The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost

A drop of Grecian blood: The end crowns all;
And that old common arbitrator, time,

Will one day end it.

Ulys.

So to him we leave it.

Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome:
After the general, I beseech you next

To feast with me, and see me at my tent.

Achil. I shall forestall thee, lord Ulysses, then! 23

Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
I have with exact view perus'd thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.24

Hect.

Achil. I am Achilles.

Is this Achilles?

Hect. Stand fair, I pray thee: let me look on thee. Achil. Behold thy fill.

Hect.

Nay, I have done already.

Achil. Thou art too brief: I will the second time, As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

23 The old copies have thou, which Mr. Tyrwhitt thought should be though. Then is found in Mr. Collier's second folio.

H.

24 Quoted is observed, noted. — The incident of Achilles' viewing Hector "limb by limb" is narrated in Homer's twenty-second Book. We subjoin Chapman's version of the passage, though Shakespeare probably had not seen it when he wrote this play, as only the first nineteen Books of that version were published before 1611:

"His bright and sparkling eyes Look'd through the body of his foe, and sought through all that

prize

The next way to his thirsted life. Of all ways, only one Appear'd to him; and this was, where th' unequal winding bone, That joins the shoulders and the neck, had place, and where there

lay

The speeding way of death; and there his quick eye could dis

Hect. O! like a book of sport thou'lt read me

o'er ;

But there's more in me than thou understand'st.
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?
Achil. Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his
body

Shall I destroy him, whether there, there, or there?
That I may give the local wound a name,

And make distin.ct the very breach whereout Hector's great spirit flew: Answer me, heavens! Hect. It would discredit the bless'd gods, proud

man,

To answer such a question. Stand again :
Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly,
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?

Achil.

I tell thee, yea.

Hect. Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,

I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well,
For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
But, by the forge that stithied 25 Mars his helm,
I'll kill thee every where, yea, o'er and o'er.
You, wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag:
His insolence draws folly from my lips;

But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,
may I never

Or

Ajax.

Do not chafe thee, cousin :— And you, Achilles, let these threats alone, Till accident or purpose bring you to't : You may have every day enough of Hector, if you have stomach; the general state, I fear, Lan scarce intreat you to be odd with him.26

25 A stith is an anvil, a stithy a smith's shop, and hence the verb stithied is formed.

26 Ajax treats Achilles with contempt, and means to insinuate

Hect. I pray you, let us see you in the field: We have had pelting wars, 27 since you refus'd

The Grecians' cause.

Achil

To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;

T'o-night, all friends.

Hect.

Dost thou intreat me, Hector?

Thy hand upon that match.

Aga. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my

tent;

'There in the full convive we: 28

afterwards,

As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally intreat him.
Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.
[Exeunt all but TROILUS and ULYSSES.
Tro. My lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?
Ulys. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus:
There Diomed doth feast with him to-night;
Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

Tro. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much, After we part from Agamemnon's tent,

To bring me thither?

Ulys.
As gentle tell me, of what honour was

You shall command me, sir.

"You may every

that he was afraid of fighting with Hector. lay," says he, "have enough of Hector, if you have the incli nation; put I believe the whole state of Greece will scarcely prevail on you to be at odds with him, to contend with him."

27 That is, petty or paltry wars. See King Richard II., Act ii. sc. 1, note 8.

28 A convive is a feast. "The sitting of friends together at a table, our auncestors have well called convivium, a banket, because it is a living of men together."- Hutton.

This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there That wails her absence?

Tro. O, sir! to such as boasting show their scars, A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth : But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

The Grecian Camp. Before ACHILLES' Tent.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

Achil. I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to night,

Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.
Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

Patr. Here comes Thersites.

Enter THERSITES.

Achil

How now, thou core of envy!'

2

Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news? Ther. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest,

1 So in the folio; in the quarto, "cur of envy," which is a very suitable epithet of the snarling and biting Thersites, and is elsewhere applied to him. It seems uncertain which is the bett reading here. Of course "core of envy" is "heart of envy," and it has the advantage in variety, if in nothing else. H.

2 A batch is all that is baked at one time, without heating the oven afresh. So Ben Jonson in his Cataline: "Except he were of the same meal and batch."

and idol of idiot-worshippers, here's a letter for

thee.

Achil. From whence, fragment?

Ther. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy. Patr. Who keeps the tent now ?

3

Ther. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound. Patr. Well said, Adversity! and what need these tricks?

Ther. Pr'ythee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet.

Patr. Male varlet, you rogue! what's that?

Ther. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o'gravel i'the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i'the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivell'd fee-simple of the tetter take and take again such preposterous discoverers!

Patr. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus ?

Ther. Do I curse thee?

Patr. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

6

Ther. No? why art thou then exasperate, thou

3 In his answer Thersites quibbles upon the word tent.

4 Adversity is here used for contrariety; the reply of Tnersites having been studiously adverse to the drift of the question urged by Patroclus.

5 This expression is met with in Dekker's Honest Whore: "'Tis a male varlet, sure, my lord!" The person spoken of is Bellafronte, a harlot, who is introduced in boy's clothes. Manmistress is a term of reproach thrown out by Dorax, in Dryden's Don Sebastian.

• Patroclus reproaches Thersites with deformity, with having oue part crowded into another.