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Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. . . .
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. (1.3.113–14, 123–30)
Ulysses declaims these words as part of his famous speech on the importance of hierarchy and “degree.” These lines come from late in the speech, where he forecasts what happens to a society when all organizing structures fall away and it’s every person for themself. In this disturbing vision, every individual becomes a “universal wolf” who, in seeking more power and resources for themself, treats everyone else as “universal prey.” The result is that society consumes itself, and chaos ensues. In context, Ulysses’s words apply to the danger of figures like Achilles, who have chosen to ignore authority and go their own way. Without their submission to the chain of command, he suggests that the Greek army will not be able finally to conquer Troy.
Possessed he is with greatness
And speaks not to himself but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath. Imagined worth
Holds in his blood such swoll’n and hot discourse
That ’twixt his mental and his active parts
Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages
And batters down himself. (2.3.178–84)
Ulysses addresses these words to Agamemnon, commenting on Achilles’s unflagging pride. As he reports to the Greek military leader, Achilles is inflated with his own sense of self-importance—so much so that it seems like he could be “possessed” by the demon of “greatness.” The image of demonic possession suggested by Ulysses’s language seems to come from observing Achilles as he argues with himself, exhibiting a strange form of “pride / That quarrels at self-breath.” Also significant in this quote is the reference to “Kingdomed Achilles,” a phrase that suggests Achilles has grown to think of himself as a kingdom of one. Arguing with himself in his tent, Achilles appears to realize Ulysses’s earlier vision of the “universal wolf” (1.3.125) that “eat[s] himself up” (128) and thereby destroys society.
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 anything—
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 formed in the applause
Where they’re extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rate
The voice again or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. (3.3.117–28)
Ulysses directs these words to an Achilles who’s confused and upset after the Greek leaders have given him the cold shoulder. Approaching Ulysses to ask what’s going on, Achilles complains about the fragility of a man’s reputation and describes the need for a hero to be recognized by his fellow warriors: “nor doth the eye itself / . . . behold itself, / Not going from itself, but eye to eye opposed / Salutes each other with each other’s form” (3.3.110–13). In the quote above, Ulysses agrees with Achilles’s point about recognition, but he also suggests that the type of recognition Achilles craves must be reciprocated to be meaningful. As he puts the matter: “no man is the lord of anything / . . . Till he communicate his parts to others.” Only when there is exchange among individuals within a society is it possible for a man to achieve the recognition he deserves.
