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.

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center, 8
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 enthron'd and spher'd
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,

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 deracinate9

The unity and married calm of states

6 The specialty of rule-] The particular rights of supreme authority.

7 When that the general is not like the hive,] The meaning is, When the general is not to the army like the hive to the bees, the repository of the stock of every individual, that to which each particular resorts with whatever he has collected for the good of the whole, what honey is expected? what hope of advantage? The sense is clear, the expression is confused. JOHNSON.

8 the planets, and this center,] By this center, Ulysses means the earth itself, not the center of the earth. According to the system of Ptolemy, the earth is the center round which the planets

move.

9

deracinate] i. c. force up by the roots.

Quite from their fixure? O, when degree is shak'd,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,

The enterprize is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,1
Peaceful commérce from dividable shores, 2
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 meets
In mere3 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,

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

2

3

5

brotherhoods in cities,] Corporations, companies, confra

dividable shores,] i. e. divided.

mere-] Mere is absolute.

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

with a purpose

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

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: 6

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 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 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,9Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming1

6

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

7

our power] i. e. our army.

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

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

1

o'er-wrested seeming —] i. e. wrested beyond the truth.

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;
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 Of parallels3: 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

unsquar'd,] i. e. unadapted to their subject, as stones are unfitted to the purposes of architecture, while they are yet unsquar'd.

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

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,
Bold as an oracle; and sets Thersites

(A slave, whose gall coins slanders like a mint, 5)
To match us in comparisons with dirt;

To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger.6

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
Thetis' sons.

[Trumpet sounds. What trumpet? look Menelaus.

Makes many

Agam.

still

5

bears his head

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

say

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

6 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."