Thersites

Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his helm: I would fain see them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling luxurious drab, of a sleeveless errand. A' the t' other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals, that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, 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 to-day; whereupon the Grecians began to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. 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:

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!

Hector

What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match?

Art thou of blood and honour?

Thersites

No, no, I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

Hector

I do believe thee: live.

Thersites

God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another: I would laugh at that miracle; yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'll seek them.