Cre. There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.

Pan. Achilles? a dray-man, a porter, a very camel. Cre. Well, well.

Pan. Well, well-why, have you any discretion? have you any eyes? do you know, what a man is? is not birth, beauty, good shape, difcourfe, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and fo forth, the fpice and salt, that seasons a man ?

Cre. Ay, a minc'd man; and then to be bak'd with no date in the pye, for then the man's date is out,

Pan. You are fuch another woman, one knows not at what ward you lye.

Cre. Upon my back to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my fecrefie, to defend mine honefty; my mask to defend my beauty, and you to defend all thefe; and at all thefe wards I lye, at á thousand watches.

Pan. Say one of your watches.

Cre Nay, I'll watch you for that, and that's one of the chiefeft 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 fwell paft hiding, and then it is paft watching,

Pan. You are fuch another.

Enter Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
Pan. Where?

Boy. At your own house, there he unarms him.

Pan. Good boy, tell him I come; I doubt, he be

hurt. Fare ye well, good neice.

Cre. Adieu, uncle.

Pan. I'll be with you, neice, by and by.

Cre. To bring, uncle

Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus.

Cre. By the fame token, you are a bawd. [Exit Pan. Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full facrifice,

He offers in another's enterprize:

But more in Troilus thousand-fold I fee,

Than

Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be ;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done; the foul's joy lyes in doing:
That She belov'd knows nought, that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungain'd, more than it is.
That She was never yet, that ever knew
Love got, fo fweet, as when Desire did fue:
Atchievement is Command; ungain'd, befeech.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach;

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

[Exit.

SCENE changes to Agamemnon's Tent in the Grecian Camp.

Trumpets. Enter Agamemnon, Neftor, Ulyffes, Diomedes, Menelaus, with others.

RINCES,

Agam. What grief hath set the jaundice on your

cheeks?

The ample propofition, that hope makes
In all defigns begun on earth below,

Fails in the promis'd largeness: Checks and difafters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd;

As knots by the conflux of meeting fap

Infect the found 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 Suppofe fo far,
That after fev'n years' fiege, yet Troy-walls ftand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, tryal did draw
Bias and thwart; not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought

That gave't furmised shape. Why then, you Princes,
Do you with cheeks abath'd behold our Works?

And think them fhame, which are, indeed, nought elfe
But the protractive tryals of great Jove,

To find perfiftive conftancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In

In fortune's love; for then, the bold and coward,
The wife and fool, the artist and unread,

The hard and foft, feem all affin'd, and kin;
But in the wind and tempeft of her frown,
Diftinction with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass, or matter by it felf,
Lies rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Neft. With due obfervance of thy godlike Seat, (5) Great Agamemnon, Neftor fhall apply

Thy latest words. In the reproof of Chance

Lies the true proof of men: the Sea being smooth,
How many fhallow bauble boats dare fail

Upon her patient breaft, making their way

With thofe of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon, behold,

The frong-ribb'd Bark thro' liquid mountains cuts;
Bounding between the two moist elements,

Like Perfeus' horfe: Where's then the fawcy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd fides but even now
Co-rival'd Greatnefs? or to harbour fled,

Or made a toast for Neptune. Even fo

Doth valour's fhew and valour's worth divide
In ftorms of fortune. For in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize
Than by the tyger: but when splitting winds
Make flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies get under fhade; the thing of courage,
As rouz'd with rage, with rage doth fympathize;
And, with an accent tun'd in felf fame key,

(5) With due Obfervance of thy goodly Seat,] Goodly is an Epi thet carries no very great Compliment with it; and Neftor feems here to be paying Deference to Agamemnon's State and Preeminence. The old Books have it,- -to thy godly Seat; godlike, as I have reform'd the Text, feems to me the Epithet defign'd; and is very conformable to what neas afterwards fays of Agamemnon;

Which is that God in Office, guiding Men? So godlike Seat is here, State fupreme above other Commanders.

Returns

Returns to chiding fortune.

Uly. Agamemnon,

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, foul, and only fpirit,

In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be fhut up: hear, what Ulyffes fpeaks.
Befides th' applause and approbation

The which, moft mighty for thy place and fway, [To Aga.
And thou, moft rev'rend for thy ftretcht-out life, [To Neft.
I give to both your fpeeches; which were fuch,
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece

Should hold up high in brafs; and fuch again,
As venerable Neftor (hatch'd in filver)

Should with a bond of air, ftrong as the axle-tree
On which heav'n rides, knit all the Grecians' ears
To his experienc'd tongue: yet let it please both
(Thou great, and wife) to hear Ulyffes fpeak.

Aga. Speak, Prince of Ithaca: we lefs expect,
That matter needlefs, of importless burthen.
Divide thy lips; than we are confident,
When rank Therfites opes his maftiff jaws,
We fhall hear mufick, wit, and oracle.

Ul. Troy, yet upon her bafis, had been down,
And the great Hector's fword had lack'd a master,

But for these instances.

The fpeciality of Rule hath been neglected;
And, look, how many Grecian Tents do ftand
Hollow upon this Plain, fo many hollow factions.
When that the General is not like the hive,
To whom the Foragers fhall all repair,

What honey is expected? degree being vizarded,
Th' unworthieft fhews as fairly in the mask.

The heavens themfelves, the planets, and this center,
Obferve degree, priority and place,

Infifture, course, proportion, season, form,

Office and cuftom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
Amidst the rest, whofe med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill afpects of planets evil,

And

Must be the sche commandment of a King,
Sand with a good and bad. But when the planets
Inake inxture to disorder wander,

What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny!
What raging of the Sea? fhaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixure! Oh, when degree is fhaken,
(Which is the ladder to all high defigns)

The enterprize is fick. How could communities,
Degrees in fchools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogeniture, and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, fcepters, lawrels,
(But by degree) ftand in authentick place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what difcord follows; each thing meets
In meer oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Would lift their bofoms higher than the fhores,
And make a fop of all this folid Globe:
Strength would be lord of imbecillity,

And the rude fon would strike his father dead:
Force would be Right; or rather, Right and Wrong

(Between whose endless jar Juftice refides)

Would lose their names, and fo would Juftice too.
Then every thing includes it felf in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite (an univerfal wolf,

So doubly feconded with will and power)
Muft make perforce an univerfal prey,
And laft eat up it felf. Great Agamemnon!
This Chaos, when degree is fuffocate,
Follows the choaking:

And this neglection of degree is it,

That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose
It hath to climb. The General's difdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath: fo every step,
Exampled by the firft pace that is fick

Of