And that unbodied figure of the thought

That gave't surmised shape. Why, then, you princes, Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works;

And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought else But the protractive trials of great Jove,

To find persistive constancy in men?

The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune's love; for then, the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined' and kin;
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass, or matter, by itself
Lies rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat,2
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply 3

Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance

Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow, bawble boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk.;

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold

The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between the two moist elements,

Like Perseus' horse. Where's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak, untimbered sides but even now

Co-rivaled greatness? either to harbor fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so

1 Joined by affinity.

2 The throne.

3 To apply, here, is used for to bend the mind, or attend particularly to Agamemnon's words.

4 Pegasus was, strictly speaking, Bellerophon's horse; but Shakspeare followed the Old Troy Book. "Of the blood that issued out [from Medusa's head] there engendered Pegasus or the flying horse. By the flying horse that was engendered of the blood issued from her head, is under stood that of her riches issuing of that realme he [Perseus] founded, and made a ship named Pegase, and this ship was likened unto an horse flying," &c. In another place we are told that this ship, which the writer always calls Perseus' flying horse," flew on the sea like unto a bird."-Destruction of Troy, 4to, 1617, p. 155–164.

Doth valor's show, and valor's worth, divide

In storms of fortune; for, in her ray and brightness, The herd hath more annoyance by the brize,'

1

Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under shade, why, then, the thing of

courage,

As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And, with an accent tuned in self-same key,
Returns to chiding fortune.2

Ulyss.

Agamemnon,-
Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit,
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up,-hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides the applause and approbation

The which,-most mighty for thy place and sway,-
[To AGAMEMNON.
And thou, most reverend for thy stretched-out life,—
[TO NESTOR.
I give to both your speeches,-which were such,
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again,
As venerable Nestor, hatched in silver,

Should with a bond of air (strong as the axletree
On which heaven rides) knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienced tongue,3-yet let it please both,-
Thou great, and wise,-to hear Ulysses speak.
Agam. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be't of less
expect

That matter needless, of importless burden,

1 The gadfly that stings cattle.

2 i. e. replies to noisy or clamorous fortune.

3 Ulysses evidently means to say that Agamemnon's speech should be writ in brass; and that venerable Nestor, with his silver hairs, by his speech should rivet the attention of all Greece. The phrase hatched in silver, is a simile borrowed from the art of design; to hatch being to fill a design with a number of consecutive fine lines; and to hatch in silver was a design inlaid with lines of silver. The lines of the graver on a plate of metal are still called hatchings. Hence, hatched in silver, for silver-haired or gray-haired.

Expect for expectation.

Divide thy lips; than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastiff jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

Ulyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lacked a master, But for these instances.

The specialty of rule1 hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive,
To whom the foragers shall all repair,

What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,

And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets,
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,

What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny?
What raging of the sea? shaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married3 calm of states

Quite from their fixture? O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,

The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commérce from dividable" shores,

The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

1 The particular rights of supreme authority.

2 i. e. this globe.

3 The epithet married denotes an intimate union.

4 Confraternities, corporations, companies.

5 The termination ble is often thus used by Shakspeare for ed.

But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe.
Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead.
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong,
(Between whose endless jar justice resides,)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,

And, last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.

And this neglection' of degree it is,

2

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdained
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation;

And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.
Nest. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discovered
The fever whereof all our power is sick.

Agam. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy?

Ulyss. The great Achilles,-whom opinion crowns The sinew and the forehand of our host,Having his ear full of his airy fame,

1 This uncommon word occurs again in Pericles, 1609.

2 "That goes backward step by step, with a design in each man to aggrandize himself by slighting his immediate superior."

Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent

Lies mocking our designs. With him, Patroclus,
Upon a lazy bed the livelong day

Breaks scurril jests;

And with ridiculous and awkward action,

(Which, slanderer, he imitation calls,)

He pageants us.

Sometime, great Agamemnon,

Thy topless' deputation he puts on;

And, like a strutting player,-whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
"Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage,
Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming 2
He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,
'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquared,'
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropped,
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his pressed bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
Cries-Excellent!-'tis Agamemnon just.

Now play me Nestor ;-hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he, being dressed to some oration.

That's done;-as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels; as like as Vulcan and his wife;
Yet good Achilles still cries, Excellent!

'Tis Nestor right! Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm.

4

And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and spit,
And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet ;-and at this sport
Sir Valor dies; cries, O!-enough, Patroclus ;-
Or give me ribs of steel; I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen. And in this fashion,
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,5

1 Supreme, sovereign.

2 i. e. overstrained, wrested beyond true semblance.
3 i. e. unsuited, unfitted.

4 Paralytic fumbling.

5 Grace exact seems to mean decorous habits.