Shakespeare's Monologues

馃寵



Troilus and Cressida   ·III iii 259  · Verse
Thersites

Thersites. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

Achilles. How so?

Thersites. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so
prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he
raves in saying nothing.

Achilles. How can that be?

Thersites. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,鈥攁 stride
and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no
arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning:
bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should
say 'There were wit in this head, an 'twould out;'
and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire
in a flint, which will not show without knocking.
The man's undone forever; for if Hector break not his
neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself in
vain-glory. He knows not me: I said 'Good morrow,
Ajax;' and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think
you of this man that takes me for the general? He's
grown a very land-fish, language-less, a monster.
A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both
sides, like a leather jerkin.
馃憜 Click for a double-spaced PDF of this monologue
Tip Jar



Mastodon