THERSITES.
Thersites cometh in, first having a club upon his neck.[571]
Have in a ruffler forth of the Greek land,
Called Thersites, if ye will me know:
Aback, give me room, in my way do ye not stand;
For if ye do, I will soon lay you low.
In Homer of my acts ye have read, I trow:
Neither Agamemnon nor Ulysses I spared to check:
They could not bring me to be at their beck.
Of late from the Siege of Troy I returned,
Where all my harness except this club I lost.
In an old house there it was quite burned,
While I was preparing victuals for the host.
I must needs get me new, whatsoever it cost;
I will go seek adventures, for I can not be idle;
I will hamper some of the knaves in a bridle.
It grieveth me to hear how the knaves do brag;
But by supreme Jupiter, when I am harnessed well,
I shall make the dasters[572] to renne[573] into a bag,
To hide them fro me as fro the devil of hell,
I doubt not but hereafter of me ye shall hear tell:
How I have made the knaves for to play couch-quail.
But now to the shop of Mulciber to go I will not fail.
[Mulciber must have a shop made in the place, and Thersites cometh before it saying aloud:
Mulciber, whom the poets doth call the god of fire,
Smith unto Jupiter, king over all:
Come forth of thy office, I thee desire,
And grant me my petition, I ask a thing but small.
I will none of thy lightning, that thou art wont to make
For the gods supernal, for ire when they do shake;
With which they thrust the giants down to hell
That were at a convention heaven to buy and sell.
But I would have some help of Lemnos and Ithalia,[574]
That of their steel by thy craft condatur mihi galea.