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 promis'd largeness; checks and disasters
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 gav't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do
you with cheeks abash'd 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 affin'd1 and kin:

But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,

Joined by affinity. The same adjective occurs in Othello :'If partially affin'd, or leagu'd in office.'

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 3

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-rival'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 fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,

2 The throne in which thou sittest like a descended god.

3 To apply here is used for to bend the mind, or attend particularly to Agamemnon's words. As in the following passage from Baret: To attende or applie his witte to something, and to give his minde unto it.' The example cited by Malone, from The Nice Wanton, is not to the purpose, the word there is used as we now use to ply. As in another example from Baret,' With diligent endeavour to applie their studies."

4 Pegasus was, strictly speaking, Bellerophon's horse, but Shakspeare followed the old Troy Book. Of the blood that issued out [from Medusa's head] there engendered Pegasus, or the flying horse. By the flying horse that was engendered of the blood issued from her head, is understood that of her riches issuing of that realme he [Perseus] founded, and made a ship named Pegase,—and this ship was likened unto an horse flying,' &c. In another place we are told that this ship, which the writer always calls Perseus' flying horse, flew on the sea like unto a bird.' Destruction of Troy, 4to. 1617, p. 155–164.

The herd hath more annoyance by the brize 5,
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 fortune7.
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.
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 experienc'd tongue 3,-yet let it please both,—
Thou great,—and wise,—to hear Ulysses speak.

8

5 The gadfly that stings cattle. So in Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. Sc. 8:-The brize upon her like a cow in June.' Spenser:

a brize, a scorned little creature, Through his fair hide his angry sting did threaten.'

And,

6 It is said of the tiger that in stormy and high winds he rages and roars most furiously.

7 i. e. replies to noisy or clamorous fortune. Vide vol. i. p. 281, note 10.

8 How much the commentators have perplexed themselves and their readers about the following passage!

speeches, which were such,

Agam. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be❜t of less

expect 9

That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips; than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastiff jaws,
We shall hear musick, 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 speciality of rule 10 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 centre11,
Observe degree, priority, and place,

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

knit all the Greekish ears

To his experienced tongue.'

Ulysses evidently means to say that Agamemnon's speech should be writ in brass; and that venerable Nestor, with his silver hairs, by his speech should rivet the attention of all Greece. The phrase hatch'd in silver, which has been the stumbling block, is a simile borrowed from the art of design; to hatch being to fill a design with a number of consecutive fine lines; and to hatch in silver was a design inlaid with lines of silver, a process often used for the hilts of swords, handles of daggers, and stocks of pistols. The lines of the graver on a plate of metal are still called hatchings. Hence hatch'd in silver, for silver hair'd or gray hair'd. Thus in Love in a Maze, 1632:

Thy hair is fine as gold, thy chin is hatch'd

With silver.'

9 Expect for expectation.

10 The particular rights of supreme authority.

11 i. e. this globe. According to the system of Ptolemy, the earth is the centre round which the planets move.

VOL. VII.

G G

1

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 12,

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 13 calm of states

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

The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods 14 in cities, Peaceful commérce from dividable 15 shores,

12 The apparent irregular motions of the planets were supposed to portend some disasters to mankind; indeed the planets themselves were not thought formerly to be confined in any fixed orbits of their own, but to wander about ad libitum, as the etymology of their names demonstrates.

13 The epithet married, to denote an intimate union, is employed also by Milton:

Again:

Lydian airs

Married to immortal verse.'

voice and verse

Wed your divine sounds.'

It is thought that Milton might have in his mind the following passage in Joshua Sylvester's Du Bartas, which Mr. Dunster has shown that he was familiar with :

'Birds marrying their sweet tunes to the angels' lays,
Sung Adam's bliss, and their great Maker's praise.'

Shakspeare calls a harmony of features married lineaments in
Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 3.

14 Confraternities, corporations, companies.

15 Dividable for divided, as corrigible for corrected, in Antony and Cleopatra. The termination ble is often thus used by Shakspeare for ed.