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. May one that is a herald and a prince
    Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?
  AGAMEMNON. With surety stronger than Achilles' an
    Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
    Call Agamemnon head and general.
  AENEAS. Fair leave and large security. How may
    A stranger to those most imperial looks
    Know them from eyes of other mortals?
  AGAMEMNON. How?
  AENEAS. 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?
    Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?
  AGAMEMNON. This Troyan scorns us, or the men of Troy
    Are ceremonious courtiers.
  AENEAS. 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, Aeneas,
    Peace, Troyan; lay thy finger on thy lips.
    The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
    If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth;
    But what the repining enemy commends,
    That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.
  AGAMEMNON. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?
  AENEAS. Ay, Greek, that is my name.
  AGAMEMNON. What's your affair, I pray you?
  AENEAS. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears.
  AGAMEMNON. He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.
  AENEAS. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with him;
    I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
    To set his sense on the attentive bent,
    And then to speak.
  AGAMEMNON. Speak frankly as the wind;
    It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour.
    That thou shalt know, Troyan, he is awake,
    He tells thee so himself.
  AENEAS. Trumpet, blow loud,
    Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
    And every Greek of mettle, let him know
    What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.
                                                      [Sound
trumpet]
    We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy
    A prince called Hector-Priam is his father-
    Who in this dull and long-continued truce
    Is resty grown; he bade me take a trumpet
    And to this purpose speak: Kings, princes, lords!
    If there be one among the fair'st of Greece
    That holds his honour higher than his ease,
    That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,
    That knows his valour and knows not his fear,
    That loves his mistress more than in confession
    With truant vows to her own lips he loves,
    And dare avow her beauty and her worth
    In other arms than hers-to him this challenge.
    Hector, in view of Troyans and of Greeks,
    Shall make it good or do his best to do it:
    He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,
    Than ever Greek did couple in his arms;
    And will to-morrow with his trumpet call
    Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy
    To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.
    If any come, Hector shall honour him;
    If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires,
    The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth
    The splinter of a lance. Even so much.
  AGAMEMNON. This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas.
    If none of them have soul in such a kind,
    We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;
    And may that soldier a mere recreant prove
    That means not, hath not, or is not in love.
    If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
    That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.
  NESTOR. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
    When Hector's grandsire suck'd. He is old now;
    But if there be not in our Grecian mould
    One noble man that hath one spark of fire
    To answer for his love, tell him from me
    I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
    And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn,
    And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady
    Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste
    As may be in the world. His youth in flood,
    I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.
  AENEAS. Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!
  ULYSSES. Amen.
  AGAMEMNON. Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;
    To our pavilion shall I lead you, first.
    Achilles shall have word of this intent;
    So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.
    Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
    And find the welcome of a noble foe.
                                    Exeunt all but ULYSSES and
NESTOR
  ULYSSES. Nestor!
  NESTOR. What says Ulysses?
  ULYSSES. I have a young conception in my brain;
    Be you my time to bring it to some shape.
  NESTOR. What is't?
  ULYSSES. This 'tis:
    Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride
    That hath to this maturity blown up
    In rank Achilles must or now be cropp'd
    Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil
    To