Achil. Shall Ajax fight with Hector!

Patr. Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

Achil I fee my reputation is at stake; My fame is threwdly gor'd.

Patr. O then beware:

Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves.
Omiffion to do what is neceffary

Seals a coinmithion to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, fubtly taints
Even then when we fit idly in the fun.

Achil. Go call Therfites hither, fweet Patroclus;.
I'll fend the fool. to Ajax, and defire him
Tinvite the Trojan lords, after the combat,
To fee us here unarm'd. I have a woman's longing,
An appetite that I am fick withal,

To fee great Hector in the weeds of peace;
To talk with him, and to behold his vifage,

Ev'n to my full of view.- -A labour fav'd!!
Ther. A wonder!

Achil. What?

Ther. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

Achil. How fo?

Ther. He must fight fingly to-morrow with Hec tor, and is fo prophetically proud of an heroicall cudgelling, that he raves in faying nothing.

Achil How can that be?

Ther. Why, he talks up and down like a peacock, a ftride and a stand; ruminates like an hoitess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain, to set Ledown her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic negard, as who thould fay, there were wit in this. head, if 'twould out; and fo there is, but it lyes. as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not fhew without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' th' combar, le'll break 't himself in vain-glory. He knows

not me. I faid, Good-morrow, Ajax; and he replies, Thanks, Agamemnon What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land-fifh, language-lefs, a monster.. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both fides. like a leather jerkin.

Achil Thou must be my ambassador to him,. Therfi.es.

Ther Who, I?—why, he'll answer nobody; he profefles not anfwering; fpeaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in's arms I will put on his prefence: let Patroclus make his demands to me, you thall fee the pageant of Ajax.

Achil. To him Patroclus. Tell him, I humbly defire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm❜d to my tent, and to procure fafe conduct for his perfan of the magnanimous and moft illuftrious,. fix or seven times honour'd, captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, &c. Do this.

Patr. Jove blefs great Ajax !

Ther. Hum.

Patr. I come from the worthy Achilles.
Ther. Ha!

Patr. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent..

Ther. Hum

1

Patr. And to procure fafe conduct from Aga.

Ther. God be wi' you, with all my heart.

Patr. Your answer, Sir.

Ther If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will go one way or other; howsoever, he fhall pay for me ere he has me.

Patr. Your anfwer, Sir.

Ther. Fare ve well, with all my heart. 4

I

C

Achil. Why, but he is not in this tune. is he? Ther. No, but he's out o' tune thus. W.fat mu

fic will be in him, when Hector has knock'd out his brains, I know not; but, I am fure, none; unlefs the filer Apollo get his finews to make catlings on.

Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him ftraight.

Ther. Let me carry another to his horse; for that's the more capable creature

Achil. My mind is troubled like a fountain stirr'd, And I myself fee not the bottom of it.

ני

[Exit.. Ther Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an als at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than fuch a valiant ig[Exeunt,

norance.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

A Street in Troy.

Enter at one door, Æneas with a torch; at another, Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, and Diomedes the Grecian, with torches..

Paris.

SEE, ho! who is that there?

Dei. It is the Lord Eneas.

Ene. Is the Prince there in perfon? Had I fo good occasion to ly long,

As you, Prince Paris, nought but heav'nly bufinefa
Should rob my bed-mate of iny company.

Dio. That's my mind too. Good-morrow, Lord
Eneas.

Par Avaliant Greek, Æneas; take his hand.
Witness the process of your ipeech, wherein
You told, how Diomede a whole week, by days,
Did haunt you in the field.

Ene. Health to you, valiant Sir, T*། During all queftion of the gentle truce-s

ir. converse intercourse.

But when I meet you arm'd, as blaik defiancer
As heart can think, or courage execute.i

Die. The one and th' other Diomede embraces. Our bloods are now in calm, and fo, long health; But when contention and occafion meet,

By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life,"
With all my force, purluit atid policy.

Ene. And thou fialt hunt a lion, that will fy
With his face backward In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy Now, by Anchifes' life,
Welcome, indeed! by Venus' hand I swear,
No man alive can love in fuch a fort,

The thing he means to kill, more excellently.
Dio. We fympathize. Jove, let Æneas live,
If to my fword his fate be not the glory,
A thousand complete courfes of the fun :
But in mine exulous honour tet him die,
With every joint a wound, and that to-morrow.
Ene. We know each other well.

Dio. We do; and long to know each other worse. Par. This is the most defpightful, gentle greeting, The nobleft hateful love, that e'er I heard of. What business, Lord, fo early?--

Ene. I was fent for to the King; but why, I know not.

Par. His purpofe meets you; 'twas, to bring this Greek

}

To Calchas' houfe, and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Crellid.
Let's have your company; or, if you please,
Hafte there before. I conftantly do think,
Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge,
My brother Troilus lodges there to-night.
Roufe him, and give him note of our approach,
With the whole quality whereof; I fear
We fhall be much unwelcome.

Ene. That I affure you:

Troilus had rather 1 roy were borne to Greece, Than Creffid borne from Troy.

Par. There is no help;

The bitter difpofition of the time

Will have it fo. On, Lord, we'll follow you.

Ene. Good-morrow all

[Exit.

Par. And tell me, noble Diomede, tell me true, Ev'n in the foul of good found fellowship, Who in your thoughts merits fair Helen moft? Mylelf, or Menelaus?

Dio. Both alike.

He merits well to have her, that doth feek her,
Not making any fcruple of her foilure,
With fuch a heli of pain, and world of charge;
And you as well to keep her, that defend her,
Not palating the taste of her difhonour,
With fuch a coftly lofs of wealth and friends.
He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece *;
You, like a letcher, out of whorish loins
Are pleas'd to breed out your inheritors.
Both merits pois'd, each weighs no lefs nor more,
But he as he, which heavier for a whore t

Par. You are too bitter to your country-woman. Dio. She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris; For ev'ry false drop in her baudy veins

A Grecian's life hath funk; for every icruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight,

A Trojan hath been, flain. Since the could speak,
She hath not giv'n fo many good words breath,
As for her, Greeks and Trojans fuffer'd death.
Par. Fair Diomede, you do as chapmen do,
Difpraife the thing that you defire to buy:
But we in filence hold this virtue well;
We'll not commend what we intend to fell.
Here lyes our way.

[Exeunt.

* A tamed piece is a piece that hath been broached, and a part of it drawn out. Kevifal.

I believe the poet wrote each heavier for a whore. That is, each of you dragged down to run by your deftructive connection with a whole. It.