; that is, when a poet has the known character of this or that man before him, he is bound to represent him such, at least not contrary to that which fame has reported him to have been. Thus, it is not a poet's choice to make Ulysses choleric, or Achilles patient, because Homer has described them quite otherwise. Yet this is a rock, on which ignorant writers daily split; and the absurdity is as monstrous, as if a painter should draw a coward running from a battle, and tell us it was the picture of Alexander the Great.

The last property of manners is, that they be constant and equal, that is, maintained the same through the whole design: thus, when Virgil had once given the name of pious to AEneas, he was bound to show him such, in all his words and actions through the whole poem. All these properties Horace has hinted to a judicious observer.—1. Notandi sunt tibi mores; 2. Aut famam sequere, 3. aut sibi concenientia finge; 4. Sercetur ad imum, qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.

From the manners, the characters of persons are derived; for, indeed, the characters are no other than the inclinations, as they appear in the several persons of the poem; a character being thus defined,—that which distinguishes one man from another. Not to repeat the same things over again, which have been said of the manners, I will only add what is necessary here. A character, or that which distinguishes one man from all others, cannot be supposed to consist of one particular virtue, or vice, or passion only; but it is a composition of qualities which are not contrary to one another in the same person. Thus, the same man may be liberal and valiant, but not liberal and covetous; so in a comical character, or humour, (which is an inclination to this or that particular folly) Falstaff is a liar, and a coward, a glutton, and a buffoon, because all these qualities may agree in the same man; yet it is still to be observed, that one virtue, vice, and passion, ought to be shown in every man, as predominant over all the rest; as covetousness in Crassus, love of his country in Brutus; and the same in characters which are feigned.

The chief character or hero in a tragedy, as I have already shown, ought in prudence to be such a man, who has so much more of virtue in him than of vice, that he may be left amiable to the audience, which otherwise cannot have any concernment for his sufferings; and it is on this one character, that the pity and terror must be principally, if not wholly, founded: a rule which is extremely necessary, and which none of the critics, that I know, have fully enough discovered to us. For terror and compassion work but weakly when they are divided into many persons. If Creon had been the chief character in "OEdipus," there had neither been terror nor compassion moved; but only detestation of the man, and joy for his punishment; if Adrastus and Eurydice had been made more appearing characters, then the pity had been divided, and lessened on the part of OEdipus. But making OEdipus the best and bravest person, and even Jocasta but an underpart to him, his virtues, and the punishment of his fatal crime, drew both the pity, and the terror to himself.

By what has been said of the manners, it will be easy for a reasonable man to judge, whether the characters be truly or falsely drawn in a tragedy; for if there be no manners appearing in the characters, no concernment for the persons can be raised; no pity or horror can be moved, but by vice or virtue; therefore, without them, no person can have any business in the play. If the inclinations be obscure, it is a sign the poet is in the dark, and knows not what manner of man he presents to you; and consequently you can have no idea, or very imperfect, of that man; nor can judge what resolutions he ought to take; or what words or actions are proper for him. Most comedies, made up of accidents or adventures, are liable to fall into this error; and tragedies with many turns are subject to it; for the manners can never be evident, where the surprises of fortune take up all the business of the stage; and where the poet is more in pain, to tell you what happened to such a man, than what he was. It is one of the excellencies of Shakespeare, that the manners of his persons are generally apparent; and you see their bent and inclinations. Fletcher comes far short of him in this, as indeed he does almost in every thing. There are but glimmerings of manners in most of his comedies, which run upon adventures; and in his tragedies, Rollo, Otto, the King and no King, Melantius, and many others of his best, are but pictures shown you in the twilight; you know not whether they resemble vice or virtue, and they are either good, bad, or indifferent, as the present scene requires it. But of all poets, this commendation is to be given to Ben Jonson, that the manners even of the most inconsiderable persons in his plays, are every where apparent.

By considering the second quality of manners, which is, that they be suitable to the age, quality, country, dignity, &c. of the character, we may likewise judge whether a poet has followed nature. In this kind, Sophocles and Euripides have more excelled among the Greeks than AEschylus; and Terence more than Plautus, among the Romans. Thus, Sophocles gives to OEdipus the true qualities of a king, in both those plays which bear his name; but in the latter, which is the "OEdipus Coloneus," he lets fall on purpose his tragic style; his hero speaks not in the arbitrary tone; but remembers, in the softness of his complaints, that he is an unfortunate blind old man; that he is banished from his country, and persecuted by his next relations. The present French poets are generally accused, that wheresoever they lay the scene, or in whatsoever age, the manners of their heroes are wholly French. Racine's Bajazet is bred at Constantinople; but his civilities are conveyed to him, by some secret passage, from Versailles into the seraglio. But our Shakespeare, having ascribed to Henry the Fourth the character of a king and of a father, gives him the perfect manners of each relation, when either he transacts with his son or with his subjects. Fletcher, on the other side, gives neither to Arbaces, nor to his king, in "The Maid's Tragedy," the qualities which are suitable to a monarch; though he may be excused a little in the latter, for the king there is not uppermost in the character; it is the lover of Evadne, who is king only in a second consideration; and though he be unjust, and has other faults which shall be nameless, yet he is not the hero of the play. It is true, we find him a lawful prince, (though I never heard of any king that was in Rhodes) and therefore Mr Rymer's criticism stands good,—that he should not be shown in so vicious a character. Sophocles has been more judicious in his "Antigona;" for, though he represents in Creon a bloody prince, yet he makes him not a lawful king, but an usurper, and Antigona herself is the heroine of the tragedy: but when Philaster wounds Arethusa and the boy; and Perigot his mistress, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," both these are contrary to the character of manhood. Nor is Valentinian managed much better; for, though Fletcher has taken his picture truly, and shown him as he was, an effeminate, voluptuous man, yet he has forgotten that he was an emperor, and has given him none of those royal marks, which ought to appear in a lawful successor of the throne. If it be enquired, what Fletcher should have done on this occasion; ought he not to have represented Valentinian as he was;—Bossu shall answer this question for me, by an instance of the like nature: Mauritius, the Greek emperor, was a prince far surpassing Valentinian, for he was endued with many kingly virtues; he was religious, merciful, and valiant, but withal he was noted of extreme covetousness, a vice which is contrary to the character of a hero, or a prince: therefore, says the critic, that emperor was no fit person to be represented in a tragedy, unless his good qualities were only to be shown, and his covetousness (which sullied them all) were slurred over by the artifice of the poet. To return once more to Shakespeare; no man ever drew so many characters, or generally distinguished them better from one another, excepting only Jonson. I will instance but in one, to show the copiousness of his invention; it is that of Caliban, or the monster, in "The Tempest." He seems there to have created a person which was not in nature, a boldness which, at first sight, would appear intolerable; for he makes him a species of himself, begotten by an incubus on a witch; but this, as I have elsewhere proved, is not wholly beyond the bounds of credibility, at least the vulgar still believe it. We have the separated notions of a spirit, and of a witch; (and spirits, according to Plato, are vested with a subtle body; according to some of his followers, have different sexes;) therefore, as from the distinct apprehensions of a horse, and of a man, imagination has formed a centaur; so, from those of an incubus and a sorceress, Shakespeare has produced his monster. Whether or no his generation can be defended, I leave to philosophy; but of this I am certain, that the poet has most judiciously furnished him with a person, a language, and a character, which will suit him, both by father's and mother's side: he has all the discontents, and malice of a witch, and of a devil, besides a convenient proportion of the deadly sins; gluttony, sloth, and lust, are manifest; the dejectedness of a slave is likewise given him, and the ignorance of one bred up in a desert island. His person is monstrous, and he is the product of unnatural lust; and his language is as hobgoblin as his person; in all things he is distinguished from other mortals. The characters of Fletcher are poor and narrow, in comparison of Shakspeare's; I remember not one which is not borrowed from him; unless you will except that strange mixture of a man in the "King and no King;" so that in this part Shakespeare is generally worth our imitation; and to imitate Fletcher is but to copy after him who was a copyer.

Under this general head of manners, the passions are naturally included, as belonging to the characters. I speak not of pity and of terror, which are to be moved in the audience by the plot; but of anger, hatred, love, ambition, jealousy, revenge, &c. as they are shown in this or that person of the play. To describe these naturally, and to move them artfully, is one of the greatest commendations which can be given to a poet: to write pathetically, says Longinus, cannot proceed but from a lofty genius. A poet must be born with this quality: yet, unless he help himself by an acquired knowledge of the passions, what they are in their own nature, and by what springs they are to be moved, he will be subject either to raise them where they ought not to be raised, or not to raise them by the just degrees of nature, or to amplify them beyond the natural bounds, or not to observe the crisis and turns of them, in their cooling and decay; all which errors proceed from want of judgment in the poet, and from being unskilled in the principles of moral philosophy. Nothing is more frequent in a fanciful writer, than to foil himself by not managing his strength; therefore, as, in a wrestler, there is first required some measure of force, a well-knit body and active limbs, without which all instruction would be vain; yet, these being granted, if he want the skill which is necessary to a wrestler, he shall make but small advantage of his natural robustuousness: so, in a poet, his inborn vehemence and force of spirit will only run him out of breath the sooner, if it be not supported by the help of art. The roar of passion, indeed, may please an audience, three parts of which are ignorant enough to think all is moving which is noisy, and it may stretch the lungs of an ambitious actor, who will die upon the spot for a thundering clap; but it will move no other passion than indignation and contempt from judicious men. Longinus, whom I have hitherto followed, continues thus:—If the passions be artfully employed, the discourse becomes vehement and lofty: if otherwise, there is nothing more ridiculous than a great passion out of season: and to this purpose he animadverts severely upon AEschylus, who writ nothing in cold blood, but was always in a rapture, and in fury with his audience: the inspiration was still upon him, he was ever tearing it upon the tripos; or (to run off as madly as he does, from one similitude to another) he was always at high-flood of passion, even in the dead ebb, and lowest water-mark of the scene. He who would raise the passion of a judicious audience, says a learned critic, must be sure to take his hearers along with him; if they be in a calm, 'tis in vain for him to be in a huff: he must move them by degrees, and kindle with them; otherwise he will be in danger of setting his own heap of stubble on fire, and of burning out by himself, without warming the company that stand about him. They who would justify the madness of poetry from the authority of Aristotle, have mistaken the text, and consequently the interpretation: I imagine it to be false read, where he says of poetry, that it is [Greek: Euphuous e manikou], that it had always somewhat in it either of a genius, or of a madman. 'Tis more probable that the original ran thus, that poetry was [Greek: Euphuous ou manikou], That it belongs to a witty man, but not to a madman. Thus then the passions, as they are considered simply and in themselves, suffer violence when they are perpetually maintained at the same height; for what melody can be made on that instrument, all whose strings are screwed up at first to their utmost stretch, and to the same sound? But this is not the worst: for the characters likewise bear a part in the general calamity, if you consider the passions as embodied in them; for it follows of necessity, that no man can be distinguished from another by his discourse, when every man is ranting, swaggering, and exclaiming with the same excess: as if it were the only business of all the characters to contend with each other for the prize at Billingsgate; or that the scene of the tragedy lay in Bethlem. Suppose the poet should intend this man to be choleric, and that man to be patient; yet when they are confounded in the writing, you cannot distinguish them from one another: for the man who was called patient and tame, is only so before he speaks; but let his clack be set a-going, and he shall tongue it as impetuously and as loudly, as the arrantest hero in the play. By this means, the characters are only distinct in name; but, in reality, all the men and women in the play are the same person. No man should pretend to write, who cannot temper his fancy with his judgment: nothing is more dangerous to a raw horseman, than a hot-mouthed jade without a curb.

It is necessary therefore for a poet, who would concern an audience by describing of a passion, first to prepare it, and not to rush upon it all at once. Ovid has judiciously shown the difference of these two ways, in the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses: Ajax, from the very beginning, breaks out into his exclamations, and is swearing by his Maker,—Agimus, proh Jupiter, inquit. Ulysses, on the contrary, prepares his audience with all the submissiveness he can practise, and all the calmness of a reasonable man; he found his judges in a tranquillity of spirit, and therefore set out leisurely and softly with them, till he had warmed them by degrees; and then he began to mend his pace, and to draw them along with his own impetuousness: yet so managing his breath, that it might not fail him at his need, and reserving his utmost proofs of ability even to the last. The success, you see, was answerable; for the crowd only applauded the speech of Ajax;—

Vulgique secutum ultima murmur erat:—

But the judges awarded the prize, for which they contended, to Ulysses;

Mota manus procerum est; et quid facundia posset Tum patuit, fortisque viri tulit arma disertus.

The next necessary rule is, to put nothing into the discourse, which may hinder your moving of the passions. Too many accidents, as I have said, incumber the poet, as much as the arms of Saul did David; for the variety of passions, which they produce, are ever crossing and justling each other out of the way. He, who treats of joy and grief together, is in a fair way of causing neither of those effects. There is yet another obstacle to be removed, which is,—pointed wit, and sentences affected out of season; these are nothing of kin to the violence of passion: no man is at leisure to make sentences and similes, when his soul is in an agony. I the rather name this fault, that it may serve to mind me of my former errors; neither will I spare myself, but give an example of this kind from my "Indian Emperor." Montezuma, pursued by his enemies, and seeking sanctuary, stands parleying without the fort, and describing his danger to Cydaria, in a simile of six lines;

As on the sands the frighted traveller Sees the high seas come rolling from afar, &c.

My Indian potentate was well skilled in the sea for an inland prince, and well improved since the first act, when he sent his son to discover it. The image had not been amiss from another man, at another time: Sed nunc non erat his locus: he destroyed the concernment which the audience might otherwise have had for him; for they could not think the danger near, when he had the leisure to invent a simile.

If Shakespeare be allowed, as I think he must, to have made his characters distinct, it will easily be inferred, that he understood the nature of the passions: because it has been proved already, that confused passions make distinguishable characters: yet I cannot deny that he has his failings; but they are not so much in the passions themselves, as in his manner of expression: he often obscures his meaning by his words, and sometimes makes it unintelligible. I will not say of so great a poet, that he distinguished not the blown puffy stile, from true sublimity; but I may venture to maintain, that the fury of his fancy often transported him beyond the bounds of judgment, either in coining of new words and phrases, or racking words which were in use, into the violence of a catachresis. It is not that I would explode the use of metaphors from passion, for Longinus thinks them necessary to raise it: but to use them at every word, to say nothing without a metaphor, a simile, an image, or description; is, I doubt, to smell a little too strongly of the buskin. I must be forced to give an example of expressing passion figuratively; but that I may do it with respect to Shakespeare, it shall not be taken from any thing of his: it is an exclamation against Fortune, quoted in his Hamlet, but written by some other poet:

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! all you gods, In general synod, take away her power; Break all the spokes and felleys from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heav'n, As low as to the fiends.

And immediately after, speaking of Hecuba, when Priam was killed before her eyes:

But who, ah woe! had seen the mobled queen Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flame With bisson rheum; a clout about that head, Where late the diadem stood; and, for a rob About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins, A blanket in th' alarm of fear caught up. Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd 'Gainst fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd; But if the gods themselves did see her then, When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs, The instant burst of clamour that she made (Unless things mortal move them not at all) Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, And passion in the gods.

What a pudder is here kept in raising the expression of trifling thoughts! would not a man have thought that the poet had been bound prentice to a wheel-wright, for his first rant? and had followed a rag-man, for the clout and blanket, in the second? Fortune is painted on a wheel, and therefore the writer, in a rage, will have poetical justice done upon every member of that engine: after this execution, he bowls the nave down-hill, from heaven, to the fiends: (an unreasonable long mark, a man would think;) 'tis well there are no solid orbs to stop it in the way, or no element of fire to consume it: but when it came to the earth, it must be monstrous heavy, to break ground as low as the center. His making milch the burning eyes of heaven, was a pretty tolerable flight too: and I think no man ever drew milk out of eyes before him: yet, to make the wonder greater, these eyes were burning. Such a sight indeed were enough to have raised passion in the gods; but to excuse the effects of it, he tells you, perhaps they did not see it. Wise men would be glad to find a little sense couched under all these pompous words; for bombast is commonly the delight of that audience, which loves poetry, but understands it not: and as commonly has been the practice of those writers, who, not being able to infuse a natural passion into the mind, have made it their business to ply the ears, and to stun their judges by the noise. But Shakespeare does not often thus; for the passions in his scene between Brutus and Cassius are extremely natural, the thoughts are such as arise from the matter, the expression of them not viciously figurative. I cannot leave this subject, before I do justice to that divine poet, by giving you one of his passionate descriptions: 'tis of Richard the Second when he was deposed, and led in triumph through the streets of London by Henry of Bolingbroke: the painting of it is so lively, and the words so moving that I have scarce read any thing comparable to it, in any other language. Suppose you have seen already the fortunate usurper passing through the crowd, and followed by the shouts and acclamations of the people; and now behold King Richard entering upon the scene: consider the wretchedness of his condition, and his carriage in it; and refrain from pity, if you can:

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard: no man cry'd, God save him: No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home, But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off, His face still combating with tears and smiles, (The badges of his grief and patience) That had not God (for some strong purpose) steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him.

To speak justly of this whole matter: it is neither height of thought that is discommended, nor pathetic vehemence, nor any nobleness of expression in its proper place; but it is a false measure of all these, something which is like them, and is not them: it is the Bristol-stone, which appears like a diamond; it is an extravagant thought, instead of a sublime one; it is roaring madness, instead of vehemence; and a sound of words, instead of sense. If Shakespeare were stripped of all the bombasts in his passions, and dressed in the most vulgar words, we should find the beauties of his thoughts remaining; if his embroideries were burnt down, there would still be silver at the bottom of the melting-pot: but I fear (at least let me fear it for myself) that we, who ape his sounding words, have nothing of his thought, but are all outside; there is not so much as a dwarf within our giant's clothes. Therefore, let not Shakespeare suffer for our sakes; it is our fault, who succeed him in an age which is more refined, if we imitate him so ill, that we copy his failings only, and make a virtue of that in our writings, which in his was an imperfection.

For what remains, the excellency of that poet was, as I have said, in the more manly passions; Fletcher's in the softer: Shakespeare writ better betwixt man and man; Fletcher, betwixt man and woman: consequently, the one described friendship better; the other love: yet Shakespeare taught Fletcher to write love: and Juliet and Desdemona are originals. It is true, the scholar had the softer soul; but the master had the kinder. Friendship is both a virtue and a passion essentially; love is a passion only in its nature, and is not a virtue but by accident: good nature makes friendship; but effeminacy love. Shakespeare had an universal mind, which comprehended all characters and passions; Fletcher a more confined and limited: for though he treated love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, revenge, and generally all the stronger, passions, he either touched not, or not masterly. To conclude all, he was a limb of Shakespeare.

I had intended to have proceeded to the last property of manners, which is, that they must be constant, and the characters maintained the same from the beginning to the end; and from thence to have proceeded to the thoughts and expressions suitable to a tragedy: but I will first see how this will relish with the age. It is, I confess, but cursorily written; yet the judgment, which is given here, is generally founded upon experience: but because many men are shocked at the name of rules, as if they were a kind of magisterial prescription upon poets, I will conclude with the words of Rapin, in his Reflections on Aristotle's Work of Poetry: "If the rules be well considered, we shall find them to be made only to reduce nature into method, to trace her step by step, and not to suffer the least mark of her to escape us: it is only by these, that probability in fiction is maintained, which is the soul of poetry. They are founded upon good sense, and sound reason, rather than on authority; for though Aristotle and Horace are produced, yet no man must argue, that what they write is true, because they writ it; but 'tis evident, by the ridiculous mistakes and gross absurdities, which have been made by those poets who have taken their fancy only for their guide, that if this fancy be not regulated, it is a mere caprice, and utterly incapable to produce a reasonable and judicious poem."

Footnote: 1. The dictum of Rymer, concerning the royal prerogative in poetry, is thus expressed: "We are to presume the highest virtues, where we find the highest of rewards; and though it is not necessary that all heroes should be kings, yet, undoubtedly, all crowned heads, by poetical right, are heroes. This character is a flower; a prerogative so certain, so inseparably annexed to the crown, as by no parliament of poets ever to be invaded." The Tragedies of the last Age considered, p. 61. Dryden has elsewhere given his assent to this maxim, that a king, in poetry, as in our constitution, can do no wrong. The only apology for introducing a tyrant upon the stage, was to make him at the same time an usurper.



PROLOGUE

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON, REPRESENTING THE GHOST OF SHAKESPEARE.

See, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise, An awful ghost confessed to human eyes! Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been From other shades, by this eternal green, About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive, And with a touch, their withered bays revive. Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age, I found not, but created first the stage. And, if I drained no Greek or Latin store, 'Twas, that my own abundance gave me more. On foreign trade I needed not rely, Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply. In this my rough-drawn play, you shall behold Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold, That he who meant to alter, found 'em such, He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch. Now, where are the successors to my name? What bring they to fill out a poet's fame? Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age; Scarce living to be christened on the stage! For humour farce, for love they rhyme dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense. Dulness might thrive in any trade but this: 'Twould recommend to some fat benefice. Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace, Might meet with reverence, in its proper place. The fulsome clench, that nauseates the town, Would from a judge or alderman go down, Such virtue is there in a robe and gown! And that insipid stuff which here you hate, Might somewhere else be called a grave debate; Dulness is decent in the church and state. But I forget that still 'tis understood, Bad plays are best decried by showing good. Sit silent then, that my pleased soul may see A judging audience once, and worthy me; My faithful scene from true records shall tell, How Trojan valour did the Greek excell; Your great forefathers shall their fame regain, And Homer's angry ghost repine in vain[1].

Footnote: 1. The conceit, which our ancestors had adopted, of their descent from Brutus, a fugitive Trojan, induced their poets to load the Grecian chiefs with every accusation of cowardice and treachery, and to extol the character of the Trojans in the same proportion. Hector is always represented as having been treacherously slain.



DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

HECTOR, } Sons of PRIAM. TROILUS, } PRIAM, King of Troy. AENEAS, a Trojan Warrior. PANDARUS, Uncle to CRESSIDA. CALCHAS, a Trojan Priest, and Father to CRESSIDA, a fugitive to the Grecian camp. AGAMEMNON, } ULYSSES, } ACHILLES, } AJAX, } Grecian Warriors, engaged in the NESTOR, } siege of Troy. DIOMEDES, } PATROCLUS, } MENELAUS, } THERSITES, a slanderous Buffoon.

CRESSIDA, Daughter to CALCHAS. ANDROMACHE, Wife to HECTOR.



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

ACT I.

SCENE I.—A Camp.

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, and NESTOR.

Agam. Princes, it seems not strange to us, nor new, That, after nine years siege, Troy makes defence, Since every action of recorded fame Has with long difficulties been involved, Not answering that idea of the thought, Which gave it birth; why then, you Grecian chiefs, With sickly eyes do you behold our labours, And think them our dishonour, which indeed Are the protractive trials of the gods, To prove heroic constancy in men?

Nest. With due observance of thy sovereign seat, Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply Thy well-weighed words. In struggling with misfortunes Lies the true proof of virtue: On smooth seas, How many bauble-boats dare set their sails, And make an equal way with firmer vessels! But let the tempest once enrage that sea, And then behold the strong-ribbed argosie, Bounding between the ocean and the air, Like Perseus mounted on his Pegasus. Then where are those weak rivals of the main? Or, to avoid the tempest, fled to port, Or made a prey to Neptune. Even thus Do empty show, and true-prized worth, divide In storms of fortune.

Ulys. Mighty Agamemnon! Heart of our body, soul of our designs, In whom the tempers, and the minds of all Should be inclosed,—hear what Ulysses speaks.

Agam. You have free leave.

Ulys. Troy had been down ere this, and Hector's sword Wanted a master, but for our disorders: The observance due to rule has been neglected, Observe how many Grecian tents stand void Upon this plain, so many hollow factions: For, when the general is not like the hive, To whom the foragers should all repair, What honey can our empty combs expect? Or when supremacy of kings is shaken, What can succeed? How could communities, Or peaceful traffic from divided shores, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand on their solid base? Then every thing resolves to brutal force, And headlong force is led by hoodwinked will. For wild ambition, like a ravenous wolf, Spurred on by will, and seconded by power, Must make an universal prey of all, And last devour itself.

Nest. Most prudently Ulysses has discovered The malady, whereof our state is sick.

Diom. 'Tis truth he speaks; the general's disdained By him one step beneath, he by the next; That next by him below: So each degree Spurns upward at superior eminence. Thus our distempers are their sole support; Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength.

Agam. The nature of this sickness found, inform us From whence it draws its birth?

Ulys. The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns The chief of all our host, Having his ears buzzed with his noisy fame, Disdains thy sovereign charge, and in his tent Lies, mocking our designs; with him Patroclus, Upon a lazy bed, breaks scurril jests, And with ridiculous and aukward action, Which, slanderer, he imitation calls, Mimics the Grecian chiefs.

Agam. As how, Ulysses?

Ulys. Even thee, the king of men, he does not spare, (The monkey author) but thy greatness pageants, And makes of it rehearsals: like a player, Bellowing his passion till he break the spring, And his racked voice jar to his audience; So represents he thee, though more unlike Than Vulcan is to Venus. And at this fulsome stuff,—the wit of apes,— The large Achilles, on his prest bed lolling, From his deep chest roars out a loud applause, Tickling his spleen, and laughing till he wheeze.

Nest. Nor are you spared, Ulysses; but, as you speak in council, He hems ere he begins, then strokes his beard, Casts down his looks, and winks with half an eye; Has every action, cadence, motion, tone, All of you but the sense.

Agam. Fortune was merry When he was born, and played a trick on nature, To make a mimic prince; he ne'er acts ill, But when he would seem wise: For all he says or does, from serious thought, Appears so wretched, that he mocks his title, And is his own buffoon.

Ulys. In imitation of this scurril fool, Ajax is grown self-willed as broad Achilles. He keeps a table too, makes factious feasts, Rails on our state of war, and sets Thersites (A slanderous slave of an o'erflowing gall) To level us with low comparisons. They tax our policy with cowardice, Count wisdom of no moment in the war, In brief, esteem no act, but that of hand; The still and thoughtful parts, which move those hands, With them are but the tasks cut out by fear, To be performed by valour.

Agam. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Is more of use than he; but you, grave pair, Like Time and Wisdom marching hand in hand, Must put a stop to these encroaching ills: To you we leave the care; You, who could show whence the distemper springs, Must vindicate the dignity of kings. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.—Troy.

Enter PANDARUS and TROILUS.

Troil. Why should I fight without the Trojan walls, Who, without fighting, am o'erthrown within? The Trojan who is master of a soul, Let him to battle; Troilus has none.

Pand. Will this never be at an end with you?

Troil. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness wary; But I am weaker than a woman's tears, Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, And artless as unpractised infancy.

Pand Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part I'll not meddle nor make any further in your love; he, that will eat of the roastmeat, must stay for the kindling of the fire.

Troil. Have I not staid?

Pand. Ay, the kindling; but you must stay the spitting of the meat.

Troil. Have I not staid?

Pand. Ay, the spitting; but there's two words to a bargain; you must stay the roasting too.

Troil. Still have I staid; and still the farther off.

Pand. That's but the roasting, but there's more in this word stay; there's the taking off the spit, the making of the sauce, the dishing, the setting on the table, and saying grace; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your chaps.

Troil. At Priam's table pensive do I sit, And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts— (Can she be said to come, who ne'er was absent!)

Pand. Well, she's a most ravishing creature; and she looked yesterday most killingly; she had such a stroke with her eyes, she cut to the quick with every glance of them.

Troil. I was about to tell thee, when my heart Was ready with a sigh to cleave in two, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, with mighty anguish of my soul, Just at the birth, stifled this still-born sigh, And forced my face into a painful smile.

Pand. I measured her with my girdle yesterday; she's not half a yard about the waist, but so taper a shape did I never see; but when I had her in my arms, Lord, thought I,—and by my troth I could not forbear sighing,—If prince Troilus had her at this advantage and I were holding of the door!—An she were a thought taller,—but as she is, she wants not an inch of Helen neither; but there's no more comparison between the women—there was wit, there was a sweet tongue! How her words melted in her mouth! Mercury would have been glad to have such a tongue in his mouth, I warrant him. I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did.

Troil. Oh Pandarus, when I tell thee I am mad In Cressid's love, thou answer'st she is fair; Praisest her eyes, her stature, and her wit; But praising thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st, in every wound her love has given me, The sword that made it.

Pand. I give her but her due.

Troil. Thou giv'st her not so much.

Pand. Faith, I'll speak no more of her, let her be as she is; if she be a beauty, 'tis the better for her; an' she be not, she has the mends in her own hands, for Pandarus.

Troil. In spite of me, thou wilt mistake my meaning.

Pand. I have had but my labour for my pains; ill thought on of her, and ill thought on of you; gone between and between, and am ground in the mill-stones for my labour.

Troil. What, art thou angry, Pandarus, with thy friend?

Pand. Because she's my niece, therefore she's not so fair as Helen; an' she were not my niece, show me such another piece of woman's flesh: take her limb by limb: I say no more, but if Paris had seen her first, Menelaus had been no cuckold: but what care I if she were a blackamoor? what am I the better for her face?

Troil. Said I she was not beautiful?

Pand. I care not if you did; she's a fool to stay behind her father Calchas: let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her. For my part, I am resolute, I'll meddle no more in your affairs.

Troil. But hear me!

Pand. Not I.

Troil. Dear Pandarus—

Pand. Pray speak no more on't; I'll not burn my fingers in another body's business; I'll leave it as I found it, and there's an end. [Exit.

Troil. O gods, how do you torture me! I cannot come to Cressida but by him, And he's as peevish to be wooed to woo, As she is to be won.

Enter AENEAS.

AEneas. How now, prince Troilus; why not in the battle?

Troil. Because not there. This woman's answer suits me, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, AEneas, from the field to-day?

AEn. Paris is hurt.

Troil. By whom?

AEn. By Menelaus. Hark what good sport [Alarm within. Is out of town to-day! When I hear such music, I cannot hold from dancing.

Troil. I'll make one, And try to lose an anxious thought or two In heat of action. Thus, coward-like, from love to war I run, Seek the less dangers, and the greater shun. [Exit TROIL.

Enter CRESSIDA.

Cres. My lord AEneas, who were those went by? I mean the ladies.

AEn. Queen Hecuba and Helen.

Cres. And whither go they?

AEn. Up to the western tower, Whose height commands, as subject, all the vale, To see the battle. Hector, whose patience Is fixed like that of heaven, to-day was moved; He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer, And, as there were good husbandry in war. Before the sun was up he went to field; Your pardon, lady, that's my business too. [Exit AENEAS.

Cres. Hector's a gallant warrior.

Enter PANDARUS.

Pand. What's that, what's that?

Cres. Good-morrow, uncle Pandarus.

Pand. Good-morrow, cousin Cressida. When were you at court?

Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pand. What were you a talking, when I came? Was Hector armed, and gone ere ye came? Hector was stirring early.

Cres. That I was talking of, and of his anger.

Pand. Was he angry, say you? true, he was so, and I know the cause. He was struck down yesterday in the battle, but he'll lay about him; he'll cry quittance with them to-day. I'll answer for him. And there's Troilus will not come far behind him: let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

Cres. What, was he struck down too?

Pand. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

Cres. Oh Jupiter! there's no comparison! Troilus the better man.

Pand. What, no comparison between Hector and Troilus? do you know a man if you see him?

Cres. No: for he may look like a man, and not be one.

Pand. Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

Cres. That's what I say; for I am sure he is not Hector.

Pand. No, nor Hector is not Troilus: make your best of that, niece!

Cres. 'Tis true, for each of them is himself.

Pand. Himself! alas, poor Troilus! I would he were himself: well, the gods are all-sufficient, and time must mend or end. I would he were himself, and would I were a lady for his sake. I would not answer for my maidenhead.—No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

Cres. Excuse me.

Pand. Pardon me; Troilus is in the bud, 'tis early day with him; you shall tell me another tale when Troilus is come to bearing; and yet he will not bear neither, in some sense. No, Hector shall never have his virtues.

Cres. No matter.

Pand. Nor his beauty, nor his fashion, nor his wit; he shall have nothing of him.

Cres. They would not become him, his own are better.

Pand. How, his own better! you have no judgment, niece; Helen herself swore, the other day, that Troilus, for a manly brown complexion,—for so it is, I must confess—not brown neither.

Cres. No, but very brown.

Pand. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown. Come, I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris: nay, I'm sure she does. She comes me to him the other day, into the bow-window,—and you know Troilus has not above three or four hairs on his chin,—

Cres. That's but a bare commendation.

Pand. But to prove to you that Helen loves him, she comes, and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin.

Cres. Has he been fighting then? how came it cloven?

Pand. Why, you know it is dimpled. I cannot chuse but laugh, to think how she tickled his cloven chin. She has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess. But let that pass, for I know who has a whiter. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on it, think on it.

Cres. So I do, uncle.

Pand. I'll be sworn it is true; he will weep ye, an' it were a man born in April. [A retreat sounded. Hark, they are returning from the field; shall we stay and see them as they come by, sweet niece? do, sweet niece Cressida.

Cres. For once you shall command me.

Pand. Here, here, here is an excellent place; we may see them here most bravely, and I'll tell you all their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest; mark Troilus, he's worth your marking.

AENEAS passes over the Stage.

Cres. Speak not so loud then.

Pand. That's AEneas. Is it not a brave man that? he's a swinger, many a Grecian he has laid with his face upward; but mark Troilus: you shall see anon.

Enter ANTENOR passing.

That's Antenor; he has a notable head-piece I can tell you, and he's the ablest man for judgment in all Troy; you may turn him loose, i'faith, and by my troth a proper person. When comes Troilus? I'll shew you Troilus anon; if he see me, you shall see him nod at me.

HECTOR passes over.

That's Hector, that, that, look you that; there's a fellow! go thy way, Hector; there's a brave man, niece. O brave Hector, look how he looks! there's a countenance. Is it not a brave man, niece?

Cres. I always told you so.

Pand. Is he not? it does a man's heart good to look on him; look you, look you there, what hacks are on his helmet! this was no boy's play, i'faith; he laid it on with a vengeance, take it off who will, as they say! there are hacks, niece!

Cres. Were those with swords?

Pand. Swords, or bucklers, faulchions, darts, and lances! any thing, he cares not! an' the devil come, it is all one to him: by Jupiter he looks so terribly, that I am half afraid to praise him.

Enter PARIS.

Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris! look ye yonder, niece; is it not a brave young prince too? He draws the best bow in all Troy; he hits you to a span twelve-score level:—who said he came home hurt to-day? why, this will do Helen's heart good now! ha! that I could see Troilus now!

Enter HELENUS.

Cres. Who's that black man, uncle?

Pand. That is Helenus.—I marvel where Troilus is all this while;—that is Helenus.—I think Troilus went not forth to-day;—that's Helenus.

Cres. Can Helenus fight, uncle?

Pand. Helenus! No, yes; he'll fight indifferently well.—I marvel in my heart what's become of Troilus:—Hark! do you not hear the people cry, Troilus?—Helenus is a priest, and keeps a whore; he'll fight for his whore, or he's no true priest, I warrant him.

Enter TROILUS passing over.

Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

Pand. Where, yonder? that's Deiphobus: No, I lie. I lie, that's Troilus! there's a man, niece! hem! O brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry, and flower of fidelity!

Cres. Peace, for shame, peace!

Pand. Nay, but mark him then! O brave Troilus! there's a man of men, niece! look you how his sword is bloody, and his helmet more hacked than Hector's, and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he never saw two-and-twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! had I a sister were a grace, and a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice of them. O admirable man! Paris, Paris is dirt to him, and I warrant, Helen, to change, would give all the shoes in her shop to boot.

Enter common Soldiers passing over.

Cres. Here come more.

Pand. Asses, fools, dolts, dirt, and dung, stuff, and lumber, porridge after meat; but I could live and die with Troilus. Ne'er look, niece, ne'er look, the lions are gone: apes and monkeys, the fag end of the creation. I had rather be such a man as Troilus, than Agamemnon and all Greece.

Cres. There's Achilles among the Greeks, he's a brave man.

Pand. Achilles! a carman, a beast of burden; a very camel: have you any eyes, niece? do you know a man? is he to be compared with Troilus?

Enter Page.

Page. Sir, my lord Troilus would instantly speak with you.

Pand. Where boy, where?

Page. At his own house, if you think convenient.

Pand. Good boy, tell him I come instantly: I doubt he's wounded. Farewell, good niece. But I'll be with you by and by.

Cres. To bring me, uncle!

Pand. Ay, a token from prince Troilus. [Exit PANDAR.

Cres. By the same token, you are a procurer, uncle.

CRESSIDA alone.

A strange dissembling sex we women are: Well may we men, when we ourselves deceive. Long has my secret soul loved Troilus; I drunk his praises from my uncle's mouth, As if my ears could ne'er be satisfied: Why then, why said I not, I love this prince? How could my tongue conspire against my heart, To say I loved him not? O childish love! 'Tis like an infant, froward in his play, And what he most desires, he throws away. [Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I.—Troy.

Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, and AENEAS.

Priam. After the expence of so much time and blood, Thus once again the Grecians send to Troy;— Deliver Helen, and all other loss Shall be forgotten.—Hector, what say you to it?

Hect. Though no man less can fear the Greeks than I, Yet there's no virgin of more tender heart, More ready to cry out,—who knows the consequence? Than Hector is; for modest doubt is mixed With manly courage best: let Helen go. If we have lost so many lives of ours, To keep a thing not ours, not worth to us The value of a man, what reason is there Still to retain the cause of so much ill?

Troil. Fye, fye, my noble brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king, So great as Asia's monarch, in a scale Of common ounces thus? Are fears and reasons fit to be considered, When a king's fame is questioned?

Hect. Brother, she's not worth What her defence has cost us.

Troil. What's aught, but as 'tis valued?

Hect. But value dwells not in opinion only: It holds the dignity and estimation, As well, wherein 'tis precious of itself, As in the prizer: 'tis idolatry, To make the service greater than the god.

Troil. We turn not back the silks upon the merchant, When we have worn them; the remaining food Throw not away, because we now are full. If you confess, 'twas wisdom Paris went;— As you must needs, for you all cried, Go, go:— If you'll confess, he brought home noble prize;— As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands, And cried, Inestimable!—Why do you now So under-rate the value of your purchase? For, let me tell you, 'tis unmanly theft, When we have taken what we fear to keep.

AEne. There's not the meanest spirit in our party, Without a heart to dare, or sword to draw, When Helen is defended: None so noble, Whose life were ill bestowed, or death unfamed, When Helen is the subject.

Priam. So says Paris, Like one besotted on effeminate joys; He has the honey still, but these the gall.

AEne. He not proposes merely to himself The pleasures such a beauty brings with it; But he would have the stain of Helen's rape Wiped off, in honourable keeping her.

Hect. Troilus and AEneas, you have said; If saying superficial things be reason. But if this Helen be another's wife, The moral laws of nature and of nations Speak loud she be restored. Thus to persist In doing wrong, extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more so. Hector's opinion Is this, in way of truth: yet, ne'ertheless, My sprightly brother, I incline to you In resolution to defend her still: For 'tis a cause on which our Trojan honour And common reputation will depend.

Troil. Why there you touched the life of our design: Were it not glory that we covet more Than war and vengeance, (beasts' and women's pleasure) I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood Spent more in her defence; but oh! my brother, She is a subject of renown and honour; And I presume brave Hector would not lose The rich advantage of his future fame For the wide world's revenue:—I have business; But glad I am to leave you thus resolved. When such arms strike, ne'er doubt of the success.

AEn. May we not guess?

Troil. You may, and be deceived. [Exit TROIL.

Hect. A woman, on my life: even so it happens, Religion, state-affairs, whate'er's the theme, It ends in woman still.

Enter ANDROMACHE.

Priam. See, here's your wife, To make that maxim good.

Hect. Welcome, Andromache: your looks are chearful, You bring some pleasing news.

Andro. Nothing that's serious. Your little son Astyanax has employed me As his ambassadress.

Hect. Upon what errand?

Andro. No less than that his grandfather this day Would make him knight: he longs to kill a Grecian: For should he stay to be a man, he thinks You'll kill them all; and leave no work for him.

Priam. Your own blood, Hector.

Andro. And therefore he designs to send a challenge To Agamemnon, Ajax, or Achilles, To prove they do not well to burn our fields, And keep us cooped like prisoners in a town, To lead this lazy life.

Hect. What sparks of honour Fly from this child! the gods speak in him sure: —It shall be so—I'll do't.

Priam. What means my son?

Hect. To send a challenge to the boldest Greek. Is not that country ours? those fruitful fields Washed by yon silver flood, are they not ours? Those teeming vines that tempt our longing eyes, Shall we behold them? shall we call them ours, And dare not make them so? by heavens I'll know Which of these haughty Grecians dares to think He can keep Hector prisoner here in Troy.

Priam. If Hector only were a private man, This would be courage; but in him 'tis madness. The general safety on your life depends; And, should you perish in this rash attempt, Troy with a groan would feel her soul go out, And breathe her last in you.

AEn. The task you undertake is hazardous: Suppose you win, what would the profit be? If Ajax or Achilles fell beneath Your thundering arm, would all the rest depart? Would Agamemnon, or his injured brother, Set sail for this? then it were worth your danger. But, as it is, we throw our utmost stake Against whole heaps of theirs.

Priam. He tells you true.

AEn. Suppose one Ajax, or Achilles lost, They can repair with more that single loss: Troy has but one, one Hector.

Hect. No, AEneas! What then art thou; and what is Troilus? What will Astyanax be?

Priam. An Hector one day, But you must let him live to be a Hector; And who shall make him such, when you are gone? Who shall instruct his tenderness in arms, Or give his childhood lessons of the war? Who shall defend the promise of his youth, And make it bear in manhood? the young sapling Is shrouded long beneath the mother-tree, Before it be transplanted from its earth, And trust itself for growth.

Hect. Alas, my father! You have not drawn one reason from yourself, But public safety, and my son's green years: In this neglecting that main argument, Trust me you chide my filial piety; As if I could be won from my resolves By Troy, or by my son, or any name More dear to me than yours.

Priam. I did not name myself, because I know When thou art gone, I need no Grecian sword To help me die, but only Hector's loss.— Daughter, why speak not you? why stand you silent? Have you no right in Hector, as a wife?

Andro. I would be worthy to be Hector's wife: And had I been a man, as my soul's one, I had aspired a nobler name,—his friend. How I love Hector,—need I say I love him?— I am not but in him: But when I see him arming for his honour, His country and his gods, that martial fire, That mounts his courage, kindles even to me: And when the Trojan matrons wait him out With prayers, and meet with blessings his return, The pride of virtue beats within my breast, To wipe away the sweat and dust of war, And dress my hero glorious in his wounds.

Hect. Come to my arms, thou manlier virtue, come! Thou better name than wife! would'st thou not blush To hug a coward thus? [Embrace.

Priam. Yet still I fear!

Andro. There spoke a woman; pardon, royal sir; Has he not met a thousand lifted swords Of thick-ranked Grecians, and shall one affright him? There's not a day but he encounters armies; And yet as safe, as if the broad-brimmed shield, That Pallas wears, were held 'twixt him and death.

Hect. Thou know'st me well, and thou shalt praise me more; Gods make me worthy of thee!

Andro. You shall be My knight this day; you shall not wear a cause So black as Helen's rape upon your breast. Let Paris fight for Helen; guilt for guilt: But when you fight for honour and for me, Then let our equal gods behold an act, They may not blush to crown.

Hect. AEneas, go, And bear my challenge to the Grecian camp. If there be one amongst the best of Greece, Who holds his honour higher than his ease, Who knows his valour, and knows not his fear; Who loves his mistress more than in confession, And dares avow her beauty and her worth, In other arms than hers,—to him this challenge. I have a lady of more truth and beauty, Than ever Greek did compass in his arms; And will to-morrow, with the trumpet's call, Mid-way between their tents and these our walls, Maintain what I have said. If any come, My sword shall honour him; if none shall dare, Then shall I say, at my return to Troy, The Grecian dames are sun-burnt, and not worth The splinter of a lance.

AEn. It shall be told them, As boldly as you gave it.

Priam. Heaven protect thee! [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA.

Pand. Yonder he stands, poor wretch! there stands he with such a look, and such a face, and such begging eyes! there he stands, poor prisoner!

Cress. What a deluge of words do you pour out, uncle, to say just nothing?

Pand. Nothing, do you call it! is that nothing, do you call that nothing? why he looks, for all the world, like one of your rascally malefactors, just thrown off the gibbet, with his cap down, his arms tied down, his feet sprunting, his body swinging. Nothing do you call it? this is nothing, with a vengeance!

Cress. Or, what think you of a hurt bird, that flutters about with a broken wing?

Pand. Why go to then, he cannot fly away then; then, that's certain, that's undoubted: there he lies to be taken up: but if you had seen him, when I said to him,—Take a good heart, man, and follow me; and fear no colours, and speak your mind, man: she can never stand you; she will fall, an' 'twere a leaf in autumn,—

Cress. Did you tell him all this, without my consent?

Pand. Why you did consent, your eyes consented; they blabbed, they leered, their very corners blabbed. But you'll say, your tongue said nothing. No, I warrant it: your tongue was wiser; your tongue was better bred; your tongue kept its own counsel: nay, I'll say that for you, your tongue said nothing.—Well, such a shamefaced couple did I never see, days o'my life! so 'fraid of one another; such ado to bring you to the business! Well, if this job were well over, if ever I lose my pains again with an aukward couple, let me be painted in the sign-post for the labour in vain: Fye upon't, fye upon't! there's no conscience in't: all honest people will cry shame on't.

Cress. Where is this monster to be shown? what's to be given for a sight of him?

Pand. Why, ready money, ready money; you carry it about you: give and take is square-dealing; for in my conscience he's as arrant a maid as you are. I was fain to use violence to him, to pull him hither: and he pulled, and I pulled: for you must know he's absolutely the strongest youth in Troy. T'other day he took Helen in one hand, and Paris in t'other, and danc'd 'em at one another at arms-end an' 'twere two moppets:—there was a back! there were bone and sinews! there was a back for you!

Cress. For these good procuring offices you'll be damned one day, uncle.

Pand. Who, I damned? Faith, I doubt I shall; by my troth I think I shall: nay if a man be damned for doing good, as thou say'st, it may go hard with me.

Cress. Then I'll not see prince Troilus; I'll not be accessary to your damnation.

Pand. How, not see prince Troilus? why I have engaged, I have promised, I have past my word. I care not for damning, let me alone for damning; I value not damning in comparison with my word. If I am damned, it shall be a good damning to thee, girl, thou shalt be my heir; come, 'tis a virtuous girl; thou shalt help me to keep my word, thou shalt see prince Troilus.

Cress. The venture's great.

Pand. No venture in the world; thy mother ventured it for thee, and thou shalt venture it for my little cousin, that must be.

Cress. Weigh but my fears: Prince Troilus is young.—

Pand. Marry is he; there's no fear in that, I hope: the fear were, if he were old and feeble.

Cress. And I a woman.

Pand. No fear yet; thou art a woman, and he's a man; put them together, put them together.

Cress. And if I should be frail—

Pand. There's all my fear, that thou art not frail: thou should'st be frail, all flesh is frail.

Cress. Are you my uncle, and can give this counsel to your own brother's daughter?

Pand. If thou wert my own daughter a thousand times over, I could do no better for thee; what wouldst thou have, girl? he's a prince, and a young prince and a loving young prince! an uncle, dost thou call me? by Cupid, I am a father to thee; get thee in, get thee in, girl, I hear him coming. And do you hear, niece! I give you leave to deny a little, 'twill be decent; but take heed of obstinacy, that's a vice; no obstinacy, my dear niece. [Exit CRESSIDA.

Enter TROILUS.

Troil. Now, Pandarus.

Pand. Now, my sweet prince! have you seen my niece? no, I know you have not.

Troil. No, Pandarus; I stalk about your doors. Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks, Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift transportance to Elysium, And fly with me to Cressida.

Pand. Walk here a moment more: I'll bring her strait.

Troil. I fear she will not come; most sure she will not.

Pand. How, not come, and I her uncle! why, I tell you, prince, she twitters at you. Ah poor sweet rogue! ah, little rogue, now does she think, and think, and think again of what must be betwixt you two. Oh sweet,—oh sweet—O—what, not come, and I her uncle?

Troil. Still thou flatter'st me; but pr'ythee flatter still; for I would hope; I would not wake out of my pleasing dream. Oh hope, how sweet thou art! but to hope always, and have no effect of what we hope!

Pand. Oh faint heart, faint heart! well, there's much good matter in these old proverbs! No, she'll not come, I warrant her; she has no blood of mine in her, not so much as will fill a flea. But if she does not come, and come, and come with a swing into your arms—I say no more, but she has renounced all grace, and there's an end.

Troil. I will believe thee: go then, but be sure.

Pand. No, you would not have me go; you are indifferent—shall I go, say you? speak the word then:—yet I care not: you may stand in your own light, and lose a sweet young lady's heart—well, I shall not go then.

Troil. Fly, fly, thou torturest me.

Pand. Do I so, do I so? do I torture you indeed? well, I will go.

Troil. But yet thou dost not go.

Pand. I go immediately, directly, in a twinkling, with a thought: yet you think a man never does enough for you; I have been labouring in your business like any moyle. I was with prince Paris this morning, to make your excuse at night for not supping at court; and I found him—faith, how do you think I found him? it does my heart good to think how I found him: yet you think a man never does enough for you.

Troil. Will you go then?—What's this to Cressida?

Pand. Why, you will not hear a man! what's this to Cressida? Why, I found him a-bed, a-bed with Helena, by my troth: 'Tis a sweet queen, a sweet queen; a very sweet queen,—but she's nothing to my cousin Cressida; she's a blowse, a gipsy, a tawny moor to my cousin Cressida; and she lay with one white arm underneath the whoreson's neck: Oh such a white, lilly-white, round, plump arm as it was—and you must know it was stripped up to the elbows; and she did so kiss him, and so huggle him!—as who should say—

Troil. But still thou stayest:—what's this to Cressida?

Pand. Why, I made your excuse to your brother Paris; that I think's to Cressida:—but such an arm, such a hand, such taper fingers! t'other hand was under the bed-cloaths; that I saw not, I confess; that hand I saw not.

Troil. Again thou torturest me.

Pand. Nay, I was tortured too; old as I am, I was tortured too: but for all that, I could make a shift, to make him, to make your excuse, to make your father—by Jove, when I think of that hand, I am so ravished, that I know not what I say: I was tortured too. [TROILUS turns away discontented. Well, I go, I go; I fetch her, I bring her, I conduct her; not come quotha, and I her uncle! [Exit PANDARUS.

Troil. I'm giddy; expectation whirls me round: The imaginary relish is so sweet, That it enchants my sense; what will it be, When I shall taste that nectar? It must be either death, or joy too fine For the capacity of human powers. I fear it much: and I do fear beside, That I shall lose distinction in my joys; As does a battle, when they charge on heaps A flying enemy.

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pand. She's making her ready; she'll come strait: you must be witty now!—she does so blush, and fetches her breath so short, as if she were frighted with a sprite; 'tis the prettiest villain! she fetches her breath so short, as 'twere a new-ta'en sparrow.

Troil. Just such a passion does heave up my breast! My heart beats thicker than a feverish pulse: I know not where I am, nor what I do; Just like a slave, at unawares encountering The eye of majesty.—Lead on, I'll follow. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.—The Camp.

Enter NESTOR, and ULYSSES.

Ulys. I have conceived an embryo in my brain: Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

Nest. What is't, Ulysses?

Ulys. The seeded pride, That has to this maturity blown up In rank Achilles, must or now be cropped, Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like ill, To overtop us all.

Nest. That's my opinion.

Ulys. This challenge which AEneas brings from Hector, However it be spread in general terms, Relates in purpose only to Achilles. And will it wake him to the answer, think you?

Nest. It ought to do: whom can we else oppose, Who could from Hector bring his honour off, If not Achilles? the success of this, Although particular, will give an omen Of good or bad, even to the general cause.

Ulys. Pardon me, Nestor, if I contradict you: Therefore 'tis fit Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants, show our coarsest wares, And think, perchance they'll sell; but, if they do not, The lustre of our better, yet unshown, Will show the better: let us not consent, Our greatest warrior should be matched with Hector; For both our honour and our shame in this Shall be attended with strange followers.

Nest. I see them not with my old eyes; what are they?

Ulys. What glory our Achilles gains from Hector, Were he not proud, we all should share with him: But he already is too insolent: And we had better parch in Afric sun, Than in his pride, should he 'scape Hector fair. But grant he should be foiled; Why then our common reputation suffers In that of our best man. No, make a lottery; And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw The chance to fight with Hector: among ourselves, Give him allowance as the braver man; For that will physic the great Myrmidon, Who swells with loud applause; and make him fall His crest, if brainless Ajax come safe off: If not, we yet preserve a fair opinion, That we have better men.

Nest. Now I begin to relish thy advice: Come, let us go to Agamemnon strait, To inform him of our project.

Ulys. 'Tis not ripe. The skilful surgeon will not lance a sore, Till nature has digested and prepared The growing humours to her healing purpose; Else must he often grieve the patient's sense, When one incision, once well-timed, would serve. Are not Achilles and dull Ajax friends?

Nest. As much as fools can be.

Ulys. That knot of friendship first must be untied, Ere we can reach our ends; for, while they love each other, Both hating us, will draw too strong a bias, And all the camp will lean that way they draw; For brutal courage is the soldier's idol: So, if one prove contemptuous, backed by t'other, 'Twill give the law to cool and sober sense, And place the power of war in madmen's hands.

Nest. Now I conceive you; were they once divided, And one of them made ours, that one would check The other's towering growth, and keep both low, As instruments, and not as lords of war. And this must be by secret coals of envy Blown in their breast; comparisons of worth; Great actions weighed of each; and each the best, As we shall give him voice.

Ulys. Here comes Thersites,

Enter THERSITES.

Who feeds on Ajax, yet loves him not, because he cannot love; But, as a species differing from mankind, Hates all he sees, and rails at all he knows; But hates them most from whom he most receives, Disdaining that his lot should be so low, That he should want the kindness which he takes.

Nest. There's none so fit an engine:—Save ye, Thersites.

Ulys. Hail, noble Grecian! thou relief of toils, Soul of our mirth, and joy of sullen war, In whose converse our winter nights are short, And summer days not tedious.

Thers. Hang you both.

Nest. How, hang us both!

Thers. But hang thee first, thou very reverend fool! Thou sapless oak, that liv'st by wanting thought, And now, in thy three hundredth year, repin'st Thou shouldst be felled: hanging's a civil death, The death of men; thou canst not hang; thy trunk Is only fit for gallows to hang others.

Nest. A fine greeting.

Thers. A fine old dotard, to repine at hanging At such an age! what saw the Gods in thee, That a cock-sparrow should but live three years, And thou shouldst last three ages? he's thy better; He uses life; he treads himself to death. Thou hast forgot thy use some hundred years. Thou stump of man, thou worn-out broom, thou lumber!

Nest. I'll hear no more of him, his poison works; What, curse me for my age!

Ulys. Hold, you mistake him, Nestor; 'tis his custom: What malice is there in a mirthful scene? 'Tis but a keen-edged sword, spread o'er with balm, To heal the wound it makes.

Thers. Thou beg'st a curse? May'st thou quit scores then, and be hanged on Nestor, Who hangs on thee! thou lead'st him by the nose; Thou play'st him like a puppet; speak'st within him; And when thou hast contrived some dark design, To lose a thousand Greeks, make dogs-meat of us, Thou lay'st thy cuckoo's egg within his nest, And mak'st him hatch it; teachest his remembrance To lie, and say, the like of it was practised Two hundred years ago; thou bring'st the brain, And he brings only beard to vouch thy plots.

Nest. I'm no man's fool.

Thers. Then be thy own, that's worse.

Nest. He'll rail all day.

Ulys. Then we shall learn all day. Who forms the body to a graceful carriage, Must imitate our aukward motions first; The same prescription does the wise Thersites Apply, to mend our minds. The same he uses To Ajax, to Achilles, to the rest; His satires are the physic of the camp.

Thers. Would they were poison to't, ratsbane and hemlock! Nothing else can mend you, and those two brawny fools.

Ulys. He hits 'em right; Are they not such, my Nestor?

Thers. Dolt-heads, asses, And beasts of burden; Ajax and Achilles! The pillars, no, the porters of the war. Hard-headed rogues! engines, mere wooden engines Pushed on to do your work.

Nest. They are indeed.

Thers. But what a rogue art thou, To say they are indeed! Heaven made them horses, And thou put'st on their harness, rid'st and spurr'st them; Usurp'st upon heaven's fools, and mak'st them thine.

Nest. No; they are headstrong fools, to be corrected By none but by Thersites; thou alone Canst tame and train them to their proper use; And, doing this, may'st claim a just reward From Greece and royal Agamemnon's hands.

Thers. Ay, when you need a man, you talk of giving, For wit's a dear commodity among you; But when you do not want him, then stale porridge, A starved dog would not lap, and furrow water, Is all the wine we taste: give drabs and pimps; I'll have no gifts with hooks at end of them.

Ulys. Is this a man, O Nestor, to be bought? Asia's not price enough! bid the world for him. And shall this man, this Hermes, this Apollo, Sit lag of Ajax' table, almost minstrel, And with his presence grace a brainless feast? Why they con sense from him, grow wits by rote, And yet, by ill repeating, libel him, Making his wit their nonsense: nay, they scorn him; Call him bought railer, mercenary tongue! Play him for sport at meals, and kick him off.

Thers. Yes, they can kick; my buttocks feel they can; They have their asses tricks; but I'll eat pebbles, I'll starve,—'tis brave to starve, 'tis like a soldier,— Before I'll feed those wit-starved rogues with sense. They shall eat dry, and choak for want of wit, Ere they be moistened with one drop of mine. Ajax and Achilles! two mud-walls of fool, That only differ in degrees of thickness.

Ulys. I'd be revenged of both. When wine fumes high, Set them to prate, to boast their brutal strength, To vie their stupid courage, till they quarrel, And play at hard head with their empty skulls.

Thers. Yes; they shall butt and kick, and all the while I'll think they kick for me; they shall fell timber On both sides, and then logwood will be cheap.

Nest. And Agamemnon—

Thers. Pox of Agamemnon! Cannot I do a mischief for myself, But he must thank me for't?

Ulys. to Nest. Away; our work is done. [Exeunt ULYS. and NEST.

Thers. This Agamemnon is a king of clouts, A chip in porridge,—

Enter AJAX.

Ajax. Thersites.

Thers. Set up to frighten daws from cherry-trees,—

Ajax. Dog!

Thers. A standard to march under.

Ajax. Thou bitch-wolf! can'st thou not hear? feel then. [Strikes him.

Thers. The plague of Greece, and Helen's pox light on thee, Thou mongrel mastiff, thou beef-witted lord!

Ajax. Speak then, thou mouldy leaven of the camp; Speak, or I'll beat thee into handsomeness.

Thers. I shall sooner rail thee into wit; thou canst kick, canst thou? A red murrain on thy jades tricks!

Ajax. Tell me the proclamation.

Thers. Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think.

Ajax. You whorson cur, take that. [Strikes him.

Thers. Thou scurvy valiant ass!

Ajax. Thou slave!

Thers. Thou lord!—Ay, do, do,—would my buttocks were iron, for thy sake!

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

Achil. Why, how now, Ajax! wherefore do you this? How now, Thersites, what's the matter, man?

Thers. I say this Ajax wears his wit in's belly, and his guts in's brains.

Achil. Peace, fool.

Thers. I would have peace, but the fool will not.

Patro. But what's the quarrel?

Ajax. I bade him tell me the proclamation, and he rails upon me.

Thers. I serve thee not.

Ajax. I shall cut out your tongue.

Thers. 'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much sense as thou afterwards. I'll see you hanged ere I come any more to your tent; I'll keep where there's wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. [Going.

Achil. Nay, thou shalt not go, Thersites, till we have squeezed the venom out of thee: pr'ythee, inform us of this proclamation.

Thers. Why, you empty fuz-balls, your heads are full of nothing else but proclamations.

Ajax. Tell us the news, I say.

Thers. You say! why you never said any thing in all your life. But, since you will know, it is proclaimed through the army, that Hector is to cudgel you to-morrow.

Achil. How, cudgel him, Thersites!

Thers. Nay, you may take a child's part on't if you have so much courage, for Hector has challenged the toughest of the Greeks; and it is in dispute which of your two heads is the soundest timber. A knotty piece of work he'll have betwixt your noddles.

Achil. If Hector be to fight with any Greek, He knows his man.

Ajax. Yes; he may know his man without art magic.

Thers. So he had need; for, to my certain knowledge, neither of you two are conjurers to inform him.

Achil. to Ajax. You do not mean yourself, sure?

Ajax. I mean nothing.

Thers. Thou mean'st so always.

Achil. Umh! mean nothing!

Thers. [Aside.] Jove, if it be thy will, let these two fools quarrel about nothing! 'tis a cause that's worthy of them.

Ajax. You said he knew his man; is there but one? One man amongst the Greeks?

Achil. Since you will have it, But one to fight with Hector.

Ajax. Then I am he.

Achil. Weak Ajax!

Ajax. Weak Achilles.

Thers. Weak indeed; God help you both!

Patro. Come, this must be no quarrel.

Thers. There's no cause for't

Patro. He tells you true, you are both equal.

Thers. Fools.

Achil. I can brook no comparisons.

Ajax. Nor I.

Achil. Well, Ajax.

Ajax. Well, Achilles.

Thers. So, now they quarrel in monosyllables; a word and a blow, an't be thy will.

Achil. You may hear more.

Ajax. I would.

Achil. Expect.

Ajax. Farewell. [Exeunt severally.

Thers. Curse on them, they want wine; your true fool will never fight without it. Or a drab, a drab; Oh for a commodious drab betwixt them! would Helen had been here! then it had come to something. Dogs, lions, bulls, for females tear and gore; And the beast, man, is valiant for his whore. [Exit THERSITES.

ACT III. SCENE I.

Enter THERSITES.

Thers. Shall the idiot Ajax use me thus? he beats me, and I rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! would I could but beat him, and he railed at me! Then there's Achilles, a rare engineer; if Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. Now the plague on the whole camp, or rather the pox; for that's a curse dependent on those that fight, as we do, for a cuckold's quean.—What, ho, my lord Achilles!

Enter PATROCLUS.

Patro. Who's there, Thersites? Good Thersites, come in and rail.

Thers. If I could have remembered an ass with gilt trappings, thou hadst not slipped out of my contemplation. But it is no matter: thyself upon thyself! the common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great abundance! Heavens bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee!—I have said my prayers; and the devil, Envy, say Amen. Where's Achilles?

Enter ACHILLES.

Achil. Who's there, Thersites? Why, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself to my table so many meals? Come, begin; what's Agamemnon?

Thers. Thy commander, Achilles.—Then tell me, Patroclus, what's Achilles?

Patro. Thy benefactor, Thersites. Then tell me, pr'ythee, what's thyself?

Thers. Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?

Patro. Thou mayest tell, that knowest.

Achil. O, tell, tell.—This must be very foolish; and I die to have my spleen tickled.

Thers. I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my benefactor; I am Patroclus's knower; and Patroclus is a fool.

Patro. You rascal!

Achil, He is a privileged man; proceed, Thersites. Ha, ha, ha! pr'ythee, proceed, while I am in the vein of laughing.

Thers. And all these foresaid men are fools. Agamemnon's a fool, to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool, to be commanded by him; I am a fool, to serve such a fool; and Patroclus is a fool positive.

Patro. Why am I a fool?

Thers. Make that demand to heaven; it suffices me, thou art one.

Acini. Ha, ha, ha! O give me ribs of steel, or I shall split with pleasure.—Now play me Nestor at a night alarm: mimick him rarely; make him cough and spit, and fumble with his gorget, and shake the rivets with his palsy hand, in and out, in and out; gad, that's exceeding foolish.

Patro. Nestor shall not escape so; he has told us what we are. Come, what's Nestor?

Thers. Why, he is an old wooden top, set up by father Time three hundred years ago, that hums to Agamemnon and Ulysses, and sleeps to all the world besides.

Achil. So let him sleep, for I'll no more of him.—O, my Patroclus, I but force a smile; Ajax has drawn the lot, and all the praise of Hector must be his.

Thers. I hope to see his praise upon his shoulders, in blows and bruises; his arms, thighs, and body, all full of fame, such fame as he gave me; and a wide hole at last full in his bosom, to let in day upon him, and discover the inside of a fool.

Patro. How he struts in expectation of honour! he knows not what he does.

Thers. Nay, that's no wonder, for he never did.

Achil. Pr'ythee, say how he behaves himself?

Thers. O, you would be learning to practise against such another time?—Why, he tosses up his head as he had built castles in the air; and he treads upward to them, stalks into the element; he surveys himself, as it were to look for Ajax: he would be cried, for he has lost himself; nay, he knows nobody; I said, "Good-morrow, Ajax," and he replied, "Thanks, Agamemnon."

Achil. Thou shalt be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Thers. No, I'll put on his person; let Patroclus make his demands to me, and you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

Achil. To him, Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the noble Hector to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for him from our captain general Agamemnon.

Patro. Jove bless the mighty Ajax!

Thers. Humh!

Patro. I come from the great Achilles.

Thers. Ha!

Patro. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent.

Thers. Humh!

Patro. And to procure him safe conduct from Agamemnon.