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 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 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 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! '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,