AJAX. You dog! THER. You scurvy lord! Agax. You cur! [Beating him. THER. Mars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS. ACHIL. Why, how now, Ajax ? wherefore do you thus? How now, Thersites? what's the matter, man? THER. You see him there, do you ? ACHIL. Ay; what's the matter? THER. Nay, look upon him. ACHIL. So I do; What's the matter? THER. Nay, but regard him well. ACHIL. Well, why I do fo. THER. But yet you look not well upon him: for, whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax. ACHIL. I know that, fool. THER. Ay, but that fool knows not himself. THER. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobb'd his brain, more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia maters is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly, and his guts in his head, I'll tell you what I fay of him. 5 " - his pia mater &c.] So, in Twelfth Night: here comes one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater. The pia mater is a membrane that protects the substance of the brain. STEEVENS. ACHIL. What? THER. I say, this Ajax ACHIL. Nay, good Ajax. [AJAX offers to strike him, ACHILLES interposes. THER. Has not fo much wit ACHIL. Nay, I must hold you. THER. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight. ACHIL. Peace, fool! THER. I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there; that he; look you there. Ajax. O thou damn'd cur! I shall it. ACHIL. Will you set your wit to a fool's? THER. No, I warrant you; for a fool's will shame PATR. Good words, Thersites. ACHIL. What's the quarrel? AJAX. I bade the vile owl, go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me. THER. I serve thee not. AJAX. Well, go to, go to. THER. I ferve here voluntary. ACHIL. Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress. THER. Even so?-a great deal of your wit too lies in your finews, or else there be liars. Hector 6 - is beaten voluntary:] i. e. voluntarily. Shakspeare often uses adjectives adverbially. See Vol. VIII. p. 552, n. 5. MALONE. shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; " 'a were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel. ACHIL. What, with me too, Thersites? THER. There's Ulyffes, and old Neftor,-whose wit was mouldy ere your grandfires had nails on their toes,-yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up the wars. ACHIL. What, what? to! THER. Yes, good footh; To, Achilles! to, Ajax! Agax. I shall cut out your tongue. THER. 'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou, afterwards. PATR. No more words, Thersites; peace. THER. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall I? Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; &c.] The fame thought occurs in Cymbeline : 8 _ not Hercules "Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none." STEEVENS. Neftor, whose wit was mouldy ere your grandfires had nails] [Old copies their grandfires.] This is one of these editors' wife riddles. What! was Nestor's wit mouldy before his grandfire's toes had any nails ? Preposterous nonsense! and yet fo eafy a change, as one poor pronoun for another, fets all right and clear. THEOBALD. The 9 when Achilles' brach bids me,] The folio and quarto read,-Achilles' brooch. Brooch is an appendant ornament. meaning may be, equivalent to one of Achilles' hangers-on. JOHNSON. Brach I believe to be the true reading. He calls Patroclus, in contempt, Achilles's dog. So, in Timon of Athens : "When thou art Timon's dog" &c. A brooch was a cluster of gems affixed to a pin, and anciently worn in the hats of people of distinction. See the portrait of Sir Chriftopher Hatton. STEEVENS. ACHIL. There's for you, Patroclus. THER. I will fee you hang'd, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. [Exit. PATR. A good riddance. ACHIL. Marry, this, fir, is proclaim'd through all our hoft : I have little doubt of broch being the true reading as a term of contempt. The meaning of broche is well ascertained-a spit-a bodkin; which being formerly used in the ladies' dress, was adorned with jewels, and gold and silver ornaments. Hence in old lifts of jewels are found brotchets. I have a very magnificent one, which is figured and described by Pennant, in the second volume of his Tour to Scotland, p. 14, in which the spit or bodkin forms but a very small part of the whole. LORT.. Broch was properly a trinket with a pin affixed to it, and is consequently used by Shakspeare for an ornament in general. So, in Hamlet: he is the brooch indeed "And gem of all the nation." So, in Antony and Cleopatra : - not the imperious show But Thersites could not mean to compliment Patroclus, and therefore this cannot, I think, be the true reading.--Brach, which was introduced by Mr. Rowe, might serve well enough, but that it certainly meant a bitch. [See Vol. VI. p. 389, n. 2.] It is poffible however that Shakspeare might have used the word as fynonymous to follower, without any regard to fex. I have sometimes thought that the word intended might have been Achilles's brock, i. e. that over-weening conceited coxcomb, who attends upon Achilles. Our author has used this term of contempt in Twelfth Night: "Marry, hang thee, brock!" So, in The Jests of George Peele, quarto, 1657: "This felf-conceited brock had George invited," &c. MALONE. A brock, literally, means a badger. STEEVENS. That Hector, by the first hour of the fun, ACHIL. I know not, it is put to lottery; other wife, He knew his man. AJAX. O, meaning you :-I'll go learn more of it. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace. Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS. PRI. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Neftor from the Greeks; Deliver Helen, and all damage elfeAs honour, loss of time, travel, expence, Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is confum'd In hot digestion of this cormorant war,Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to't? HECT. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I, As far as toucheth my particular, yet, There is no lady of more fofter bowels, 8 - the first - So the quarto. Folio-the fifth MALONE. |