Should think my life were in his power to give,
I will not rest, till, prostrate on the ground,
I make him, atheist-like, implore his breath
Of me, and not of heaven.

Troil. Then you'll refuse no more to fight?

Hect. Refuse! I'll not be hindered, brother. I'll through and through them, even their hindmost ranks,

Till I have found that large-sized boasting fool,
Who dares presume my life is in his gift.

Andr. Farewell, farewell; 'tis vain to strive with fate!

Cassandra's raging god inspires my breast
With truths that must be told, and not believed.
Look how he dies! look how his eyes turn pale!
Look how his blood bursts out at many vents!
Hark how Troy roars, how Hecuba cries out,
And widowed I fill all the streets with screams!
Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,
Like antiques meet, and tumble upon heaps!
And all cry, Hector, Hector's dead! Oh Hector!

[Exit. Hect. What sport will be, when we return at evening,

To laugh her out of countenance for her dreams! Troil. I have not quenched my eyes with dewy sleep this night;

But fiery fumes mount upward to my brains, And, when I breathe, methinks my nostrils hiss! I shall turn basilisk, and with my sight

Do my hands' work on Diomede this day.

Hect. To arms, to arms! the vanguards are engaged.

Let us not leave one man to guard the walls;
Both old and young, the coward and the brave,
Be summoned all, our utmost fate to try,

And as one body move, whose soul am I. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The Camp.

Alarm within. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, Soldiers.

Agam. Thus far the promise of the day is fair. Æneas rather loses ground than gains.

I saw him over-laboured, taking breath,
And leaning on his spear, behold our trenches,
Like a fierce lion looking up to toils,

Which yet he durst not leap.

Ulys. And therefore distant death does all the work;

The flights of whistling darts make brown the sky,
Whose clashing points strike fire, and gild the dusk;
Those, that reach home, from neither host are vain,
So thick the prease; so lusty are their arms,
That death seemed never sent with better will,
Nor was with less concernment entertained.

Enter NESTor.

Agam. Now, Nestor, what's the news?
Nest. I have descried

A cloud of dust, that mounts in pillars upwards,
Expanding as it travels to our camp;

And from the midst I heard a bursting shout,
That rent the heaven; as if all Troy were swarmed
And on the wing this way.

Menel. Let them come, let them come.

Agam. Where's great Achilles?

Ulys. Think not on Achilles,

Till Hector drag him from his tent to fight;
Which sure he will, for I have laid the train.

Nest. But young Patroclus leads his Myrmidons, And in their front, even in the face of Hector, Resolves to dare the Trojans.:

Agam. Haste, Ulysses, bid Ajax issue forth and second him.

Ulys. Oh noble general, let it not be so. Oppose not rage, while rage is in its force, But give it way awhile, and let it waste. The rising deluge is not stopt with dams; Those it o'erbears, and drowns the hopes of harvest: But, wisely managed, its divided strength Is sluiced in channels, and securely drained. First, let small parties dally with their fury; But when their force is spent and unsupplied, The residue with mounds may be restrained, And dry-shod we may pass the naked ford.

Enter THERSITES.

Thers. Ho, ho, ho!

Menel. Why dost thou laugh, unseasonable fool? Thers. Why, thou fool in season, cannot a man laugh, but thou thinkest he makes horns at thee? Thou prince of the herd, what hast thou to do with laughing? Tis the prerogative of a man, to laugh. Thou risibility without reason, thou subject of laughter, thou fool royal!

Ulys. But tell us the occasion of thy mirth?

Thers. Now a man asks me, I care not if I answer to my own kind.-Why, the enemies are broken into our trenches; fools like Menelaus fall by thousands, yet not a human soul departs on either side. Troilus and Ajax have almost beaten one another's heads off, but are both immortal for want of brains. Patroclus has killed Sarpedon, and Hector Patroclus, so there is a towardly springing fop gone off; he might have made a prince one day, but now he's nipt in the very bud and promise of a most prodigious coxcomb.

Agam. Bear off Patroclus' body to Achilles; Revenge will arm him now, and bring us aid,

The alarm sounds near, and shouts are driven upon

us,

As of a crowd confused in their retreat.

Ulys. Open your ranks, and make these madmen

way,

Then close again to charge upon their backs,
And quite consume the relics of the war.

[Exeunt all but THERSITES. Thers. What shoals of fools one battle sweeps away! How it purges families of younger brothers, highways of robbers, and cities of cuckold-makers! There is nothing like a pitched battle for these brisk addle-heads! Your physician is a pretty fellow, but his fees make him tedious, he rides not fast enough; the fools grow upon him, and their horse bodies are poison proof. Your pestilence is a quicker remedy, but it has not the grace to make distinction; it huddles up honest men and rogues together. But your battle has discretion; it picks out all the forward fools, and sowses them together into immortality. [Shouts and alarms within.] Plague upon these drums and trumpets! these sharp sauces of the war, to get fools an appetite to fighting! What do I among them? I shall be mistaken for some valiant ass, and die a martyr in a wrong religion.

[Here Grecians fly over the stage pursued by Trojans; one Trojan turns back upon THERSITES, who is flying too.

Troj. Turn, slave, and fight.

Thers. [turning.] What art thou?
Troj. A bastard son of Priam's.

Thers. I am a bastard too, I love bastards. I am bastard in body, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in every thing illegitimate. A bear will not fasten upon a bear; why should one bastard offend another! Let us part fair, like true sons of whores, and have the fear of our mothers before our eyes.

Troj. The devil take thee, coward.

[Exit Troj.

Thers. Now, would I were either invisible or invulnerable! These gods have a fine time on it; they can see and make mischief, and never feel it. [Clattering of swords at both doors; he runs each way, and meets the noise.

Now

A pox clatter you! I am compassed in. would I were that blockhead Ajax for a minute. Some sturdy Trojan will poach me up with a long pole! and then the rogues may kill one another at free cost, and have nobody left to laugh at them. Now destruction! now destruction!

Enter HECTOR and TROILUS driving in the Greeks. Hect. to Thers. Speak what part thou fightest on! Thers. I fight not at all; I am for neither side. Hect. Thou art a Greek; art thou a match for Hector?

Art thou of blood and honour?

Thers. No, I am a rascal, a scurvy railing knave, a very filthy rogue.

Hect. I do believe thee; live.

Thers. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me ; but the devil break thy neck for frighting me.

[Aside.

Troil. (returning.) What prisoner have you there? Hect. A gleaning of the war; a rogue, he says. Troil. Dispatch him, and away. [Going to kill him. Thers. Hold, hold!--what, is it no more but dispatch a man and away! I am in no such haste: I will not die for Greece; I hate Greece, and by my good will would never have been born there; I was mistaken into that country, and betrayed by my parents to be born there. And besides, I have a mortal enemy among the Grecians, one Diomede, a