THERSITES.
Now would I not fear with any bull to fight,
Or with a ramping lion, nother by day nor night.
Oh, what great strength is in my body so lusty,
Which for lack of exercise is now almost rusty.
Hercules in comparison to me was but a boy,
When the bandog Cerberus from hell he bare away:
When he killed the lion, hydra, and the boar[576] so wild.
Compare him to me, and he was but a child!
Why, Samson, I say, hast thou no more wit?
Wouldst thou be as strong as I? come, suck thy mother's teat!
Ween you that David, that little elfish boy,
Should with his sling have take my life away?
Nay, i-wis, Goliath, for all his five stones,
I would have quashed his little boyish bones.
Oh, how it would do my heart much good
To see some of the giants before Noe's flood!
I would make the knaves to cry crik,[577]
Or else with my club their brains I will break
But, Mulciber, yet I have not with thee do:
My head is armed, my neck I would have too;
And also my shoulders with some good habergin,
That the devil, if he shot at me, could not enter in.
For I am determined great battle to make,
Except my fumishness by some means may aslake.