courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.1

Patr. Achilles bids me say he is much sorry,
If any thing more than your sport and pleasure
Did move your greatness, and this noble state"
To call upon him; he hopes it is no other,
But, for your health and your digestion sake,
An after-dinner's breath.3

Agam.
Hear you, Patroclus;-
We are too well acquainted with these answers:
But his evasion, winged thus swift with scorn,
Cannot outfly our apprehensions.

Much attribute he hath; and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues—
Not virtuously on his own part beheld—
Do, in our eyes, begin to lose their gloss;
Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
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

4

Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on;
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite 5 in an observing kind

6

His humorous predominance; yea, watch
His pettish lunes, 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,

1 This was one of the errors of our old natural history.

2 This stately train.

3 i. e. exercise, relaxation.

4 i. e. attend upon the brutish, distant arrogance or rude haughtiness he

assumes.

5 To underwrite is synonymous with to subscribe, which is used by Shakspeare, in several places, for to yield, to submit.

6 Fitful lunacies. The quarto reads:

"His course and time, his ebbs and flows, and if
The passage and whole stream of his commencement
Rode on his tide."

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 allowance1 give
Before a sleeping giant:-Tell him so.

Patr. I shall; and bring his answer presently.

Agam. In second voice we'll not be satisfied; We come to speak with him-Ulysses, enter.

[Exit.

[Exit ULYSSES. Ajax. What is he more than another? 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 chronicle; 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. And yet he loves himself. Is it not strange?

Re-enter ULYSSES.

[Aside.

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.

1 Allowance is approbation.

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. Possessed he is with greatness;
And speaks not to himself, but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath; imagined worth
Holds in his blood such swollen and hot discourse,
That, 'twixt his mental and his active parts,
Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages,

And batters down himself. 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.
'Tis said, he holds you well; and will be led,
At your request, a little from himself.

1

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 worshipped Of that we hold an idol more than he? No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired; 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.

1 Seam is fat; the grease, fat, or tallow, of any animal; but chiefly applied to that of a hog.

Dio. And how his silence drinks up this applause!

[Aside.

Ajax. If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash

him

Over the face.

Agam.

O, no, you shall not go.

Ajax. An he be proud with me, I'll pheeze 2 his pride; Let me go to him.

Ulyss. Not for the worth that hangs upon our

Ajax.

How he describes

[Aside.

The raven

[Aside.

I will let his humors blood.3

Agam. He'll be the physician, that should be the

Ajax. He should not bear it so;

He should eat swords first. Shall pride carry it?

Nest. An 'twould, you'd carry half.

[Aside.

Ulyss.

He'd have ten shares.

[Aside.

Ajax. I'll knead him, I will make him supple :

1 Scyphus ei impactus est. Baret.

"He was pashed over the pate with a pot."

The word is used twice by Massinger in his Virgin Martyr; and Mr. Gifford has adduced an instance from Dryden: he justly observes, it is to be regretted that the word is now obsolete, as we have none that can adequately supply its place. To dash signifying to throw one thing with violence against another; to pash is to strike a thing with such force as to crush it to pieces.

2 See note on the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew.

3 There is a curious collection of Epigrams, Satires, &c. printed in 1600, with this quaint title:-"The Letting of Humors Blood in the Head Vaine." A small reimpression was made at Edinburgh in 1815, with a preface and notes by sir Walter Scott.

Nest. He's not yet thorough warm: force1 him with

praises:

[Aside.

Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.
Ulyss. My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

[To AGAMEMNON.

Nest. O noble general, do not do so.

Dio. You must prepare to fight without Achilles. Ulyss. Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man-But 'tis 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

us !

Ay, or surly borne !

Dio. Or covetous of praise!

Ulyss.

Dio. Or strange, or self-affected!

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

composure;

Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck:
Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature

Thrice-famed, beyond all erudition:

3

But he that disciplined thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and, for thy vigor,
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,

1 Force him, that is, stuff him (farcir, Fr.).
2 See the preceding scene.

3 The quarto reads:

"Thrice famed beyond all thy erudition." 4 i. e. yield his titles, his celebrity for strength.

VOL. V.

37