The Works of William Shakspere

Ficher than that which four successive kings

That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time, (as this fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest,) O, I could tell you,

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,

The trumpet to the cannoneer without,

InDenmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups; But let it be:-Horatio, I am dead;

The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,

Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright

To the unsatisfied.

Hor. Never believe it.

Nowthe king drinks to Hamlet.-Come, begin;

And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

Han. Come on, sir.

Laer

Come on, sir.

[They play.

Ham

One.

Laer. No.

Judgment.

Well,-again.

King. Stay, give me drink: Hamlet, this pearl is Here's to thy health. Give him the cup. [thine; [Trumpets sound; and cannon shot off within. Ham. I'll play this bout first, set it by awhile.

Come.-Another hit; What say you? [They play. Laer. A touch, a touch, I do confess.

King. Our son shall win.

Queen.

He 's fat, and scant of breath.

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows:
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
Ham. Good, madam.

King.

Gertrude, do not drink. Queen. I will, my lord; -I pray you, pardon me. King. It is the poison'd cup: it is too late. [Aside. Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by. Queen, Come, let me wipe thy face. Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now. King.

I do not think it. Laer. And yet it is almost against my conscience. [Aside. Ham. Come, for the third, Laertes: You but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

Laer. Say you so? come on.

Osr. Nothing neither way.

Laer. Have at you now.

Give me the cup; let go, by heaven I 'll have it.
O, good Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me?
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story. (March afar off, and shot within.
What warlike noise is this?

Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from
To the ambassadors of England gives

This warlike volley.

Ham. O, I die, Horatio;

[Poland,

The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit;
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights

On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
[Dies.
Hor. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! [prince;
Why does the drum come hither? [March within.
Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors, and
others.

Fort. Where is this sight?
Hor.
If aught of woe, or wonder, cease your search.

Laer. It is here, Hainlet: Hamlet, thou art slain; No medicine in the world can do thee good, In thee there is not half an hour of life; The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unbated, and envenom'd: the foul practice Hath turn'd itself on me; lo, here I lie, Never to rise again. Thy mother 's poison'd; I can no more ; the king, the king's to blame. Ham. The point

Envenom'd too !-Then, venom, to thy work.

So bloodily hast struck? 1 Amb.

The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late: The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him, his commandment is fulfill'd, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead: Where should we have our thanks? Hor.

Not from his mouth,

Had it the ability of life to thank you;
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England
Are here arriv'd, give order, that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;

And let me speak, to the yet unknowing world,
How these things came about: So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters:
Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver. Fort. Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune;
I have some rights of meinory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
Hor. Of that I shall have always cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more:
But let this same be presently perform'd,
E'en while men's minds are wild; lest more mis-
On plots, and errors, happen.
[chance,

ANTENOR, manders. CALCHAS, a Trojan priest taking part with the Greeks.

THERSITES, a deformed and

scurrilous Grecian.

PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida.
MARGARELON, a bastard son of ALEXANDER, servant to Cres-
Priam,

Servant to Troilus.

[sida.

Servant to Diomedes.

HELEN, wife to Menelaus.
ANDROMACHE, wife to Hector.
CASSANDRA, daughter to Priam;
a prophetess.
CRESSIDA, daughter to Calchas.

Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and
Attendants.

SCENE.-TROY, and the Grecian Camp before it.

PROLOGUE.

In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chafd,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: Sixty and nine that wore

Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps, and that 's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage: Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenorides, with massy staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard:-And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but suited
In like conditions as our argument,-
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 't is but the chance of war.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Troy. Before Priam's Palace.
Enter Troilus armed, and Pandarus.

Tro. Call here my varlet, I 'll unarım again:
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,

Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

Pan. Will this gear ne'er be mended? [strength,
Tro. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,

And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part I 'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding. Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Ay, the grinding: but you must tarry the Tro. Have I not tarried?

[bolting.

Pan. Ay, the bolting: but you must tarry the Tro. Still have I tarried.

[leavening.

Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word hereafter, the kneading, the making of the

cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking: nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. At Priam's royal table do I sit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,-So, traitor! when she comes!-When is she thence? Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

Tro. I was about to tell thee, -When my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain; Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have (as when the sun doth light a storm) Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a sinile:

But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to,) there were no more comparison between the women.-But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they terin it, praise her,-But I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but

Tro. O, Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus, When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad In Cressid's love: Thou answer'st, she is fair; Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice; Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman; this thou tell'st As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her; [me, But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth.

Tro.

Chou dost not speak so much.

Pan, 'Faith, I'll not meddle in 't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair 't is the better for her; an she be not she has the mends in her own hands. Tro. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? Pan. I have had my labour for my travail; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

[me?

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore she 's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care 1? I care not an she were a black-a moor; 't is all one to me.

Tro. Say I she is not fair? Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her;

for my part, I 'll meddle nor make no more in the whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and

matter.

Tro. Pandarus, - Pan. Not I.

Tn. Sweet Pandarus,

Par. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all asI found it, and there an end.

[Exit Pandarus. An alarum.

Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude
sounds

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid Lut by Pandar;
And he 's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo,
As she is stubborn-chaste, against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself, the merchant; and this sailing Pandar,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

Alarum. Enter Æneas.

But to the sport abroad; -Are you bound thither?
Æne. In all swift haste.
Tro.

Come, go we then together.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. A Street.
Enter Cressida and Alexander.

Cres. Who were those went by?
Alex.

waking.

Enter Pandarus.

Cres. Who comes here?

Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Cres. Hector's a gallant man.
Alex. As may be in the world, lady.
Pan. What 's that? what 's that?
Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you
talk of ?-Good morrow, Alexander. How do you,
cousin? When were you at Iliuın?

Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pan. What were you talking of when I came?
Was Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to
Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.
Pan. E'en so; Hector was stirring early.
Cres. That were we talking of, and of his anger.
Pan. Was he angry? Cres. So he says here.
Pan. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll
lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and
there 's Troilus will not come far behind him; let
them take heed of Troilus; I can tell them that too.
Cres. What, is he angry too?
[the two.
Pan. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of
Cres. O, Jupiter! there 's no comparison.
Pan. What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do
you know a man if you see him?

Cres. Ay; if I ever saw him before, and knew him.
Pan. Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

Cres. Then you say as I say; for I am sure he is
not Hector.

[grees.

Pan. No, nor Hector is not Troilus, in some de-
Cres. 'T is just to cach of them; he is himself.
Pan. Himself? Alas, poor Troilus! I would he
Cres. So he is.

[were.

Pan. 'Condition, I had gone barefoot to India.
Cres. He is not Hector.

Pan. Himself? no, he 's not himself. -'Would 'a
were himself! Well, the gods are above. Time
must friend, or end: Well, Troilus, well, I would
imy heart were in her body !-No, Hector is not a
better man than Troilus.
Cres. Excuse me.

Pan. He is elder.
Cres. Pardon me, pardon me.

Queen Hecuba, and Helen. Pan. The other 's not come to 't; you shall tell me come to 't. Hector

Cres. And whither go theyp to the eastern tower, shanthavalise the other

Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience

Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd:

He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: He hath the joints of everything; but everything so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblinded Argus, all eyes and no sight.

Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

Alex. They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdin and shame

Cres. He shall not need it, if he have his own.
Pan. Nor his qualities ;-

Cres. No matter. Pan. Nor his beauty.
Cres. 'T would not become him, his own 's better.
Pan. You have no judgment, niece: Helen her-
self swore the other day, that Troilus, for a brown
favour, (for so 't is, I must confess,) Not brown
neither. Cres. No, but brown.

Pun. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.
Cres. To say the truth, true and not true.
Pan. She prais'd his complexion above Paris.
Cres. Why, Paris hath colour enough.
Pan. So he has.

Cres. Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

Pan. I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

Cres. Then she's a merry Greek, indeed. Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him the other day into the compassed window, and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin. Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.

Pan. Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector. Cres. Is he so young a man, and so old a lifter? Pan. But, to prove to you that Helen loves him; -she came, and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin,

Cres. Juno have mercy !-How came it cloven?
Pan. Why, you know, 't is dimpled: I think his

smiling becomes him better than any man in all jesting: there 's laying on; tak 't off who will, as

Phrygia. Cres. O, he smiles valiantly.

Pan. Does he not?

Cres. O yes, an 't were a cloud in autumn.
Pan. Why, go to then.-But to prove to you that
Helen loves Troilus, -

[it so.

Cres. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove
Pan. Troilus? why, he esteems her no more than
I esteem an addle egg.

Cres. If you love an addle egg as well as you love
an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell.

Pan. I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she tickled his chin!-Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess.

Cres. Without the rack.

[on his chin.

Pan. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair
Cres. Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer.
Pan. But there was such laughing; -Queen He-
cuba laughed, that her eyes ran o'er.

Cres. With mill-stones.

Pan. And Cassandra laughed.

they say: there be hacks!

Cres. Be those with swords?

Paris passes over.

Pan. Swords? anything, he cares not an the devil come to him, it 's all one: By god's lid, it does one's heart good:-Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris: look ye yonder, niece. Is 't not a gallant man too, is 't not?-Why, this is brave now.-Who said he came hurt home to-day?) he's not hurt: why, this will do Helen's heart good now. Hal 'would I could see Troilus now!-you shall see Troilus anon. Cres. Who's that?

Helenus passes over.

Pan. That 's Helenus, -I marvel where Troilus is: -That's Helenus; -I think he went not forth today:-That's Helenus.

Cres. Can Helenus fight, uncle?

Pan. Helenus? no;-yes, he 'll fight indifferent well:-1 marvel where Troilus is !-Hark; do you not

Cres. But there was more temperate fire under the hear the people cry, Troilus?-Helenus is a priest.

pot of her eyes:-Did her eyes run o'er too?

Pan. And Hector laughed.

Cres. At what was all this laughing?

Pan. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied

on Troilus' chin.

Cres. An 't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too.

Pan. They laughed not so much at the hair, as at his pretty answer. Cres. What was his answer? Pan. Quoth she, 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.'

Cres. This is her question.

Pan. That's true; make no question of that. Two

Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

Troilus passes over.

Pan. Where? yonder? that 's Deiphobus: 'Tis
Troilus! there's a man, niece!-Hem 1-Brave
Troilus! the prince of chivalry..

Cres. Peace, for shame, peace!

Pan. Mark him; note him; -0 brave Troilus!look well upon him, niece; look you, how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's: And how he looks, and how he goes!-0 admirable youth! he ne'er saw three-and-twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his money to boot.

and fifty hairs,' quoth he, 'and one white That choice. O admirable man! Paris?-Paris is dirt to white hair is my father, and all the rest are his him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give

Forces pass over the stage.

Cres. Here come more.
Pan. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and
bran! porridge after meat 1 I could live and die i
the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look; the
eagles are gone; crows and daws, crows and daws!
I had rather be such a man as Troilus, than Aga-
memnon and all Greece.

Cres. There is among the Greeks, Achilles; a bet-
ter man than Troilus.

Pan. Achilles? a drayman, a porter, a very camel.
Cres. Well, well.

Pan. Well, well?-Why, have you any discretion!
have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is!
Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, man
hood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality,
and so forth, the spice and salt that season a man?
Cres. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked

with no date in the
out.

pie, for then the man's date's

Pan. You are such another woman! one knows not at what ward you lie.

Cres. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

Pan. Say one of your watches.

Cres. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that 'sone of the chiefest of them too; if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it 's past watching.

Pan, You are such another !

Enter Troilus' Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
Pan. Where?

Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him.
Pan. Good boy, tell him I come:
[Exit Boy.

I doubt, he be hurt.-Fare ye well, good niece.
Cres. Adieu, uncle.
Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by.
Cres. To bring, uncle,-
Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus.
Cres. By the same token you are a bawd.

[Exit Pandarus. [ters The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre, disas- Observe degree, priority, and place,

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
He offers in another's enterprise:
But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing:
That she belov'd knows nought that knows not
this,-

Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet, as when desire did sue:
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach,-
Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:
Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from inine eyes appear. [Ex.
SCENE III.- The Grecian Camp. Before
Agamemnon's Tent.

Senet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses,
Menelaus, and others.

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 experienced tongue, yet let it please both,-
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.
Agam. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be 't of less ex-
That matter needless, of importless burden, [pect
Divide thy lips, than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastick jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

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:
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.

That we come short of our suppose so far,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order: And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol, In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,

That, after seven years' siege, yet Troy walls stand; And posts, like the commandment of a king,

Sith every action that hath gone before,

Whereof we have record, trial did draw

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!

That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works;
And call them shames, which are, indeed, nought

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find persistive constancy in men?

The fineness of which metal is not found

[else

In fortune's love for then, the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affin'd 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, Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply

Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: the sea being sinooth,
How many shallow bauble 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-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,

Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus' horse: Where 's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rivall'd greatness? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so

Doth valour's show, and valour's worth, divide,
In storms of fortunes: For, in her ray and bright-
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize [ness,
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind

Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calin of states
Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak'd,
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,
The primogenitive 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
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 everything 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 is it,

That by a pace goes backward, in 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,

Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation:

And flies fled under shade, why, then, the thing of Exampled by the first pace that is sick

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,
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 stretch'd-out life,

And 't is this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness lives, 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

[To Nestor. Lies mocking our designs: With him, Patroclus,

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