may tutor thee: Thou scurvy valiant ass! thou art here put to thrash Trojans; and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit, like a Barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou! Ajax. You dog! Ther. You scurvy lord! Ajax. 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 so. 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 mater9 is not worth the this would be forsworn, and I again an asinego, as your sister left me." Steevens. Asinego is Portuguese for a little ass. Musgrave. And Dr. Musgrave might have added, that, in his native county, it is the vulgar name for an ass at present. Henley. The same term, as I am informed, is also current among the lower rank of people in Norfolk. Steevens. 71 sion: - thou art bought and sold -] This was a proverbial expres Malone. So, in King Richard III: "For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." Again, in King Henry VI, Part I: "From bought and sold lord Talbot." Steevens. 8 If thou use to beat me,] i. e. if thou continue to beat me, or make a practice of beating me. Steevens. his pia mater &c.] So, in Twelfth Night: ". 9 VOL. XII. here 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 say of him. Achil. What? Ther. I say, this Ajax. Achil. Nay, good Ajax. [AJAX offers to strike him, AсHIL. interposes. Ther. Has not so 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 damned cur! I shall Achil. Will you set your wit to a fool's? Ther. No, I warrant you; for a fool's will shame it. Patr. Good words, Thersites. Achi. 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 serve here voluntary. Achil. Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary;1 Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress. Ther. Even so?-a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector 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 Ulysses, and old Nestor,-whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their 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. 1 - is beaten voluntary:] i. e. voluntarily. Shakspeare often uses adjectives adverbially. See Vol. VIII, p. 302, n. 6. Malone. 2 Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; &c.] The same thought occurs in Cymbeline : not Hercules "Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none." Steevene toes,-yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up the wars. Achil. What, what? Ther. Yes, good sooth; To, Achilles! to, Ajax! to' Ajax. 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 ? 4 3 Nestor,-whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails-] [Old copies-their grandsires.] This is one of these edi. tors' wise riddles. What! was Nestor's wit mouldy before his grandsire's toes had any nails? Preposterous nonsense! and yet so easy a change as one poor pronoun for another, sets all right and clear. Theobald. 4— - when Achilles' brach bids me,] The folio and quarto read -Achilles brooch. Brooch is an appendant ornament. The 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 Christopher Hatton. Steevens. I believe brache to be the true reading. It certainly means a bitch, and not a dog, which renders the expression more abusive and offensive. Thersites calls Patroclus Achilles' brache, for the same reason that he afterwards calls him his male harlot, and his masculine whore. M. Mason. 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 lists 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, in 1772, 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: 66 -he is the brooch indeed So, in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 not the imperious show "Of the full fortun'd Cæsar, ever shall Achil. There's for you, Patroclus. Ther. I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. Patr. A good riddance. [Exit. Achil. Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host: That Hector, by the first hour of the sun, Achil. I know not, it is put to lottery; otherwise, Ajax. O, meaning you :-I'll go learn more of it. SCENE II. Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace. [Exeunt. Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and Pri. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, As honour, loss of time, travel, expence, Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd 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. 14, n. 9.] It is possible, however, that Shakspeare might have used the word as synonymous to follower, without any regard to sex. 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 Fests of George Peele, quarto, 1657: "This self-conceited brock, had George invited," &c. Malone. A brock, literally, means-a badger. Steevens. 5 the first] So the quarto. Folio-the fifth. Malone. 1 Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to 't? Dread Priam, There is no lady of more softer bowels, More spungy to suck in the sense of fear, More ready to cry out-Who knows what follows ?7 If we have lost so many tenths of ours, Tro. Fy, fy, my brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king, So great as our dread father, in a scale Of common ounces? will you with counters sum And buckle-in a waist most fathomless, With spans and inches so diminutive As fears and reasons? fy, for godly shame! Hel. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,1 7— Who knows what follows?] Who knows what ill consequences may follow from pursuing this or that course? Malone, many thousand dismes,] Disme, Fr. is the tithe, the tenth. So, in the Prologue to Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1554: 8 "The disme goeth to the battaile." Again, in Holinshed's Reign of King Richard 11:“ — so that there was levied, what of the disme, and by the devotion of the people," &c. Steevens. 9 The past-proportion of his infinite?] Thus read both the copies. The meaning is, that greatness to which no measure bears any pro portion. The modern editors silently give: The vast proportion 1 Johnson. though you bite se sharp at reasons, &c.] Here is a |