The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns...

The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns

The sinew and the forehand of our host,

Having his ear full of his airy fame,

Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent

Lies mocking our designs: with him Patroclus

Upon a lazy bed the livelong day

Breaks scurril jests;

And with ridiculous and awkward action,

Which, slanderer, he imitation calls,

He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,

Thy topless deputation he puts on,

And, like a strutting player, whose conceit

Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich

To hear the wooden dialogue and sound

'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,---

Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming

He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,

'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquared,

Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd

Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff

The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,

From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;

Cries 'Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just.

Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,

As he being drest to some oration.'

That's done, as near as the extremest ends

Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife:

Yet god Achilles still cries 'Excellent!

'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,

Arming to answer in a night alarm.'

And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age

Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and spit,

And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,

Shake in and out the rivet: and at this sport

Sir Valour dies; cries 'O, enough, Patroclus;

Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all

In pleasure of my spleen.' And in this fashion,

All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,

Severals and generals of grace exact,

Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,

Excitements to the field, or speech for truce,

Success or loss, what is or is not, serves

As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida, Act 1, Sc. 2