Pan. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin. 160 Cres. An't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too.

Pan. They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.

Cres. What was his answer?

Pan. Quoth she, 'Here's but two-and-fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.' Cres. This is her question.

Pan. That's true; make no question of that. 'Two-and-fifty hairs,' quoth he, and one white: that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she, 'which of these hairs is Paris my husband?' 'The forked one,' quoth he; 'pluck 't out, and give it him.' But there was such laughing, and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.

devil come to him, it's all one: by God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.

PARIS passes over.

Look ye yonder, niece; is 't not a gallant man too, is 't not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day he's not hurt: why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.

HELENUS passes over.

Cres. Who's that?

Pan. That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus.

Cres. Can Helenus fight, uncle?

Pan. Helenus? no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent

you not hear the people cry 'Troilus'? Helenus

Cres. So I do.

181

Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder? TROILUS passes over.

240

Pan. Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! Hem! Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry!

Cres. Peace! for shame, peace!

Pan. Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece: look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's; and how he looks, and how he goes. O admirable youth! he ne'er saw threeand-twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot.

Cres. Here come more.

Soldiers pass over.

256

Pan. Say one of your watches.

Cres. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past watching. Pan. You are such another!

Enter TROILUS'S Boy.

292

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.

30

Pan. Where?

10

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 surmised shape. Why then, you
princes,

Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works, And think them shames? which are indeed nought else

But the protractive trials of great Jove

20

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,

40

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; forin 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,

50

100

Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O! when degree is
shak'd,

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 primogenitive 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

110

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,

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 disdain'd
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:

120

130

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.
Nest. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd
The fever whereof all our power is sick.

Ajam. The nature of the sickness found,
Ulysses,
What is the remedy?

140

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,

160

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,

171

As he being dress'd 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.
Nest. 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

180

Of their observant toil the enemies' weight,Why, this hath not a finger's dignity.

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

So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the
engine,

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,

270

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 to morrow 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;

280

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.

How!

Which is that god in office, guiding men ? 230 Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon? Agam. This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy

Are ceremonious courtiers.

Ene. 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, Æneas!
Peace, Trojan! lay thy finger on thy lips.
The worthiness of praise distains his worth, 240
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.

Agam. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself
Eneas?

Ene. Ay, Greek, that is my name.
Agam. What's your affair, I pray you?

Ene. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears. Agam. He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.

Ene. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper

Ene. 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. Trumpet sounds.

260

Agam. This shall be told our lovers, Lord Eneas;

292

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.
Nest. 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 host
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 grandam, and as chaste
As may be in the world: his youth in flood,
I'll pawn this truth with my three drops of blood.
Ene. Now heavens forbid such scarcity of
youth!
Ulyss. Amen.

301

Ulyss. I have a young conception in my brain; Be you my time to bring it to some shape. Nest. What is 't?

Ulyss. 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 overbulk us all.

Nest.

Well, and how?

Ulyss. This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,

However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

320

Nest. The purpose is perspicuous even as substance,

But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Libya, though, Apollo knows,
'Tis dry enough, will, with great speed of judg-
ment,

Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose
Pointing on him.

330

Ulyss. And wake him to the answer, think you?

Nest. Yes, 'tis most meet: whom may you else oppose,

That can from Hector bring his honour off,

If not Achilles? Though 't be a sportful combat,
Yet in the 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 pois'd
In this wild action; for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling
Of good or bad unto the general;
And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass

340

Of things to come at large. It is suppos'd
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 distill'd
Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
What heart receives from hence the conquering
part,

To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertain'd, limbs are his instruments,
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.

Ulyss. 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 dogg'd with two strange followers.

350

Nest. I see them not with my old eyes: what are they?

Ulyss. 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, 370
Should he 'scape Hector fair: if he were foil'd,
Why then we did our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No; make a lottery;
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 employ'd plucks down Achilles' plumes.
Nest. Ulysses,

Now I begin to relish thy advice;

And I will give a taste of it forthwith

380