TROILUS & CRESSIDA. William Shakespeare

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       He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,

       Thy topless deputation he puts on;

       And like a strutting player whose conceit

       Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich

       To hear the wooden dialogue and sound

       ‘Twixt his stretch’d footing and the scaffoldage—

       Such to-be-pitied and o’er-wrested seeming

       He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks

       ‘Tis like a chime amending; with terms unsquar’d,

       Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp’d,

       Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff

       The large Achilles, on his press’d bed lolling,

       From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;

       Cries ‘Excellent! ‘tis Agamemnon just.

       Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,

       As he being drest to some oration.’

       That’s done—as near as the extremest ends

       Of parallels, as like Vulcan and his wife;

       Yet god Achilles still cries ‘Excellent!

       ‘Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,

       Arming to answer in a night alarm.’

       And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age

       Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit

       And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,

       Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport

       Sir Valour dies; cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus;

       Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all

       In pleasure of my spleen.’ And in this fashion

       All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,

       Severals and generals of grace exact,

       Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,

       Excitements to the field or speech for truce,

       Success or loss, what is or is not, serves

       As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

       NESTOR.

       And in the imitation of these twain—

       Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns

       With an imperial voice—many are infect.

       Ajax is grown self-will’d and bears his head

       In such a rein, in full as proud a place

       As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;

       Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war

       Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,

       A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint,

       To match us in comparisons with dirt,

       To weaken and discredit our exposure,

       How rank soever rounded in with danger.

       ULYSSES.

       They tax our policy and call it cowardice,

       Count wisdom as no member of the war,

       Forestall prescience, and esteem no act

       But that of hand. The still and mental parts

       That do contrive how many hands shall strike

       When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure

       Of their observant toil, the enemies’ weight—

       Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity:

       They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet-war;

       So that the ram that batters down the wall,

       For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,

       They place before his hand that made the engine,

       Or those that with the fineness of their souls

       By reason guide his execution.

       NESTOR.

       Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse

       Makes many Thetis’ sons.

       [Tucket.]

       AGAMEMNON.

       What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.

       MENELAUS.

       From Troy.

       [Enter AENEAS.]

       AGAMEMNON.

       What would you fore our tent?

       AENEAS.

       Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

       AGAMEMNON.

       Even this.

       AENEAS.

       May one that is a herald and a prince

       Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?

       AGAMEMNON.

       With surety stronger than Achilles’ an

       Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice

       Call Agamemnon head and general.

       AENEAS.

       Fair leave and large security. How may

       A stranger to those most imperial looks

       Know them from eyes of other mortals?

       AGAMEMNON.

       How?

       AENEAS.

       Ay;

       I ask, that I might waken reverence,

       And bid the cheek be ready with a blush

       Modest as Morning when she coldly eyes

       The youthful Phoebus.

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