The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 245
Which is the ladder to 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 meets no
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 in a purpose
It hath to climb. The general’s disdained
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath. So every step,
Exampled 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 lives, not in her strength.
NESTOR
Most wisely hath Ulysses here discovered
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 scurrile 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 stretched 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 unsquared
Which from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropped
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff
The large Achilles on his pressed 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 dressed to some oration.’
That’s done as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels, as like as 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-willed and bears his head
In such a rein, in full as proud a place
As broad Achilles, and 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 so ever 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 enemy’s 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 finesse 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 ⌈and a trumpeter⌉
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 ears?
AGAMEMNON
With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm,
Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
Call Agamemnon heart 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 on 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 (to the Greeks)
This Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.
AENEAS
Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarmed,
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 great
Jove’s acorn
Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips.
The worthiness of praise distains h
is worth,
If that the praised himself bring the praise forth.
But what, repining, the 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 naught privately that comes from Troy.
AENEAS
Nor I from Troy come not to whisper 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, Trojan, 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.
The trumpet sounds
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 Trojans 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 compass in his arms,
And will tomorrow with his trumpet call
Midway 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’ll be he.
NESTOR (to Aeneas)
Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
When Hector’s grandsire sucked. 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 vambrace put this withered brawn,
And meeting him will tell him that my lady
Was fairer than his grandam, 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 forbid 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 cropped
Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil
To overbulk us all.
NESTOR Well, and how?
ULYSSES
This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.
NESTOR
The purpose is perspicuous, even as substance
Whose grossness little characters sum up.
And, in the publication, make no strain
But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Libya—though, Apollo knows,
’Tis dry enough—will with great speed of judgement,
Ay with celerity, find Hector’s purpose
Pointing on him.
ULYSSES
And wake him to the answer, think you?
NESTOR
Yes, ‘tis most meet. Who may you else oppose,
That can from Hector bring his honour off,
If not Achilles? Though’t be a sportful combat,
Yet in this trial much opinion dwells,
For here the Trojans taste our dear’st repute
With their fin‘st palate. And trust to me, Ulysses,
Our imputation shall be oddly poised
In this wild action: for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling
Of good or bad unto the general—
And in such indices, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large. It is supposed
He that meets Hector issues from our choice,
And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
Makes merit her election, and doth boil,
As ’twere, from forth us all a man distilled
Out of our virtues—who miscarrying,
What heart from hence receives the conqu‘ring part
To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertained, limbs are e’en his instruments,
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.
ULYSSES Give pardon to my speech:
Therefore ’tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.
Let us like merchants show our foulest wares
And think perchance they’ll sell. If not,
The lustre of the better yet to show
Shall show the better. Do not consent
That ever Hector and Achilles meet,
For both our honour and our shame in this
Are dogged with two strange followers.
NESTOR
I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?
ULYSSES
What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,
Were he not proud we all should wear with him.
But he already is too insolent,
And we were better parch in Afric sun
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foiled,
Why then we did our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lott’ry,
And by device let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves
Give him allowance as the worthier man—
For that will physic the
great Myrmidon,
Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends.
If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,
We’ll dress him up in voices; if he fail,
Yet go we under our opinion still
That we have better men. But hit or miss,
Our project’s life this shape of sense assumes:
Ajax employed plucks down Achilles’ plumes.
NESTOR
Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice,
And I will give a taste of it forthwith
To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.
Two curs shall tame each other; pride alone
Must tarre the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.
Exeunt
2.1 Enter Ajax and Thersites
AJAX Thersites.
THERSITES Agamemnon—how if he had boils, full, all over, generally?
AJAX Thersites.
THERSITES And those boils did run? Say so, did not the General run then? Were not that a botchy core?
AJAX Dog.
THERSITES Then there would come some matter from him.
I see none now.
AJAX Thou bitch-wolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Feel then.
He strikes Thersites
THERSITES The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!
AJAX Speak then, thou unsifted leaven, speak! I will beat thee into handsomeness.
THERSITES I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness. But I think thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book.
⌈Ajax strikes him⌉
Thou canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain o’ thy jade’s tricks.
AJAX Toad’s stool!
⌈He strikes Thersites⌉
Learn me the proclamation.
THERSITES Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?
AJAX The proclamation.
THERSITES Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think.
AJAX Do not, porcupine, do not. My fingers itch.
THERSITES I would thou didst itch from head to foot. An I had the scratching of thee, I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece.
AJAX I say, the proclamation.
THERSITES Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles, and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpina’s beauty, ay, that thou barkest at him.
AJAX Mistress Thersites.
THERSITES Thou shouldst strike him.
AJAX Cobloaf.
THERSITES He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit.
AJAX You whoreson cur.
⌈He strikes Thersites⌉
THERSITES Do! Do!
AJAX Thou stool for a witch.
⌈He strikes Thersites⌉