Thomas Hill, The Art of Phisiognomie (London: Henry Denham for William Seres, 1571):

The auncient Poete Homere tooke vppon him liuely to describe that worthy Thersites, in comparing his maners and condicions to the notes seene on his body.

Desiderius Erasmus, in “The Saiynges of Philippvs Kyng of Macedonie,” in Apophthegmes (1531), trans. Nicholas Udall (London: Richard Grafton, 1542):

Thersites, was one of ye Grekes, and came emong the moo out of the countree of Aetolia vnto the battaill of Troye: a greate gentleman born, but the wurst of feacture, of shape and of fauoure, that possible might bee, and a veraye cowarde: Whom Homerus in his secounde volume of his werke, entitleed Ilias (that is, of the battaill of Troye) describeth bothe in woordes and sense, much lyke as foloeth: Emong all others, to Troye there came, An eiuill fauoured geaste, called by name Thersites, a pratleer bee ye sure, Without all facion, ende or measure. What soeuer came, in his foolishe brain, Out it should, wer it neuer so vain. In eche mannes bote, would he haue an ore, But no woorde, to good purpose, lesse or more: And without all maner, would he presume With kynges and princes, to cocke and fume. In feactes of armes, naught could he dooe, Nor had no more herte, then a gooce therunto. All the Grekes did hym, deride and mocke, And had hym, as their commen laughyng stocke. Squyn eyied he was, and looked nyne wayes. Lame of one leg, and hympyng all his dayes. Croump shouldreed, and shrunken so vngoodly, As though he had had but halfe a bodye. An hedde he had (at whiche to ieste and scoffe) Copped like a tankarde or a sugar lofe. With a bushe pendente, vndernethe his hatte, Three heares on a side, like a drouned ratte. And not long after his arriuall to Troye, for that he was so buisie of his toungue, so full of chattyng and pra   leyng with euery kynge and noble manne of the Grekes, Achilles beeyng moued with his saucynes and ymportunitee, vp & gaue hym suche a cuff on the eare, that he slewe hym out of hande, with a blowe of his fist. (179n)

Leonard Cox, The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke (London: Robert Redman, 1532): 

Homere in his Iliade describeth one  Thersites / that he was moost foule and euyll fauored of all the Grekes that came to the batayle of Troye / for he was both gogle eyed / and lame on the one legge / with croked and pynched shulders / and a longe pyked hede / balde in very many places. And besyde these fautes he was a great folysshe babler / and ryght foule mouthed / and ful of debate and stryfe / artynge alwayes agaynste the heddes and wyse men of the armye..

Thomas Elyot, Dictionary (London: Thomae Bertheleti, 1538): 

Thersites, was a prynce that came with the grekes to the syege of Troye, whyche in persone and condicyons was of all other moste defourmed.

Guglielmo Gratarolo, The Castel of Memorie (1553), trans. William Fulwood (London: Rouland Hall, 1562): 

We shoulde represent either the like by the like, or by yt contrary, or els by the proprietie therof….An example of the second is…yf I descrybe Thersites by Achilles, and the good for ye euyl: or the foule by the fayre. (“The seuenth Chapter treateth in fewe wordes of locall or artificiall Memorie”)

Ambrose Pare, Of the Generation of Man (1570), trans. Thomas Johnson, in The Workes of that Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey (London: Th: Cotes and R. Young, 1634): 

Those instruments of the soule are vitiated either in the first conformation, as when the forme or fashion of the head is sharpe upwards or piramydall, as was the head of Thersites, that lived in the time of the Trojan warre, and of Triboulet and Tonin, that lived in later yeares; or also by some casualty, as by the violent handling of the mydwife, who by compression, by reason that the scull is then tender and soft, hath caused the capacity of the ventricles that be under the braine to be too narrow for them. ("CHAP. XI. Of the life or soule," 895)