The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentick place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows? each thing meet
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters

3

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,

5

That by a pace1 goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
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,

4 That by a pace-] That goes backward step by step.

S with a purpose

It hath to climb.] With a design in each man to aggrandize himself, by slighting his immediate superior.

6

bloodless emulation:] An emulation not vigorous and active, but malignant and sluggish.

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 discover'd 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,

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 deputations 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 seeming1
He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,
"Tis like a chime a mending; with terms unsquar'd,2
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;

7

our power-] i. e. our army.

8 Thy topless deputation-] Topless is that which has nothing topping or overtopping it; supreme; sovereign.

'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,] The galleries of the theatre, in the time of our author, were sometimes termed the scaffolds.

o'er-wrested seeming —] i. e. wrested beyond the truth. unsquar'd,] i. e. unadapted to their subject, as stones are unfitted to the purposes of architecture, while they are yet unsquar❜d.

Cries-Excellent!-'Tis Agamemnon just.-
Now play me Nestor;-hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he, being 'drest to some oration.

That's done;-as near as the extremest ends

3

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.

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 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,
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.

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

4

As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;
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,3)

as near as the extremest ends

Of parallels:] The parallels to which the allusion seems to be made, are the parallels on a map. As like as east to west. bears his head

In such a rein,] That is, holds up his head as haughtily. We still say of a girl, she bridles.

5 whose gall coins slanders like a mint,] i. e. as fast as a mint coins money.

To match us in comparisons with dirt;
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger."

Ulyss. 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,
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on; and know, by measure?
Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight,-
Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:

They call this-bed-work, mappery, closet-war :
So that the ram, that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poize,
They place before his hand that made the engine;
Or those, that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

Nest. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Makes many Thetis' sons.

Agam.

[Trumpet sounds. What trumpet? look, Menelaus,

Agam.

Ene. May one, that is a herald, and a prince, Do a fair message to his kingly ears?

Agam. With surety stronger than Achilles' arm 'Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice Call Agamemnon head and general.

How rank soever rounded in with danger.] A rank weed is a high weed.

7

by measure-] i. e. " by means of their observant toil."

8

Ene. Fair leave, and large security. How may A stranger to those most imperial looks Know them from eyes of other mortals? Agam.

Ene. 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:

How?

Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

Agam. This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy Are ceremonious courtiers.

Ene. Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm'd,
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, Æneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy
thy lips!
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth :

& A stranger to those most imperial looks-] And yet this was the seventh year of the war. Shakspeare, who so wonderfully preserves character, usually confounds the customs of all nations, and probably supposed that the ancients (like the heroes of chivalry) fought with beavers to their helmets. So, in the fourth Act of this play, Nestor says to Hector:

"But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel,

"I never saw till now."

Shakspeare might have adopted this error from the wooden cuts to ancient books, or from the illuminators of manuscripts, who never seem to have entertained the least idea of habits, manners, or customs more ancient than their own. There are books in the British Museum of the age of King Henry VI; and in these the heroes of ancient Greece are represented in the very dresses worn at the time when the books received their decorations.

9 they have galls, &c.] This is not very intelligible, but perhaps the speaker meant to say, that, when they have the ac cord of Jove on their side, nothing is so courageous as the Trojans.