Troilus and Cressida | Page 9

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, 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?