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 Quite from their fixure? O, when degree is shak'd, The enterprize is sick! How could communities, And the rude son should strike his father dead : 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, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, 3 with a purpose formerly to be confined in any fixed orbits of their own,but to wander about ad libitum, as the etymology of their names demonstrates. ANONYMOUS. [9] i. e. force up by the roots. STEEV. [1] Perhaps we should read,-then enterprize is sick! [2] Corporations, companies, confraternities. JOHNS. [3] That goes backward step by step. JOHNS. JOHNS. [4] With a design in each man to aggrandize himself, by slighting his im-mediate superior. JOHNS. Of pale and bloodless emulation :5 And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Agam. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, 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, Breaks scurril jests; And with ridiculous and awkward action He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon, And, like a strutting player,-whose conceit Now play me Nestor ;-hem, and stroke thy beard, That's done ;-as near as the extremest ends [5] An emulation not vigorous and active, but malignant and sluggish. 8 JOHNS. [6] Topless-is that which has nothing topping or overtopping it; supreme, sovereign. JOHNS. [7] Wrested beyond the truth; overcharged. MAL. A wrest was an instrument for tuning a harp, by drawing up the strings. STEEV. [8] He who has been in the tower of a church while the chimes were repairing, will never wish a second time to be present at so dissonantly noisy an operation.-Unsquar'd, unadapted to their subject, as stones are unfitted to the purposes of architecture, while they are yet unsquar'd. STEEV. [9] The parallels to which the allusion seems to be made, are the parallels on a map. As like as east to west. JOHNS. Arming to answer in a night alarm. And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age Shake in and out the rivet :-and at this sport, (A slave, whose gall coins slanders like a mint,3) To weaken and discredit our exposure, How rank soever rounded in with danger.4 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,- They call this-bed-work, mappery, closet-war : Nest. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Makes many Thetis' sons. [Trumpet sounds. All our good grace exact, means our excellence irreprehensible. JOH. [2] Holds up his head as haughtily. We still say of a girl, she bridles. JOHNS. Aga. What trumpet? look, Menelaus. Men. From Troy. Enter ENEAS. Aga. What would you 'fore our tent? Great Agamemnon's tent, I pray? Aga. Even this. Ene. May one, that is a herald, and a prince, Do a fair message to his kingly ears? Aga. With surety stronger than Achilles' arms '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? Aga. How? Ene. Ay; I ask, that I might waken reverence, The youthful Phoebus: Which is that god in office, guiding men? Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon ? Aga. This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy Are ceremonious courtiers. Ene. Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm❜d, If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth: That breath fame follows; that praise, sole pure, transcends. Aga. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Æneas? Aga. What's your affair, I pray you? Ede. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears. Aga.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. [5] Perhaps the author wrote, 17 VOL. VII. Aga. Speak frankly as the wind; It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour : That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake, Ene. Trumpet, blow loud, Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents ;- In other arms than hers,-to him this challenge. Than ever Greek did compass in his arms ; If any come, Hector shall honour him; The Grecian dames are sun-burn'd, and not worth Aga. This shall be told our lovers, lord Æneas; We left them all at home: But we are soldiers; If then one is, or hath, or means to be, That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he. One noble man, that hath one spark of fire, [6] Confession made with idle vows to the lips of her whom he loves. JOH. [7] This is the language of romance. Such a challenge would better have sited Palmerin or Amadis, than Hector or Æneas. STEEV. |