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 fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize a

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 sympathise,

And, with an accent tun'd in self-same key,

Returns to chiding fortune.

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,--
And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life,-
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 the heavens ride, knit all Greeks' ears c
To his experienc'd tongue,-yet let it please both,-
Thou great, and wise,-to hear Ulysses speak.

d

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 masticke jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

a Brize-the gad-fly.

Hatch'd. Gifford says "to hatch is to inlay."

[To AGAMEMNON.

[TO NESTOR.

This is the reading of the folio, except in the substitution of on for in. The quarto has"On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears.

This speech of Agamemnon is not in the quarto.

. Mastick. We retain the word of the original. Masticke is there printed with a capital initial, as marking something emphatic. In all modern editions the word is rendered mastive. We are inclined to think that mastick is not a typographical mistake. Every one has heard of Prynne's celebrated book, 'Histrio-Mastix: The Player's Scourge;' but it is not so generally known that this title was borrowed by the great controversialist from a play first printed in 1610, but supposed

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 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 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:

to be written earlier, which is a satire upon actors and dramatic writers from first to last. We attach little importance to the circumstance that the author of that satire has introduced a dialogue between Troilus and Cressida; for the subject had most probably possession of the stage before Shakspere's play. But it appears to us by no means improbable that an epithet should be applied to the "rank Thersites " which should pretty clearly point at one who had done enough to make himself obnoxious to the poet's fraternity.

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,

Upon a lazy bed, the livelong 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 stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,
Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming

a Lives in the folio-in the quarto, stands.

1

He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,
T is like a chime a mending; with terms unsquar'd,
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!-T is Agamemnon just,—
Now play me Nestor;-hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he, being 'dress'd to some oration."

That's done;-as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels,—as like as Vulcan and his wife :
Yet goda 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
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.
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,

a God in the old copies. It is frittered down by the moderns into good.

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 poise,
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.

AGAM. What trumpet? look, Menelaus.

[Tucket sounds.

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.

ENE. Ay;

I ask, that I might waken reverence,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes

The youthful Phoebus:

Which is that god in office, guiding men?

How?

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, unarm'd,

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 prais'd himself bring the praise forth: