Before a sleeping giant :-Tell him so.
Patr. I shall; and bring his answer presently.

Agam. In second voice we'll not be satisfied, We come to speak with him.-Ulysses, enter.

[Exit.

[Exit ULYSSES. Ajax. What is he more than another?

Agam. No more than what he thinks he is. Ajax. Is he so much? Do you not think, he thinks himself a better man than I am?

Agam. No question.

Ajax. Will you subscribe his thought, and say-he is?

Agam. No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.

Ajax. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is.

Agam. Your mind's the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud, eats up

himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

Ajax. I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engen-. dering of toads.

Nest. And yet he loves himself: Is it not strange?

Re-enter ULYSSES,

[Aside.

Ulyss. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.
Agam. What's his excuse?

Ulyss.

He doth rely on none;

But carries on the stream of his dispose,
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.

Agam. Why will he not, upon our fair request, Untent his person, and share the air with us?

Ulyss. Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,

He makes important: Possess'd he is with greatness;
And speaks not to himself, but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath: imagin'd worth
Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse,
That, 'twixt his mental and his active parts,
Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,

And batters down himself: What should I say?
He is so plaguy proud, that the death tokens of it
Cry-No recovery.

Agam.

Let Ajax go to him,-
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent :
'Tis said, he holds you well; and will be led,
At your request, a little from himself.

Ulyss. O,Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes

When they go from Achilles : Shall the proud lord,
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam;7
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts,-save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself,-shall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol more than he?
No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,

7 Fat.

As amply titled as Achilles is,

By going to Achilles :

That were to enlard his fat-already pride;

And add more coals to Cancer,

when he burns

With entertaining great Hyperion.9

This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid ;

And say in thunder-Achilles, go to him.

Nest. O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him.

[Aside.

Dio. And how his silence drinks up this applause!

[Aside.

Ajax. If I go to him, with my arm'd fist I'll pash'

him

Over the face.

Agam. O, no, you shall not go.

Ajax. An he be proud with me, I'll pheeze2 his pride:

Let me go to him.

Ulyss. Not for the worth that hangs upon our

quarrel.

Ajar. A paltry, insolent fellow,

Nest.

Himself!

Ajax. Can he not be sociable?

Ulyss.

Chides blackness.

Ajax.

How he describes

[Aside.

The raven

[Aside.

I will let his humours blood.

Agam. He'll be physician, that should be the pa

tient.

[Aside.

8,9 The sign in the zodiac into which the sun enters June 21. "And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze." THOMSON.

He should eat swords first: Shall pride carry it?
Nest. An 'twould, you'd carry half.

Ulyss.

[Aside.

He'd have ten shares.

[Aside.

Ajax. I'll knead him, I will make him supple:Nest. He's not yet thorough warm: force3 him with praises :

Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. [Aside. Ulyss. My lord, you feed too much on this dislike. [To AGAMEMNON. Nest. O noble general, do not do so.

Dio. You must prepare to fight without Achilles. Ulyss. Why, 'tis this naming of him does him

harm.

Here is a man-But 'tis before his face;

I will be silent.

Nest.

Wherefore should you so?

He is not emulous, 4 as Achilles is.

Ulyss. Know the whole world, he is as valiant. Ajax. A whoreson dog, that shall palter' thus with

us!

Ulyss.

Ay, or surly borne?

Dio. Or strange, or self-affected?

Ulyss. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet

composure;

Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck:

Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice-fam'd, beyond all erudition:

But he that disciplin'd thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and, for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield

To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn,7 a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts: Here's Nestor,-
Instructed by the antiquary times,

He must, he is, he cannot but be wise ;

But pardon, father Nestor, were your days

As green as Ajax', and your brain so temper'd,

You should not have the eminence of him,

Ulyss. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles

Keeps thicket. Please it our great general

To call together all his state of war;

Fresh kings are come to Troy: To-morrow,
We must with all our main of power stand fast:
And here's a lord,-come knights from east to west,
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.