Like Perseus’ horse. Where’s then the saucy boat
Whose weak untimbered sides but even now
Co-rivalled greatness? Either to harbour fled
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
45
Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide
In storms of fortune. For in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks
50
And flies flee under shade, why then the thing of courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in selfsame key
Retorts to chiding fortune.
ULYSSES Agamemnon,
Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
55
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 th’applause and approbation
The which, [to Agamemnon] most mighty for thy
place and sway,
60
[to Nestor] And thou most reverend for thy
stretched-out life,
I give to both your speeches, which were such
As, Agamemnon, every hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatched in silver,
65
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axletree
On which the heavens ride, knit all Greeks’ ears
To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.
AGAMEMNON
Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be’t of less expect
70
That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips, than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,
We shall hear music, wit and oracle.
ULYSSES Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
75
And the great Hector’s sword had lacked a master,
But for these instances:
The specialty of rule hath been neglected;
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
80
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
Th’unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
85
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
90
Amidst the other, whose med’cinable 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,
95
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
100
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
105
The primogeneity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets
110
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;
115
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 everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
120
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,
125
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward in a purpose
It hath to climb. The general’s disdained
By him one step below, he by the next,
130
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,
135
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength.
NESTOR Most wisely hath Ulysses here discovered
The fever whereof all our power is sick.
AGAMEMNON
The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,
140
What is the remedy?
ULYSSES 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
145
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 –
150
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
155
’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage,
Such to-be-pitied and o’erwrested seeming
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
160
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,
165
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 god Achilles still cries, ‘Excellent!
’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,
170
Arming to answer in a night-alarm.’
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
175
Sir Valour 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,
180
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field, or speech for truce,
Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.
NESTOR And in the imitation of these twain,
185
Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns
With an imperial voice, many are infect.
Ajax is grown self-willed and bears his head
In such a rein, in full as proud a place
As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him,
190
Makes factious feasts, rails on our state of war,
Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites –
A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint –
To match us in comparisons with dirt,
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
195
How rank soever rounded in with danger.
ULYSSES They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand. The still and mental parts,
200
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on, and know by measure
Of their observant toil the enemy’s weight –
Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity.
They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet war;
205
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.
210
NESTOR Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse
Makes many Thetis’ sons. [Tucket.]
AGAMEMNON What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.
MENELAUS From Troy.
Enter AENEAS with a trumpeter.
AGAMEMNON What would you ’fore our tent?
215
AENEAS Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?
AGAMEMNON Even this.
AENEAS May one that is a herald and a prince
Do a fair message to his kingly ears?
AGAMEMNON With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm
220
’Fore all the Greekish lords, which with one voice
Call Agamemnon head and general.
AENEAS Fair leave and large security. How may
A stranger to those most imperial looks
Know them from eyes of other mortals?
AGAMEMNON How?
225
AENEAS Ay.
I ask, that I might waken reverence,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phoebus.
230
Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?
AGAMEMNON [to the Greeks]
This Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.
AENEAS Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarmed,
235
As bending angels – that’s their fame in peace.
But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,
Good arms, strong joints, true swords, and – Jove’s
accord –
Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips!
240
The worthiness of praise distains his worth
If that the praised himself bring the praise forth.
But what the repining enemy commends,
That breath Fame blows; that praise, sole pure,
transcends.
AGAMEMNON Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?
245
AENEAS Ay, Greek, that is my name.
AGAMEMNON What’s your affair, I pray you?
AENEAS Sir, pardon, ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.
AGAMEMNON
He hears naught privately that comes from Troy.
AENEAS Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him.
250
I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.
AGAMEMNON Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 508
