Page 2910 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Scene IV IT

Alarum; excursions. Enter Thersites.

THERSITES
Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on That dissembling
abominable varlet Diomed has got that that same scurvy doting foolish young

knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, that
same young Trojan ass, that [5] loves the whore there, might send that
Greekish whore-masterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling
luxurious drab of a sleeveless errand. O’th’other side, the policy of those

crafty-swearing rascals − that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, [10]
and that same dog-fox, Ulysses − is not proved worth a blackberry. They set
me up in policy that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind,
Achilles; and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not

arm today; whereupon the Grecians begin to [15] proclaim barbarism, and
policy grows into an ill opinion.

Enter Diomedes and Troilus.
Soft! Here comes sleeve, and t’other.

TROILUS
Fly not, for shouldst thou take the river Styx,

I would swim after.

DIOMEDES
Thou dost miscall retire; [20]
I do not fly, but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.
Have at thee.

THERSITES
Hold thy whore, Grecian! Now for thy whore, Trojan! Now the sleeve, now the
sleeve! [25]
Exeunt Troilus and Diomedes, fighting.

Enter Hector.