The Works of William Shakspere

Osr. hit, a very palpable hit. Laer.

[They play. 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.

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,-
But let it be:-Horatio, I am dead;
Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied. Hor. Never believe it.

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane,
Here's yet some liquor left.
Ham.
As thou 'rt a man,
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 [Poland, This warlike volley.

Ham. O, I die, Horatio;

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. What is it ye would see? If aught of woe, or wonder, cease your search. Fort. This quarry cries on havoc.-O proud death! What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, [They play. That thou so many princes, at a shoot, So bloodily hast struck? 1 Amb.

[Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they
change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes.
King.
Part them, they are incens'd.
Ham. Nay, come again. [The Queen falls.
Osr.
Look to the queen there, ho!
Hor. They bleed on both sides:-How is it, my lord?
Osr. How is 't, Laertes?
[Osric;
Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe,
I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
Ham. How does the queen?
King.
She swoons to see them bleed.
Queen. No, no, the drink, the drink,-O my dear
Hamlet!-

The drink, the drink;-I am poison'd! [Dies.
Ham. O villainy! Ho! Let the door be lock'd:
Treachery! seek it out.
[Laertes falls.
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.
[Stabs the King.
Osr. & Lords. Treason! treason!
King. O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned
Drink off this potion :-Is thy union here? [Dane,
Follow my mother.
[King dies.
Laer.
He is justly served;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me!
[Dies.

Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio:-Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

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 memory 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,
Fort.
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage:
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov'd most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldier's music, and the rights of war,
Speak loudly for him.

Take up the body:-Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
[A dead March.
[Exeunt, marching; after which a peal of
ordnance is shot off.

MARGARELON, a bastard son of ALEXANDER, servant to Cres-
Priam.
Servant to Troilus.

PROLOGUE.

In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd,
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 unarm 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

[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.

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.

Let her be as

Pan. I speak no more than truth. Tro. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in 't. 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

Tn. Sweet Pandarus,-
Pan. 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 Pancarus-O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but 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 Eneas.

Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not
afield?

[sorts,

Tro. Because not there: This woman's answer
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Eneas, from the field to-day?
Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Tro. By whom, Æneas!
Æne.

[Alarum.

Troilus, by Menelaus.
Tro. Let Paris bleed: 't is but a scar to scorn:
Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.
Ene. Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day!
Tro. Better at home, if would I might were
'may.'-

But to the sport abroad;-Are you bound thither?
Ene. 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.
Queen Hecuba, and Helen.
Cres. And whither go they?
Alex.
Up to the eastern tower,
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.
Cres.
What was his cause of anger?
Alex. The noise goes, this: There is among the
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; [Greeks
They call him Ajax.
Cres.
Good; and what of him?
Alex. They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick,
or have no legs.

Alex. This inan, 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 disdain and shame!

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 Iliuin?

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 deCres. 'T is just to each 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 iny 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.

Pan. The other 's not come to 't; you shall tell me another tale when the other 's come to 't. Hector

shall not have his wit this year.

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 herself 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 bet-
ter 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, with-
in 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. they say: there be hacks! Pan. Does he not? Cres. Be those with swords?

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 Hecuba laughed, that her eyes ran o'er. Cres. With mill-stones.

Pan. And Cassandra laughed.

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, could see Troilus now!-you shall see Troilus anon. this will do Helen's heart good now. Ha! 'would I 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:-I 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 and fifty hairs, quoth he, and one white: That white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.' Jupiter quoth she, which of these hairs is Paris my husband?' The forked one,' quoth he, 'pluck it out, and give it him.' But, there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed. Cres. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.

Pan. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; Cres. So I do. [think on 't. Pan. I'll be sworn 't is true; he will weep you, an 't were a man born in April. Cres. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 't were a nettle against May. [1 retreat sounded. Pan. Hark, they are coming from the field: Shall we stand up here, and see them, as they pass toward Ilium? good niece, do; sweet niece Cressida. Cres. At your pleasure.

Pan. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by their names, as they pass by; but mark Troilus

above the rest.

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;-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!-O 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 choice. O admirable man! Paris?-Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give money 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 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?' with no date in the pie,-for then the man's date's Cres. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked

out.

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.
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, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
He offers in another's enterprise:

Eut 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.

Agam. Princes,

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

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 promis'd largeness: checks and
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd;
As knots, by the conflux 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 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 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-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,

And flies fled under shade, why, then, the thing of

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,
[To Nestor.

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 deracinate
The unity and married calm 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,
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 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 Lies mocking our designs: With him, Patroclus,

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