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Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, and others.]

       AGAMEMNON.

       Princes,

       What grief hath set these jaundies o’er 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,

       Infects the sound pine, and diverts 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 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’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.

       NESTOR.

       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 fortune; for in her ray and brightness

       The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze

       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 selfsame key

       Retorts to chiding fortune.

       ULYSSES.

       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,

       [To AGAMEMNON]

       most mighty, for thy place and sway,

       [To NESTOR]

       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 heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears

       To his experienc’d tongue—yet let it please both,

       Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

       AGAMEMNON.

       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 mastic jaws,

       We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

       ULYSSES.

       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,

       Th’ 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 of all high designs,

       The enterprise is sick! How could communities,

       Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,

       Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,

       The primogenity and due of birth,

       Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

       But by degree, stand in authentic place?

      

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