The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between the two moist elements, Like Perseus' horse: Where's then the saucy boat, Doth valour's show, and valour's worth, divide Than by the tiger: but when the splitting wind And flies fled under shade, Why, then, the thing of courage, As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize, And with an accent tun'd in self-same key, Returns to chiding fortune. Ulyss. Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, In whom the tempers and the minds of all The which, most mighty for thy place and sway, [To Agamemnon. And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-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, hatch'd in silver, Should with a bond of air (strong as the axletree On which heaven rides,) knit all the Greekish ears To his experienc'd tongue,-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, Ulyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master, But for these instances. The specialty of rule hath been neglected: What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, 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 married calm of states Quite from their fixure? O, when degree is shak'd, The enterprize is sick! How could communities, And the rude son should strike his father dead: And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, And, last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, 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, 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 aukward 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 stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks, 'Tis like a chime a mending; with terms unsquar'd, Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd; Now play me, Nestor;-hem, and stroke thy beard, That's done;-as near as the extremest ends And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age In pleasure of my spleen. And in this fashion, Nest. And in the imitation of these twain (Whom, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns With an imperial voice,) many are infect. Ajax is grown self-will'd; and bears his head In such a rein, in full as proud a place As broad Achilles: keeps his tent like him; Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war, |