fixture

Thou art a tyrant to say so . Thou wouldst
make an absolute courtier , and the firm fixture of
thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait
in a semicircled farthingale . I see what thou wert ,
if Fortune thy foe were not , Nature thy friend .
Come , thou canst not hide it .

The fixture of her eye has motion in ’t ,
As we are mocked with art .

Troy , yet upon his basis , had been down ,
And the great Hector’s sword had lacked a master
But for these instances :
The specialty of rule hath been neglected ,
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain , so many hollow factions .
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair ,
What honey is expected ? Degree being vizarded ,
Th’ unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask .
The heavens themselves , the planets , and this center
Observe degree , priority , and place ,
Insisture , course , proportion , season , form ,
Office , and custom , in all line of order .
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other , whose med’cinable eye
Corrects the influence of evil planets ,
And posts , like the commandment of a king ,
Sans check , to good and bad . But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander ,
What plagues and what portents , what mutiny ,
What raging of the sea , shaking of Earth earth ,
Commotion in the winds , frights , changes , horrors
Divert and crack , rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture ! O , when degree is shaked ,
Which is the ladder of all high designs ,
The enterprise is sick . How could communities ,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities ,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores ,
The primogeneity and due of birth ,
Prerogative of age , crowns , scepters , laurels ,
But by degree stand in authentic place ?
Take but degree away , untune that string ,
And hark what discord follows . Each thing meets
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 , with 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 stands , not in her strength .