Of starveling length, flimsy and soft as down. 
Achilles and Ulysses had incurr’d 265
Most his aversion; them he never spared;
But now, imperial Agamemnon ’self
In piercing accents stridulous he charged
With foul reproach.  The Grecians with contempt
Listen’d, and indignation, while with voice 270
At highest pitch, he thus the monarch mock’d. 
What wouldst thou now?  Whereof is thy complaint
Now, Agamemnon?  Thou hast fill’d thy tents
With treasure, and the Grecians, when they take
A city, choose the loveliest girls for thee. 275
Is gold thy wish?  More gold?  A ransom brought
By some chief Trojan for his son’s release
Whom I, or other valiant Greek may bind? 
Or wouldst thou yet a virgin, one, by right
Another’s claim, but made by force thine own? 280
It was not well, great Sir, that thou shouldst bring
A plague on the Achaians, as of late. 
But come, my Grecian sisters, soldiers named
Unfitly, of a sex too soft for war,
Come, let us homeward:  let him here digest 285
What he shall gorge, alone; that he may learn
If our assistance profit him or not. 
For when he shamed Achilles, he disgraced
A Chief far worthier than himself, whose prize
He now withholds.  But tush,—­Achilles lacks 290
Himself the spirit of a man; no gall
Hath he within him, or his hand long since
Had stopp’d that mouth,[9] that it should scoff no more. 
Thus, mocking royal Agamemnon, spake
Thersites.  Instant starting to his side, 295
Noble Ulysses with indignant brows
Survey’d him, and him thus reproved severe. 
Thersites!  Railer!—­peace.  Think not thyself,
Although thus eloquent, alone exempt
From obligation not to slander Kings. 300
I deem thee most contemptible, the worst
Of Agamemnon’s followers to the war;
Presume not then to take the names revered
Of Sovereigns on thy sordid lips, to asperse
Their sacred character, and to appoint 305
The Greeks a time when they shall voyage home. 
How soon, how late, with what success at last
We shall return, we know not:  but because
Achaia’s heroes numerous spoils allot
To Agamemnon, Leader of the host, 310
Thou therefore from thy seat revilest the King. 
But mark me.  If I find thee, as even now,
Raving and foaming at the lips again,
May never man behold Ulysses’ head
On these my shoulders more, and may my son 315
Prove the begotten of another Sire,
If I not strip thee to that hide of thine
As bare as thou wast born, and whip thee hence
Home to thy galley, sniveling like a boy. 
He ceased, and with his sceptre on the back 320
And shoulders smote him.  Writhing to and fro,