In the second scene, the heroes swagger across the stage one by one coming from the field, while Pandarus stands by and talks of each in a way to make of them diminutive patterns of militia colonels. Æneas, Antenor, Hector, Paris: "There's a brave man, niece;" "It does a man's heart good." That's Antenor, "And he's a man good enough;" but where is Troilus? "If he see me, you shall see him nod at me;" but see Hector, and, oh, "What hacks are on his helmet!--there be hacks!" His niece says, "Be those with swords?" "Swords? any thing:--an the devil come to him, it's all one, by God's lid;" but there's Troilus; look, niece, there's a man, "and his helm more hacked than Hector's." "Had I a sister were a Grace, or a daughter a Goddess, he should take his choice. Paris is dirt to him." Eh, Cressid, don't you take? So all these scenes pass with a mischievous innuendo pushed forward by the lackey sentences: "I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot." Thus it runs on like a nautical melodrama, or the rattling chaff of "Tom and Jerry," a stream on which the moral disgust of Thersites swims in full view. When Ajax appears, we are made aware in the first place, that he does not know his letters. He flies into a rage with Thersites because he refuses to read to him the proclamation of Hector's challenge, and they fling the vilest Billingsgate at each other, varied with fisticuffs. They try to outdo each other at a game of epithets. If one says, "Thou mongrel, beef-witted lord," the other says, "Toad-stool." "Porcupine," says one in a way to wither. "Scurvy-valiant ass," retorts the other. So in a later scene these phrases of invective remind us of Shakspeare: "Damnable box of envy;" "thou full dish of fool;" "thou idle, immaterial skein of sleeve silk;" "green sarcenet flap for a sore eye." This, flung at Patroclus, convinces us that the plain of Troy has shrunken to a dog-pit, and we give odds on Thersites. "To be a mule, a cat, a lizard, an owl, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus,--I would conspire against destiny. I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus." There is a long scene in which the prominent Trojans discuss the policy of returning Helen and getting entirely out of the scrape. Hector says, "Let her go,--any ten Trojans' lives are as dear to us as she; she is not worth what she doth cost the holding." This profit-and-loss view of the case is despised by the rest, especially by Troilus, who is the only consistent person in the play, and who is nobly contrived to keep alive for us the tradition of honor and manhood. Now Cassandra enters to bully like a fish-woman, with arms akimbo: "Our fire-brand brother, Paris, burns us all. Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen, and a woe: Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go."