do you not hear the people cry, Troilus?— Helenus is a priest.

Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

TROILUS passes over.

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

Cres. Peace, for shame, peace!

Pan. Mark him; note him: O 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! O admirable youth! he ne'er saw threeand-twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man!-Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot.

Forces pass over the Stage.

Cres. Here come more.

Pan. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! 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 Agamemnon and all Greece.

Cres. There is among the Greeks, Achilles; a better 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, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?

Cres. Ay, a minced man; and then to be baked with no date in the pie,-for then the man's date is out.

Pan. You are such a 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's one 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 is 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.
Words, vows, griefs, 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, beloved, knows nought, that knows not
this,-

Men prize the thing ungained 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; ungained, beseech:
Then, though my heart's content firm love doth
bear,

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

[Exit.

SCENE III.—The Grecian Camp. Before AGAMEMNON's Tent.

Trumpets. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and others.

Agam. Princes,

What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below,
Fails in the promised largeness: checks and
disasters

Grow in the veins of actions highest reared;
As knots, by the conflúx of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us,
That we come short of our suppose so far,
That, after seven years' siege, yet Troy walls

stand;

Sith every action, that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave't surmiséd shape. Why then, you

princes,

Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works;

And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought else

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love : for then, the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affinned 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.

Nes. 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 smooth,
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-ribbed bark through liquid mountains

cut,

Bounding between the two moist elements,
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
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 brize
Than by the tiger: but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why then the thing

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 stretched-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, hatched 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 expect

That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips, than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastiff jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

Ulys. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, 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.
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 shews as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this
centre,

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
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 deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is
shaked,

Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commérce 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 it is

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdained
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 't is 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.
Nes. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discovered
The fever whereof all our power is sick.

Agam. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy?

Ulys. 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 live-long day
Breaks scurril jests;

And with ridiculous and awkward 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 stretched 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 unsquared,

Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon

dropped,

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! 't is Agamemnon just.
Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he, being 'ddressed to some oration."
That's done as near as the extremest ends
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.

Nes. And in the imitation of these twain
(Whom, 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;
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,
How rank soever rounded in with danger.

Ulys. They tax our policy, and call it cow-
ardice;

Count wisdom as no member of the war;
Forestal 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 mea-

sure

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. [Trumpet sounds. Agam. What trumpet? look, Menelaus.

Enter ENEAS.

Men. From Troy.

Agam. What would you 'fore our tent?
Ene. Is this great Agamemnon's tent, I pray?
Agam. Even this.

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.

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

Ene. Ay: I ask, that I might waken reve

rence,

And bid the cheek be ready with a blush, Modest as morning when she coldly eyes The youthful Phœbus:

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, unarmed, 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 lips!
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 follows; that praise, sole pure,
transcends.

Agam. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself
Æneas?

Ene. Ay, Greek, that is my name.
Agam. What's your affair, I pray you?
Ene. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears.
Agam. He hears nought privately, that comes
from Troy.

Ene. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him: I bring a trumpet to awake his ear;

To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.

Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents ;—
And every Greek of mettle let him know,
What Troy means fairly, shall be spoke aloud.
[Trumpet sounds.
We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy
A prince called Hector (Priam is his father),
Who in this dull and long-continued truce
Is rusty grown; he bade me take a trumpet,
And to this purpose speak :-Kings, princes, lords!
If there be one, among the fair'st of Greece,
That holds his honour higher than his ease;
That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril;
That knows his valour, and knows not his fear;
That loves his mistress more than in confession
(With truant vows to her own lips he loves),
And dare avow her beauty and her worth,
In other arms than hers,-to him this challenge:-
Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,
Shall make it good, or do his best to do it,
He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer,
Than ever Greek did compass in his arms;
And will to-morrow with his trumpet call,
Midway between your tents and walls of Troy,

To rouse a Grecian that is true in love:
If any come, Hector shall honour him;
If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires,
The Grecian dames are sunburned, and not worth
The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

Agam. This shall be told our lovers, lord
Æneas;

If none of them have soul in such a kind,
We left them all at home: but we are soldiers;
And may that soldier a mere recreant prove,
That means not, hath not, or is not in love!
If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
That one meets Hector: if none else, I am he.
Nes. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
When Hector's grandsire sucked: he is old now;
But, if there be not in our Grecian host
One noble man, that hath one spark of fire
To answer for his love, tell him from me,
I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vantbrace put this withered brawn;
And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady
Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste
As may be in the world. His youth in flood,
I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.
Ene. Now heavens forbid such scarcity of
youth!
Ulys. Amen.

Agam. Fair lord Æneas, let me touch your hand;

To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.
Achilles shall have word of this intent;

So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent:
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
And find the welcome of a noble foe.

[Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR. Ulys. Nestor,

Nes. What says Ulysses?

Ulys. I have a young conception in my brain, Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

Nes. What is 't?

Ulys. This 'tis:

Blunt wedges rive hard knots: the seeded pride, That hath to this maturity blown up

In rank Achilles, must or now be cropped,

Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil,
To overbulk us all.

Nes. Well, and how?

Ulys. This challenge that the gallant Hector

sends,

However it is spread in general name,

Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

Nes. The purpose is perspicuous even as sub

stance,

Whose grossness little characters sum up:
And, in the publication, make no strain
But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Lybia,-though, Apollo knows,

Tis dry enough,-will, with great speed of judgment,

Ay, with celerity,-find Hector's purpose
Pointing on him.

Ulys. And wake him to the answer, think you?
Nes. Yes, 't is most meet: whom may you else

oppose,

That can from Hector bring those honours off,
If not Achilles? Though 't be a sportful combat,
Yet in the trial much opinion dwells;

For here the Trojans taste our dear'st repute
With their fin'st palate: and trust to me, Ulysses,
Our imputation shall be oddly poised
In this wild action: for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling
Of good or bad unto the general;
And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subséquent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass

Of things to come at large. It is supposed,
He that meets Hector issues from our choice,
And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
Makes merit her election; and doth boil,
As 't were from forth us all, a man distilled
Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
What heart receives from hence a conquering part,
To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertained, limbs are his instruments,
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.

Ulys. Give pardon to my speech :Therefore, 't is meet Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants, shew our foulest wares, And think, perchance, they 'll sell; if not,

The lustre of the better shall exceed,
By shewing the worse first. Do not consent
That ever Hector and Achilles meet;
For both our honour and our shame, in this,
Are dogged with two strange followers.

Nes. I see them not with my old eyes: what are they?

Ulys. What glory our Achilles shares from
Hector,

Were he not proud, we all should share with him:
But he already is too insolent;

And we were better parch in Afric sun,
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
Should he 'scape Hector fair: if he were foiled,
Why, then we did our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lottery;
And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector: among ourselves,
Give him allowance for the better man,
For that will physic the great Myrmidon,
Who broils in loud applause; and make him fall
His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends.
If the dull, brainless Ajax come safe off,
We'll dress him up in voices: if he fail,
Yet go we under our opinion still,
That we have better men. But, hit or miss,
Our project's life this shape of sense assumes,-
Ajax, employed, plucks down Achilles' plumes.
Nes. Ulysses,

Now I begin to relish thy advice;
And I will give a taste of it forthwith
To Agamemnon: go we to him straight.
Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone
Must tarre the mastiffs on, as 't were their bone.