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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 self-same 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 axle-tree

          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?

          Take but degree away, untune that string,

          And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts

          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 it is

          That by a pace goes backward, with 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 ever step,

          Exampl'd by the first pace that is sick

          Of his superior, grows to an envious fever

          Of pale and bloodless emulation.

          And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,

          Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,

          Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

        NESTOR. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd

          The

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