Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him

We come to speak with him: And you shall not sin, If you do say we think him over-proud,

And under-honest; in self-assumption greater

Than in the note of judgment; and worthier than himself

Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on;
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance; yea, watch
His pettish lines, his ebbs, his flows, as if
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide. Go, tell him this; and add,
That, if he overhold his price so much,

We'll none of him; but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report-

Bring action hither, this cannot go to war:

A stirring dwarf we do allowance give

Before a sleeping giant:-Tell him so.

Patr. I shall; and bring his answer presently. [Exit. Agam. In second voice we 'll not be satisfied,

We come to speak with him.-Ulysses, enter you.

Ajax. What is he more than another?

[Exit ULYSS.

Agam. No more than what he thinks he is.

Ajax. Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am?

Agam. No question.

Ajax. Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is? Agam. No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.

Ajax. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is.

Agam. Your mind's the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chro

nicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

Ajax. I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.

Nest. Yet he loves himself: Is 't not strange? [Aside.

Re-enter ULYSSES.

He doth rely on none;

Ulyss. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.
Agam. What's his excuse?
Ulyss.
But carries on the stream of his dispose,
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.

Agam. Why, will he not, upon our fair request,
Untent his person, and share the air with us?

Ulyss. Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
He makes important: Possess'd he is with greatness;
And speaks not to himself, but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath: imagin'd worth
Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse,
That, 'twixt his mental and his active parts,
Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,

And batters 'gainst itself. What should I say ?
He is so plaguy proud, that the death-tokens of it
Cry-" No recovery."

Agam.

Let Ajax go to him.-
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent :
"T is said, he holds you well; and will be led,
At your request, a little from himself.

Ulyss. O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles: Shall the proud lord,
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,
And never suffers matter of the world

Enter his thoughts,-save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself,-shall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol more than he?

No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,

By going to Achilles;

That were to enlard his fat-already pride;

And add more coals to Cancer, when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.

This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid;

And say in thunder-" Achilles go to him."
Nest. O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him. [Aside.
Dio. And how his silence drinks up this applause!

[Aside. Ajax. If I go to him, with my arm'd fist I'll pash him Over the face.

Agam. O, no, you shall not go.

Ajax. An a be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride: Let me go to him.

Ulyss. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel. Ajax. A paltry, insolent fellow !

Nest. How he describes himself!

[Aside.

[Aside.

Ajax. I'll let his humours blood.

Agam. He will be the physician, that should be the

patient.

[Aside.

Ajax. An all men were o' my mind!

Ulyss. Wit would be out of fashion.

[Aside.

Ajax. A should not bear it so, a should eat swords

first: Shall pride carry it?

Nest. An't would, you 'd carry half.

[Aside.

Ulyss. He would have ten shares.

Aside.

Ajax. I will knead him, I'll make him supple. Nest. He's not yet through warm: force him with praises: Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. [Aside. Ulyss. My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

[To AGAM.

Nest. Our noble general, do not do so.

Dio. You must prepare to fight without Achilles. Ulyss. Why, 't is this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man-But 't is before his face;

I will be silent.

Nest.

Wherefore should you so?

He is not emulous, as Achilles is.

Ulyss. Know the whole world, he is as valiant.
Ajax. A whoreson dog, that shall palter thus with
Would he were a Trojan!

us!

Nest. What a vice were it in Ajax now

Ulyss. If he were proud

Dio.

Or covetous of praise

Or strange, or self-affected!

Ulyss. Ay, or surly borne

Dio.

Ulyss. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet

composure;

Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck :
Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice-fam'd, beyond all erudition:

But he that disciplin'd thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and, for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield

To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts: Here's Nestor,-
Instructed by the antiquary times,

He must, he is, he cannot but be wise ;-
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax, and your brain so temper'd,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

Ajax.

Shall I call you father?

Ulyss. Ay, my good son.a

a In Shakspere's time it was the highest compliment to call a man whose wit or learning was reverenced, father. Ben Jonson had thus his sons.

Dio.

Be rul'd by him, lord Ajax.

Ulyss. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles

Keeps thicket. Please it our general

To call together all his state of war;

Fresh kings are come to Troy: To-morrow,
We must with all our main of power stand fast:
And here's a lord,-come knights from east to west,
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.
Agam. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep:
Light boats may sail swift, though greater bulks draw
[Exeunt.

deep.