Before Achilles' tent. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS CALCHAS Now, princes, for the service I have done you, The advantage of the time prompts me aloud To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind That, through the sight I bear in things to love, I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession, Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself, From certain and possess'd conveniences, To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all That time, acquaintance, custom and condition Made tame and most familiar to my nature, And here, to do you service, am become As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste, To give me now a little benefit, Out of those many register'd in promise, Which, you say, live to come in my behalf. AGAMEMNON What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand. CALCHAS You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you--often have you thanks therefore--Desired my Cressid in right great exchange, Whom Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest in their affairs That their negotiations all must slack, Wanting his manage; and they will almost Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, In change of him: let him be sent, great princes, And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence Shall quite strike off all service I have done, In most accepted pain. AGAMEMNON Let Diomedes bear him, And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have What he requests of us. Good Diomed, Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready. DIOMEDES This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden Which I am proud to bear.
Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their tent ULYSSES Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent:
Please it our general to pass strangely by him, As if he were forgot; and, princes all, Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:
I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him:
If so, I have derision medicinable, To use between your strangeness and his pride, Which his own will shall have desire to drink:
It may be good: pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees. AGAMEMNON We'll execute your purpose, and put on A form of strangeness as we pass along:
So do each lord, and either greet him not, Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way. ACHILLES What, comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. AGAMEMNON What says Achilles? would he aught with us? NESTOR Would you, my lord, aught with the general? ACHILLES No. NESTOR Nothing, my lord. AGAMEMNON The better.
Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR ACHILLES Good day, good day. MENELAUS How do you? how do you?
Exit ACHILLES What, does the cuckold scorn me? AJAX How now, Patroclus! ACHILLES Good morrow, Ajax. AJAX Ha? ACHILLES Good morrow. AJAX Ay, and good next day too.
Exit ACHILLES What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles? PATROCLUS They pass by strangely: they were used to bend To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly as they used to creep To holy altars. ACHILLES What, am I poor of late?
'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune, Must fall out with men too: what the declined is He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer, And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honour, but honour for those honours That are without him, as place, riches, favour, Prizes of accident as oft as merit:
Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, The love that lean'd on them as slippery too, Do one pluck down another and together Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy At ample point all that I did possess, Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out Something not worth in me such rich beholding As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.
How now Ulysses! ULYSSES Now, great Thetis' son! ACHILLES What are you reading? ULYSSES A strange fellow here Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted, How much in having, or without or in, Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others Heat them and they retort that heat again To the first giver.' ACHILLES This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face The bearer knows not, but commends itself To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed Salutes each other with each other's form;
For speculation turns not to itself, Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all. ULYSSES I do not strain at the position,--It is familiar,--but at the author's drift;
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves That no man is the lord of any thing, Though in and of him there be much consisting, Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught Till he behold them form'd in the applause Where they're extended; who, like an arch, reverberates The voice again, or, like a gate of steel Fronting the sun, receives and renders back His figure and his heat. I was much wrapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately The unknown Ajax.
Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse, That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are Most abject in regard and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow--An act that very chance doth throw upon him--Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do, While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall, Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!