Pleasant dialogues and dramma's :: :: University of Virginia Library

Betwixt Thersites and Aglaia's Son
A sudden emulation is begun,
Which of them both (being dead) is now most faire.
The Morall shewes, In death alike we are.

The Dialogve.

Ner.
To end this new borne strife, Thersites see,
Here comes Menippus, he shal Vmpire be.
Prethee thou Cynick thy free censure tel,
Which of us two in beauty most excell.

Menip.
Resolve me first, Who are you that thus seeke
To make me judge?

Ner.
I Nereus the faire Greeke.

Thers.
Deform'd Thersites I.

Men.
But tell me now,
Which

Nireus was a young man amongst the Greekes who came to the warres of Troy, whose beauty and feature Homer in his Iliades mightily commended: to whom I referre such as desire to be more fully satisfied of him.

Nereus, which

Thersites, a mishapen and deformed Captaine in the Grecian Host, as crooked in minde as body, who bitterly railing against Achilles, he being mightily inraged against him, slue him with a blow under the eare; his deformity was so great, that from thence arose a Proverbe which hath continued even to this day, Thersite fœdior, asperst upon any stigmatick, and crooked fellow; you shall reade him fully described and characterd by Homer in his first and second booke of Iliads.

Thersites? for I vow
I cannot guesse.

Thers.
In this thou art o'recome,
Nereus: Menippus cannot give his doome,

139

We are so like. What though blinde Homer boast,
And stile thee fairest of the Grecian host?
What though my thin and unkemb'd scattered haire
Fell in long Elfe-locks from my scalpe, now bare?
Do not my living ouglinesse revile,
Death ranks us now together in one file.
Therefore to have this difference quickly ended,
Now iudge

Menippus was a Poet, and master to Cicero the famous Oratour: but by this personated by Lucian, is intended a Cynick Philosopher, dogged both in his behaviour and writings, in imitation of whom, Varro the Orator writ a Satyr, and intitled it Satyra Menippea. It is reported of him, that such money as he had hoorded together by usury and the like sordid meanes, was so deare unto him, that being robbed thereof, he grew into despaire, and miserably hanged himselfe. His whole life ye may reade described at large by Diogenes Laertius.

Menippus.

Ner.
Am not I descended
From Charopes and Aglaia, fam'd so far
'Bove all that came vnto the Trojan war,
For my rare beauty?

Menip.
But Nereus know,
None bring their beauty to these Vaults below.
Of the fine flesh thou bragst of, wormes have fed,
Leaving thee nought save bones, like us now dead.

Ner.
Aske Homer, of what fame Nereus was then,
And he will answer, The most faire of men;
Ascribing Beauties praise fully to mee.

Men.
Thou tellst me dreames: I iudge by what I see.
If amongst them that knew thee in those daies
Thou wert so famous, seeke from them thy praise.

Ner.
Am I not then the fair'st?

Menip.
Nor he, nor thou,
Nor any one that is amongst us now,
Can claime precedence: for equalitie
Reignes 'mongst the Dead.

Thers.
And that's enough for me.