Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:

Things won are done; joy's soul lies (13) in the doing:
That she belov'd knows naught that knows not this,-
Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew

Love got so sweet as when desire did sue:

Therefore this maxim out of love I teach,

Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech :(14)

Then, though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON's tent.

Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS,
and others.

Agam. Princes,

What grief hath set the jaundice on 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,
Infect the sound pine, and divert 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 surmisèd shape. Why, then, you princes,

(13) lies] Mason would read "dies."

(14) Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:] Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes "Achiev'd men still command," &c. : but if the text requires alteration (of which I have yet to be convinced), Mr. Harness's reading, "Achiev'd men us command," &c., is far preferable.-See Walker's Crit. Exam., &c., vol. ii. p. 313, where this passage is quoted without any suspicion of its being corrupt; and the editor's note ibid.

Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our wrecks,(15)
And call them shames, which are, indeed, naught 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.

Nest. 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 breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
'Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled (16) under shade, why, then the thing of courage,

(15) wrecks,] So Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.-The old eds. have "workes ;" which Walker (Crit. Exam., &c., vol. iii. p. 192) pronounces to be "palpably wrong."

(16) fled "Perhaps flee," says Walker (Crit. Exam., &c., vol. ii. p. 68); which Capell gives.

As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tun'd in selfsame key
Retorts (17) to chiding fortune.

Ulyss.

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,
Though (18) great and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

Agam. 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 mastiff (20) jaws,

We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

(19)

(17) Retorts] So I conjectured in my Few Notes, &c., p. 107; and so too Mr. Grant White.-The quarto has "Retires;" the folio, "Retyres." -Pope printed "Returns ; " Hanmer, "Replies," which is the reading of Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.-Mr. Staunton gives "Re-chides."

(18) Though] The old eds. have "Thou."-Corrected by Hanmer. (19) and be't of less expect, &c.] Here "expect" is explained to mean expectation. I have no doubt that the line is corrupted.-Pope gave "we less expect," &c.; Capell, “And we less expect," &c.; and Mr. W. N. Lettsom conjectures, "we no less expect," &c., i.e. "we are as sure of a bad speech from you as of a good one from Thersites. Ulysses makes a similarly inverted or ironical comparison below, p. 25;

" as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels; as like as Vulcan and his wife.""_

This speech is not in the quarto.

(20) mastiff] The folio has "Masticke."-This speech is not in the quarto.

Ulyss. 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.(21)
When that the general is not like the hive,(22)
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; (23) 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

Hanmer

(21) Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.] omitted the first "Hollow;" Steevens proposes to omit the second. (22) When that the general is not like the hive, &c.] "The meaning is, -When the general is not to the army like the hive to the bees, the repository of the stock of every individual, that to which each particular resorts with whatever he has collected for the good of the whole, chat honey is expected? what hope of advantage? The sense is clear, the expression is confused." JOHNSON.-Warburton reads "When that the general not likes the hive," &c. ; Heath proposes "When that the general's not the life of th' hive," &c.; and Capell prints "When that the general is not lik'd o' the hive," &c.

(23) other;] Mr. Singer (Shakespeare Vindicated, &c., p. 192) reads "ether" in opposition to which reading Mr. Grant White observes, "It is not Sol's place in the ether, but his supremacy 'amidst the other' heavenly bodies, which Ulysses wishes to impress upon his hearers." Shakespeare's Scholar, &c., p. 354

Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shak'd,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,

Then(24) enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commérce from dividable shores,
The primogenity (25) 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 meets
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 every thing 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(26)
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 every step,

(24) Then] So Hanmer.-The old eds. have "The."

(25) primogenity] So the quarto ("primogenitie").—The folio has "primogenitiue.”

"[The first 'universal'] wrong, surely." Walker's Crit. Exam., &c., vol. i. p. 307.