Troilus and Cressida • Paragraph 725
Stage 1 of 6

Read it through once

THERSITES. Why, a’ stalks up and down like a peacock—a 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, and ’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 for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i’ th’ combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. 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, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.