Act 3, Scene III - Page 2

not look'd on. I will lead the way.

ACHILLES
What, comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.

AGAMEMNON
What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

NESTOR
Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

ACHILLES
No.

NESTOR
Nothing, my lord.

AGAMEMNON
The better.

Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR

ACHILLES
Good day, good day.

MENELAUS
How do you? how do you?

Exit

ACHILLES
What, does the cuckold scorn me?

AJAX
How now, Patroclus!

ACHILLES
Good morrow, Ajax.

AJAX
Ha?

ACHILLES
Good morrow.

AJAX
Ay, and good next day too.

Exit

ACHILLES
What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

PATROCLUS
They pass by strangely: they were used to bend
To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly as they used to creep
To holy altars.

ACHILLES
What, am I poor of late?
'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too: what the declined is
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,
And not a man, for being simply man,
Hath any honour, but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:
Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess,
Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.
How now Ulysses!

ULYSSES
Now, great Thetis' son!

ACHILLES
What are you reading?

ULYSSES
A strange fellow here
Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without or in,
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.'

ACHILLES
This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself,
That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
Salutes each other with each other's form;
For speculation turns not to itself,