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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 fever whereof all our power is sick.

       AGAMEMNON.

       The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,

       What is the remedy?

       ULYSSES.

       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

       He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks

       ‘Tis like a chime amending; 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! ‘tis Agamemnon just.

       Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,

       As he being drest to some oration.’

       That’s done—as near as the extremest ends

       Of parallels, as like Vulcan and his wife;

       Yet god 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.

       NESTOR.

       And in the imitation of these twain—

       Who, 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.

       ULYSSES.

       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

       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, mapp’ry, closet-war;

       So that the ram that batters down the wall,

       For the great swinge 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.

       NESTOR.

       Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse

       Makes many Thetis’ sons.

       [Tucket.]

       AGAMEMNON.

       What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.

       MENELAUS.

       From Troy.

       [Enter AENEAS.]

       AGAMEMNON.

       What would you fore our tent?

       AENEAS.

       Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

       AGAMEMNON.

       Even this.

       AENEAS.

      

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