Should be shut up,- hear what Ulysses speaks. The which, most mighty for thy place and sway,[To AGAMEMNON. And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life, — [TO NESTOR. Should with a bond of air (strong as the axletree 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 jaws, We shall hear musick, wit, and oracle. 1— speeches, — which were such, knit all the Greekish ears To his experienc'd tongue,] Ulysses begins his oration with prais ing those who had spoken before him, and marks the characteristick excellencies of their different eloquence, — strength, and sweetness, which he expresses by the different metals on which he recommends them to be engraven for the instruction of posterity. The speech of Agamemnon is such that it ought to be engraven in brass, and the tablet held up by him on the one side, and Greece on the other, to show the union of their opinion. And Nestor ought to be exhibited in silver, uniting all his audience in one mind by his soft and gentle elocution. Brass is the common emblem of strength, and silver of gentleness. We call a soft voice a silver voice, and a persuasive tongue, a silver tongue. To hatch is a term of art for a particular Hacher, to cut, Fr. JOHNSON. The com mentators differ in some respects from this explanation. · expect —] Expect for expectation method of engraving. Ulyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master, But for these instances. 6 The specialty of rule hath been neglected: What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center, s Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, And posts, like the commandment of a king, In evil mixture, to disorder wander, What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny? The unity and married calm of states 8 6 The specialty of rule-] The particular rights of supreme authority. 7 When that the general is not like the hive,] 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, what honey is expected? what hope of advantage? The sense is clear, the expression is confused. JOHNSON. 8 the planets, and this center,] By this center, Ulysses means the earth itself, not the center of the earth. According to the system of Ptolemy, the earth is the center round which the planets move. 9 deracinate] i, e. force up by the roots. Quite from their fixture? O, when degree is shak'd, The enterprize is sick! How could communities, And the rude son should strike his father dead: And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, And, last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose 1-brotherhoods in cities,] Corporations, companies, confra ternities. 2 dividable shores,] i. e. divided. 3-mere-] Mere is absolute. 4 That by a pace-] That goes backward step by step. 5 with a purpose It hath to climb.] With a design in each man to aggrandize himself, by slighting his immediate superior. By him one step below; he, by the next; And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Agam. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy? Ulyss. 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 Breaks scurril jests; And with ridiculous and awkward action He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon, And, like a strutting player, whose conceit 6 9 bloodless emulation:] An emulation not vigorous and active, but malignant and sluggish. 7 ———— our power—] i. e. our army. s Thy topless deputation,-] Topless is that which has nothing topping or overtopping it; supreme; sovereign. 9'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,] The galleries of the theatre, in the time of our author, were sometimes termed the scaffolds. 1 o'er-wrested seeming —] i. e. wrested beyond the truth. He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks, That's done; as near as the extremest ends Of parallels3: as like as Vulcan and his wife: age And then, forsooth, the faint defects of 2 unsquar'd,] i. e. unadapted to their subject, as stones are unfitted to the purposes of architecture, while they are yet unsquar'd. 3 as near as the extremest ends Of parallels:] The parallels to which the allusion seems to be made, are the parallels on a map. As like as east to west. |