Ther. Thou shouldst strike him.

Ajax. Cobloaf!

Ther. He would pun7 thee into shivers with his

fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit.

Ajax. You whoreson cur!

Ther. Do, do.

Ajax. Thou stool for a witch!

8

[Beating him.

Ther, Ay, do do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows: an assinico may tutor thee: Thou scurvy valiant ass! thou art here put to thrash Trojans; and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit, like a Barbarian slave. If thou use? to beat me, I will

6 Cobloaf is perhaps equivalent to ill shapen lump. Minsheu says, a cob-loaf is a little loaf made with a round head, such as cob irons which support the fire.' The misshapen head of Thersites should be remembered, which may be what is here alluded to:-' Homer declaryng a very foolyshe and an haskarde fellow under the person of Thersytes, sayth, that he was streyte in the shulders, and cop-heeded lyke a gygge, and thyn heryd, full of scorfe and scalle.' Horman's Vulgaria, 1519, fo. 31.

7 i. e. pound; still in use provincially. The original word in Saxon is punian: it is used in Holland's translation of Pliny, b. xxviii. c. xii. punned altogether, and reduced into a liniment. So in Cogan's Haven of Health, to punne barley.' It is related of a Staffordshire servant of Miss Seward, that hearing his mistress knock with her foot to call up her attendant, he said Hark! madam is punning.' In the first edition of Florio's Italian Dictionary, pestare is to pound; but in the second edition, and in Torriano, it is to punne or pun. It is remarkable that pestare is used figuratively for to bang, to bebaste.

8 The commentators changed this word to asinego, and then erroneously affirm it to be Portuguese. It is evidently from the Spanish asnico, a young or little ass; a word indeed entirely similar in sound, and seems to have been adopted into our language to signify a silly ass, a stupid fellow. The Italians and French have several kindred terms with the same meaning. Shakspeare may have used the word for an ass driver, confounding it with asinaccio or asinaio; like the French gros-asnier, used to denote the most gross stupidity or folly.

9 i. e. if you accustom yourself, or make it a practice to beat me,'

begin at thy heel, and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou!

Ajax. You dog!

Ther. You scurvy lord!

Ajax. You cur!

[Beating him.

Ther. Mars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel;

do, do.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

Achil. Why, how now, Ajax? wherefore do you thus?

How now, Thersites? what's the matter, man?
Ther. You see him there, do you?
Achil. Ay; what's the matter?
Ther. Nay, look upon him.

Achil. So I do; What's the matter?
Ther. Nay, but regard him well.
Achil. Well, why I do so.

Ther. But yet you look not well upon him: for, whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax.

Achil. I know that, fool.

Ther. Ay, but that fool knows not himself.
Ajax. Therefore I beat thee.

Ther. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain, more than he has beat my bones : I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater 10 is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This, lord Achilles, Ajax,-who wears his wit in his belly, and his guts in his head,—I'll tell you what I say of him.

Achil. Nay, good Ajax.

[AJAX offers to strike him, ACHILLES interposes.

Ther. Has not so much wit

Achil. Nay, I must hold you.

Ther. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight.

Achil. Peace, fool!

Ther. I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there; that he; look you there. Ajax. O thou damned cur! I shall

Achil. Will you set your wit to a fool's?

Ther. No, I warrant you: for a fool's will shame it. Patr. Good words, Thersites.

Achil. What's the quarrel?

Ajax. I bade the vile owl, go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me. Ther. I serve thee not.

Ajax. Well, go to, go to.

Ther. I serve here voluntary 11.

Achil. Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary; Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

Ther. Even so?—a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains 12; a' were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

Achil. What, with me too, Thersites?

Ther. There's Ulysses, and old Nestor,-whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on 11 Voluntarily. Another instance of an adjective used adverbially.

12 The same thought occurs in Cymbeline: :

Not Hercules

Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none.'

their toes,-yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up

the wars.

Achil. What, what?

Ther. Yes, good sooth; To, Achilles! to, Ajax! to!

Ajax. I shall cut out your tongue.

Ther. 'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou, afterwards.

Patr. No more words, Thersites; peace.

Ther. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach 13 bids me, shall I?

Achil. There's for you, Patroclus.

Ther. I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools.

Patr. A good riddance.

[Exit.

Achil. Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:

That Hector, by the first hour of the sun,
Will, with a trumpet, 'twixt our tents and Troy,
To-morrow morning call some knight to arms,
That hath a stomach; and such a one, that dare
Maintain-I know not what; 'tis trash: Farewell.

Ajax. Farewell. Who shall answer him?
Achil. I know not, it is put to lottery: otherwise,
He knew his man.

Ajax. O, meaning you :—I'll go learn more of it. [Exeunt.

13 Both the old copies read brooch, which may be right; for we find monile and bulla in the dictionaries interpreted a bosse, an hart; a brooch, or jewell of a round compasse to hang about ones neck.' It has been observed that Thersites afterwards calls Patroclus Achilles's male harlot, and his masculine whore. The term brach was suggested by Rowe, and which later editors have continued in the text, has been already explained, it is a mannerly name for all hound-bitches.'

SCENE II.

Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace.

Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS.

Pri. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks; Deliver Helen, and all damage else— As honour, loss of time, travel, expense,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd In hot digestion of this cormorant war,

Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to't? Hect. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,

As far as toucheth my particular, yet,

Dread Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,

More spungy to suck in the sense of fear,

More ready to cry out- Who knows what follows1?
Than Hector is: The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes 2
Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
If we have lost so many tenths of ours,

To guard a thing not ours; not worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten;

What merit's in that reason, which denies
The yielding of her up?

1 Who knows what ill consequences may follow from pursuing this or that course?

2 Disme is properly tenths or tythes, but dismes is here used for tens.