To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly as they us'd to creep
To holy altars.
"T is certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd 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, and 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 't is 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.—
ACHIL. What are you reading?
ULYSS.
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.
ACHIL.
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 oppos'd
Salutes each other with each other's form.
For speculation turns not to itself,
Till it hath travell'd, and is married there
Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all.
ULYSS. 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 anything,
(Though in and of him there is 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 are extended; which, 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 rapt 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,
O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
While others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is feasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!—why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder;
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
And great Troy shrinking.
ACHIL. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me
As misers do by beggars; neither gave to me
Good word, nor look: What, are my deeds forgot?
ULYSS. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;-
Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement for the abject rear,
O'errun and trampled on: Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:
For time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewell goes out sighing.
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,—
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might; and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent;
Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.
But 'gainst your privacy
The reasons are more potent and heroical: 'T is known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam's daughters.
The providence that 's in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold;
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps;
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles
There is a mystery (with whom relation
Durst never meddle) in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath, or pen, can give expressure to:
All the commerce that you have had with Troy,
As perfectly is ours, as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much,
To throw down Hector, than Polyxena:
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When fame shall in our islands sound her trump;
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,—
"Great Hector's sister did Achilles win;
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him."
Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak;
The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.
PATR. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this
They think, my little stomach to the war,
And your great love to me, restrains you thus:
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
PATR. Ay; and, perhaps, receive much honour by him. ACHIL. I see, my reputation is at stake;
My fame is shrewdly gor❜d.
Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
ACHIL. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus:
I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
To invite the Trojan lords after the combat,
To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,
To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full of view.
THER. A wonder!
ACHIL. What?
THER. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself. ACHIL. How so?
THER. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector; and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in saying nothing.
THER. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who would say, there were wit in this head, an 't would out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he 'll break it himself in vain glory. He knows not me: I said, "Goodmorrow, Ajax;" and he replies. "Thanks, Agamemnon."
|