Act 2, Scene 3

The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES

[Enter THERSITES, solus.]
Thersites
1149 How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy
1150 fury? Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I
1151 rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that
1152 I could beat him, whilst he rail'd at me! 'Sfoot, I'll learn to
1153 conjure and raise devils, but I'll see some issue of my spiteful
1154 execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare engineer! If Troy be
1155 not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till
1156 they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus,
1157 forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose
1158 all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that
1159 little little less-than-little wit from them that they have!
1160 which short-arm'd ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce,
1161 it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without
1162 drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the
1163 vengeance on the whole camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan
1164 bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse depending on those
1165 that war for a placket. I have said my prayers; and devil Envy
1166 say 'Amen.' What ho! my Lord Achilles!
[Enter PATROCLUS.]
Patroclus
1167 Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.
Thersites
1168 If I could 'a rememb'red a gilt counterfeit, thou
1169 wouldst not have slipp'd out of my contemplation; but it is no
1170 matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly
1171 and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! Heaven bless thee from
1172 a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy
1173 direction till thy death. Then if she that lays thee out says
1174 thou art a fair corse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never
1175 shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where's Achilles?
Patroclus
1176 What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?
Thersites
1177 Ay, the heavens hear me!
Patroclus
1178 Amen.
[Enter ACHILLES.]
Achilles
1179 Who's there?
Patroclus
1180 Thersites, my lord.
Achilles
1181 Where, where? O, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my
1182 digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so
1183 many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon?
Thersites
1184 Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what's
1185 Achilles?
Patroclus
1186 Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what's
1187 Thersites?
Thersites
1188 Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art
1189 thou?
Patroclus
1190 Thou must tell that knowest.
Achilles
1191 O, tell, tell,
Thersites
1192 I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands
1193 Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus' knower; and
1194 Patroclus is a fool.
Patroclus
1195 You rascal!
Thersites
1196 Peace, fool! I have not done.
Achilles
1197 He is a privileg'd man. Proceed, Thersites.
Thersites
1198 Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a
1199 fool; and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.
Achilles
1200 Derive this; come.
Thersites
1201 Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a
1202 fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve
1203 such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive.
Patroclus
1204 Why am I a fool?
Thersites
1205 Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me thou
1206 art. Look you, who comes here?
Achilles
1207 Come, Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me,
1208 Thersites.
[Exit.]
Thersites
1209 Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery.
1210 All the argument is a whore and a cuckold-a good quarrel to draw
1211 emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on
1212 the subject, and war and lechery confound all! Exit
[Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, AJAX, and CALCHAS.]
Agamemnon
1213 Where is Achilles?
Patroclus
1214 Within his tent; but ill-dispos'd, my lord.
Agamemnon
1215 Let it be known to him that we are here.
1216 He shent our messengers; and we lay by
1217 Our appertainings, visiting of him.
1218 Let him be told so; lest, perchance, he think
1219 We dare not move the question of our place
1220 Or know not what we are.
Patroclus
1221 I shall say so to him.
[Exit.]
Ulysses
1222 We saw him at the opening of his tent.
1223 He is not sick.
Ajax
1224 Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it
1225 melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, 'tis
1226 pride. But why, why? Let him show us a cause. A word, my lord.
[Takes AGAMEMNON aside.]
Nestor
1227 What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?
Ulysses
1228 Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.
Nestor
1229 Who, Thersites?
Ulysses
1230 He.
Nestor
1231 Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument
Ulysses
1232 No; you see he is his argument that has his argument—
1233 Achilles.
Nestor
1234 All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their
1235 faction. But it was a strong composure a fool could disunite!
Ulysses
1236 The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.
[Re-enter PATROCLUS.]
Ulysses
1237 Here comes Patroclus.
Nestor
1238 No Achilles with him.
Ulysses
1239 The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs
1240 are legs for necessity, not for flexure.
Patroclus
1241 Achilles bids me say he is much sorry
1242 If any thing more than your sport and pleasure
1243 Did move your greatness and this noble state
1244 To call upon him; he hopes it is no other
1245 But for your health and your digestion sake,
1246 An after-dinner's breath.
Agamemnon
1247 Hear you, Patroclus.
1248 We are too well acquainted with these answers;
1249 But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn,
1250 Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
1251 Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
1252 Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues,
1253 Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
1254 Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss;
1255 Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
1256 Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him
1257 We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin
1258 If you do say we think him over-proud
1259 And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
1260 Than in the note of judgment; and worthier than himself
1261 Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
1262 Disguise the holy strength of their command,
1263 And underwrite in an observing kind
1264 His humorous predominance; yea, watch
1265 His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if
1266 The passage and whole carriage of this action
1267 Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and ad
1268 That if he overhold his price so much
1269 We'll none of him, but let him, like an engine
1270 Not portable, lie under this report:
1271 Bring action hither; this cannot go to war.
1272 A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
1273 Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.
Patroclus
1274 I shall, and bring his answer presently.
[Exit.]
Agamemnon
1275 In second voice we'll not be satisfied;
1276 We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.
[Exit ULYSSES.]
Ajax
1277 What is he more than another?
Agamemnon
1278 No more than what he thinks he is.
Ajax
1279 Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better
1280 man than I am?
Agamemnon
1281 No question.
Ajax
1282 Will you subscribe his thought and say he is?
Agamemnon
1283 No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise,
1284 no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.
Ajax
1285 Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not
1286 what pride is.
Agamemnon
1287 Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the
1288 fairer. He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass,
1289 his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself
1290 but in the deed devours the deed in the praise.
[Re-enter ULYSSES.]
Ajax
1291 I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend'ring of toads.
[Aside]
Nestor
1292 And yet he loves himself: is't not strange?
Ulysses
1293 Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.
Agamemnon
1294 What's his excuse?
Ulysses
1295 He doth rely on none;
1296 But carries on the stream of his dispose,
1297 Without observance or respect of any,
1298 In will peculiar and in self-admission.
Agamemnon
1299 Why will he not, upon our fair request,
1300 Untent his person and share the air with us?
Ulysses
1301 Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
1302 He makes important; possess'd he is with greatness,
1303 And speaks not to himself but with a pride
1304 That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin'd worth
1305 Holds in his blood such swol'n and hot discourse
1306 That 'twixt his mental and his active parts
1307 Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,
1308 And batters down himself. What should I say?
1309 He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it
1310 Cry 'No recovery.'
Agamemnon
1311 Let Ajax go to him.
1312 Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent.
1313 'Tis said he holds you well; and will be led
1314 At your request a little from himself.
Ulysses
1315 O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
1316 We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
1317 When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord
1318 That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
1319 And never suffers matter of the world
1320 Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve
1321 And ruminate himself—shall he be worshipp'd
1322 Of that we hold an idol more than he?
1323 No, this thrice-worthy and right valiant lord
1324 Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd,
1325 Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
1326 As amply titled as Achilles is,
1327 By going to Achilles.
1328 That were to enlard his fat-already pride,
1329 And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
1330 With entertaining great Hyperion.
1331 This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,
1332 And say in thunder 'Achilles go to him.'
[Aside.]
Nestor
1333 O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him.
[Aside.]
Diomedes
1334 And how his silence drinks up this applause!
Ajax
1335 If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the
1336 face.
Agamemnon
1337 O, no, you shall not go.
Ajax
1338 An 'a be proud with me I'll pheeze his pride.
1339 Let me go to him.
Ulysses
1340 Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.
Ajax
1341 A paltry, insolent fellow!
[Aside.]
Nestor
1342 How he describes himself!
Ajax
1343 Can he not be sociable?
[Aside.]
Ulysses
1344 The raven chides blackness.
Ajax
1345 I'll let his humours blood.
[Aside.]
Agamemnon
1346 He will be the physician that should be the patient.
Ajax
1347 An all men were a my mind—
[Aside.]
Ulysses
1348 Wit would be out of fashion.
Ajax
1349 'A should not bear it so, 'a should eat's words first.
1350 Shall pride carry it?
[Aside.]
Nestor
1351 An 'twould, you'd carry half.
[Aside.]
Ulysses
1352 'A would have ten shares.
Ajax
1353 I will knead him, I'll make him supple.
[Aside.]
Nestor
1354 He's not yet through warm. Force him with praises;
1355 pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.
[To AGAMEMNON.]
Ulysses
1356 My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.
Nestor
1357 Our noble general, do not do so.
Diomedes
1358 You must prepare to fight without Achilles.
Ulysses
1359 Why 'tis this naming of him does him harm.
1360 Here is a man-but 'tis before his face;
1361 I will be silent.
Nestor
1362 Wherefore should you so?
1363 He is not emulous, as Achilles is.
Ulysses
1364 Know the whole world, he is as valiant.
Ajax
1365 A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus!
1366 Would he were a Troyan!
Nestor
1367 What a vice were it in Ajax now—
Ulysses
1368 If he were proud.
Diomedes
1369 Or covetous of praise.
Ulysses
1370 Ay, or surly borne.
Diomedes
1371 Or strange, or self-affected.
Ulysses
1372 Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure
1373 Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck;
1374 Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
1375 Thrice-fam'd beyond, beyond all erudition;
1376 But he that disciplin'd thine arms to fight—
1377 Let Mars divide eternity in twain
1378 And give him half; and, for thy vigour,
1379 Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
1380 To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
1381 Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
1382 Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here's Nestor,
1383 Instructed by the antiquary times—
1384 He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;
1385 But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
1386 As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd,
1387 You should not have the eminence of him,
1388 But be as Ajax.
Ajax
1389 Shall I call you father?
Nestor
1390 Ay, my good son.
Diomedes
1391 Be rul'd by him, Lord Ajax.
Ulysses
1392 There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
1393 Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
1394 To call together all his state of war;
1395 Fresh kings are come to Troy. To-morrow
1396 We must with all our main of power stand fast;
1397 And here's a lord—come knights from east to west
1398 And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.
Agamemnon
1399 Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.
1400 Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1149classical allusion
“lost in the labyrinth of thy fury”
Thersites compares his own rage to being trapped in the Labyrinth — the famous Cretan maze, built by Daedalus, from which escape was impossible without the thread Ariadne gave Theseus. He is so consumed by fury at Ajax's beating that he cannot find his way out of his own anger.
TLN 1150cultural context
“elephant Ajax carry it thus”
'Carry it' means 'win the day' or 'have it all his own way.' Thersites likens Ajax to an elephant — a byword for immense brute strength and slow wit — to sneer at his power over him. The elephant was proverbially obstinate and unable to kneel or bend, making it a natural image for Ajax's unyielding, unsubtle force.
TLN 1152historical topical
“learn to conjure and raise devils”
Thersites threatens to learn black magic — conjuring demons from Hell — because mere words and curses are not working. To 'conjure' meant to compel spirits or devils through ritual and spoken formulas. It is a black-comic boast: if railing and prayer cannot hurt Ajax and Achilles, perhaps summoning the devil will.
TLN 1156classical allusion
“great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus”
Thersites mockingly prays to the two supreme Olympian gods. Jove (Jupiter, king of the gods) wielded a thunderbolt and was called the 'thunder-darter'; Mercury was the messenger of the gods, whose staff — the caduceus, a wand entwined with serpents — gave him power over sleep and death and was the emblem of his cunning. Thersites's absurd request is that both gods destroy their defining powers, just as Ajax and Achilles have destroyed theirs.
TLN 1163historical topical
“the Neapolitan bone-ache”
Thersites curses the whole Greek camp with 'the Neapolitan bone-ache' — a contemporary name for syphilis. The disease was called 'Neapolitan' because it became widely recognised in Italy during the French siege of Naples in 1494-95, and spread rapidly across Europe thereafter. It was associated with sexual licence, making the curse grimly appropriate for a war Thersites reduces to 'a whore and a cuckold.'
TLN 1168archaic vocab
“If I could 'a rememb'red a gilt counterfeit”
A 'gilt counterfeit' is a forged, gold-plated coin — shiny on the outside, base metal underneath. Thersites is insulting Patroclus: had he remembered a counterfeit coin in time (slippery, worth nothing, only looked like gold), he would have thought of Patroclus — because Patroclus, like the fake coin, has fine appearance but no substance. The insult 'slipp'd out of my contemplation' completes the pun: counterfeit coins were prone to 'slipping' from memory or value.
TLN 1175archaic vocab
“shrouded any but lazars”
A 'lazar' is a person suffering from leprosy — from the biblical Lazarus, the sore-covered beggar in Jesus's parable. Thersites's 'curse' on Patroclus ends with the wish that if anyone says Patroclus's corpse is a 'fair corse' (good-looking body), she can only have dressed the dead bodies of lepers. It is a roundabout way of calling Patroclus hideous: only someone who had never seen anything better than a rotting leper would call him handsome.
TLN 1181archaic vocab
“my cheese, my digestion”
Achilles greets Thersites with a food metaphor that is also a put-down: 'my cheese, my digestion' means 'my sharpener, my stomach-aid.' Cheese was served at the end of a meal because it was thought to help digestion; Thersites serves that same function for Achilles — a bitter, sharp thing that aids mental digestion, helping him process and mock the world around him. The warmth is real, but the compliment still reduces Thersites to a bodily function.
TLN 1192wordplay
“I'll decline the whole question”
'Decline' here is a grammar pun: in Latin and Greek grammar, to 'decline' a noun is to run through its cases — nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and so on. Thersites promises to 'decline' the question of who everyone is — and then proceeds to do exactly that, listing Agamemnon, Achilles, Thersites, and Patroclus in a descending chain, each one defined by relation to the next. The joke is that a grammatical exercise doubles as a social analysis.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 1197historical topical
“He is a privileg'd man”
A 'privileged man' was someone who held an official licence to speak freely — specifically, a licensed fool or jester, whose frank speech was protected by their role. Achilles is placing Thersites in the tradition of the court jester: fools were paid to insult their masters, and no one could take offence because the jester's 'privilege' exempted him from normal social rules.
TLN 1209archaic vocab
“such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery”
'Patchery' means bungling, botched work, or dishonest trickery — from 'patcher,' someone who patches things sloppily together. 'Juggling' in Elizabethan English meant cheating or deceptive trickery (not performing juggling tricks with balls). Thersites is summing up the entire Greek political scheming he has witnessed — Achilles's refusal, Ulysses's maneuvering, Ajax's manipulation — as a mass of botched fraud.
TLN 1210cultural context
“All the argument is a whore and a cuckold”
Thersites reduces the entire Trojan War to a simple equation: 'a whore and a cuckold.' The 'whore' is Helen (who left Menelaus for Paris, and who Thersites regards as sexually available), and the 'cuckold' is Menelaus (the husband whose wife has slept with another man — a 'cuckold' in Elizabethan slang, said to grow invisible horns). Thersites means: the grand military cause that has kept armies at Troy for years is nothing but jealousy over a faithless woman.
classical The Greek and Trojan heroes
TLN 1211archaic vocab
“Now the dry serpigo on the subject”
'Serpigo' is a medical term for a creeping skin disease — from Latin serpere, to creep — used for ringworm, herpes, or any spreading skin eruption. Thersites is calling down a skin disease on 'the subject' of the whole war (meaning the matter of the quarrel itself, or the men conducting it). Paired with the 'Neapolitan bone-ache' and the diseases in Pandarus's Epilogue, it makes disease Thersites's standard curse and the play's governing metaphor for moral corruption.
TLN 1216archaic vocab
“He shent our messengers; and we lay by our appertainings”
'Shent' is the past tense of 'shend,' an archaic verb meaning to shame, rebuke, or disgrace — Achilles turned the generals' messengers away with contempt. 'Appertainings' are the attributes of rank and dignity — the things that belong to (appertain to) their high offices as commanders. Agamemnon is saying they humbled themselves by personally visiting Achilles, setting aside the formalities of command, and he still refused to come out.
TLN 1239cultural context
“The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure”
Ulysses uses an Elizabethan natural-history belief to mock Achilles: elephants were commonly thought to have no knee-joints and therefore could not kneel or bow. 'Flexure' means bending. Because Achilles will not come out and bow to the generals (will not 'flex'), Ulysses compares him to an elephant — all brute function, no capacity for courtesy.
TLN 1264archaic vocab
“His humorous predominance; yea, watch his pettish lunes”
Agamemnon is describing Achilles's mood-driven behaviour. 'Humorous' means governed by his humours — the four bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) that Elizabethan medicine believed controlled temperament and mood. 'Predominance' means whichever humour is currently ruling him. 'Pettish lunes' are petty fits of lunacy — 'lune' is a moon-derived word for a sudden mad outburst (the moon, luna, was thought to cause madness).
TLN 1309historical topical
“the death tokens of it cry 'No recovery'”
'Death tokens' are the spots that appeared on the skin of plague victims — the blotches or 'tokens' that told the physician the patient was past saving. Ulysses is saying Achilles's pride has advanced so far that its symptoms, like the plague tokens, declare 'no recovery' — he is terminally infected with self-regard. It extends the disease imagery running through the scene from Thersites's bone-ache onward.
TLN 1333archaic vocab
“He rubs the vein of him”
Nestor's aside means Ulysses is working on Ajax exactly right — 'rubbing the vein' means finding and stimulating the characteristic streak or disposition in a person, as a miner finds and follows a vein of ore. Ulysses has correctly identified Ajax's pride and is working it: by praising Ajax extravagantly and refusing to send him to Achilles, he massages Ajax's vanity to precisely the pitch needed.
TLN 1344rhetorical device
“The raven chides blackness”
Ulysses's aside is a proverb: a raven (which is entirely black) scolding something for being black is absurd, since it is the same colour itself. Ajax has just called Achilles 'a paltry, insolent fellow' and 'can he not be sociable?' — while being himself the most paltry, insolent, and unsociable man in the scene. The proverb is the play's driest irony: Ajax condemning in Achilles the exact vices he himself embodies.
TLN 1379classical allusion
“Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield to sinewy Ajax”
Milo of Croton was the most celebrated strong man of ancient Greece — a wrestler who won six Olympic championships and was famous for carrying a full-grown bull on his shoulders. 'His addition' means his title or the honour attached to his name. Ulysses says even Milo's fame for strength should yield to Ajax: no praise for physical power is too great. This is extravagant flattery designed to sting Achilles.
TLN 1392rhetorical device
“the hart Achilles keeps thicket”
Ulysses ends his speech with a hunting metaphor: Achilles is a 'hart' (a male deer, especially one over five years old) that 'keeps thicket' — hides in the undergrowth. A hart that won't come out into the open cannot be hunted. The image undercuts Achilles's self-image as a great warrior: instead of a lion or eagle, he is a prey animal hiding in the bushes.
classical Achilles, Patroclus, and the wrath of Achilles