Re-enter Lady MACBETH.

Lady M. My hands are of your colour; but I shame To wear a heart so white. [Knocking.] I hear

knocking

At the south entry: - retire we to our chamber:
A little water clears us of this deed:

How easy is it, then! Your constancy

Hath left you unattended. [Knocking.] Hark! more knocking:

Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,

And show us to be watchers:-Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.

Macb. To know my deed, 'twere best not know

myself.

[Knocking. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou

couldst !

Macbeth, Act II., Scene 2.

ULYSSES' ADVICE TO ACHILLES.

[Achilles, by reason of a quarrel with the Grecian general, Agamemnon, having withdrawn from action in the field, Ulysses instructs the latter and his brother commanders to pass him by with a 66 negligent and loose regard," to afford himself an opportunity, if Achilles remark upon their treatment of him, to give him some wholesome advice in regard to his past conduct, and to stir him up into a rivalry with Ajax. The ingenious delicacy with which Ulysses manages the haughty and self-willed Achilles, to gain his point, the keen insight into human nature which he exhibits in the matter, and the profound wisdom to which he gives expression in the course of his advice, when the

opportunity presents itself, render this scene as characteristically Shakspearian as any other of the same extent in the whole range of the great poet's Plays.]

Scene, The Grecian Camp. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, AJAX, and MENELAUS. ACHILLES and PATROCLUS appear at a distance before their tent.

Ulyss. Achilles stands i'the entrance of his tent: Please it our general to pass strangely by him,

As if he were forgot; and, princes all,

Lay negligent and loose regard upon him;

I will come last. 'Tis like, he'll question me,
Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd

him:

If so, I have derision med'cinable,

To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Agam. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along;-
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general? Achil. No.

426

PASSAGES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

Nest. Nothing, my lord.

Agam. The better.

[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR.

Achil. Good day, good day.

Men. How do you? how do you?

[Exit MENELAUS.

Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me?

Ajax. How now, Patroclus?

Achil. Good morrow, Ajax.

Ajax. Ha?

Achil. Good morrow.

Ajax. Ay, and good next day too.

[Exit AJAX.

Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not

Achilles?

Patr. They pass by strangely: they were us'd to

bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles;

To come as humbly, as they us'd to creep
To holy altars.

Achil. What, am I poor of late?

'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declin'd is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,

As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honour; but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,

Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy

At ample point all that I did possess,

Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading.—

How now, Ulysses?

Ulyss. Now, great Thetis' son?
Achil. What are you reading?

Ulyss. A strange fellow here

Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without, or in,—
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself
(That most pure spirit of sense) behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye oppos'd
Salutes each other with each other's form

For speculation turns not to itself,

Till it hath travell'd, and is mirror'd there
Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all.
Ulyss. I do not strain at the position,―
It is familiar,-but at the author's drift:
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
That no man is the lord of any thing,
(Though in and of him there be much consisting,)
Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them form'd in the applause
Where they are extended; which, like an arch, rever-
berates

The voice again; or like a gate of steel

Fronting the sun, receives and renders back

His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this,
And apprehended here immediately

The unknown Ajax.

Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse;

That has he knows not what. Nature, what things

there are,

Most abject in regard, and dear in use!

What things again most dear in the esteem,

And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow,
An act that very chance doth throw upon him,
Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!

How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!