Imatges de pàgina
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ris: look ye yonder, niece, is't not a gallant man too, is 't not? Why, this is brave now: who faid, he came home hurt to-day? he's not hurt, why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha? 'Would, I could fee Troilus now; you shall fee Troilus anon.

Cre. Who's that?

Helenus paffes over.

Pan. That's Helenus. I marvel, where Troilus is. That's Helenus-I think, he went not forth to dayThat's Helenus.

Cre. Can Helenus fight, uncle?

Pan. Helenus, no-yes, he'll fight indifferent well -I marvel, where Troilus is? hark, do you not hear the people cry Troilus? Helenus is a prieft.

Cre. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

Troilus passes over.

Pan. Where! yonder? that's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece-Hem! - Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry !

Cre. Peace, for shame, peace.

Pan. Mark him, note him. O brave Troilus! look well upon him, niece; look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hack'd than Hector's, and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he ne'er faw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were a Grace, or a daugh ter a Goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? - Paris is dirt to him, and, I war rant, Helen to change would give + money to boor.

Enter common Soldiers,

Gre. Here come more,

4 money to boot.] So the folio. The old quarto, with more force.

Give an eye to boot.

E c 4

Pan.

Pan. Affes, fools, dolts, chaff and bran, chaff and bran: porridge after meat. I could live and die i' th eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone; crows and daws, crows and daws. I had rather be such a man as Troilus, than Agamemnon and all Greece.

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 difcretion? have you any eyes? Do you know, what a man is ? is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and fo forth, the fpice and falt, that feasons 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

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Pan. You are such another woman, one knows not at what ward you lie.

Cre. Upon my back, to defend my belly; supon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my fecrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask to defend my beauty, and you to defend all these. At all these wards I lie, and at a 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 well paft hiding, and then it is paft watching.

Pan. You are such another.

5 upon my wit, to defend my wiles; So read both the copies, yet perhaps the authour wrote, Upon my wit, to defind my will.

The terms wit and will were, in the language of that time, put often in oppofition.

Enter

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 niece.

Cre. Adieu, uncle.

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

Cre. To bring, uncle

Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus.

Cre. By the fame token, you are a bawd.

[Exit Pandarus.

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full facrifice,
He offers in another's enterprize;
But more in Troilus thousand-fold I fee,
Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done; ' joy's foul lies in the doing:
That the 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, so sweet, as when Defire did fue :
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach;
Atchievement is Command; ungain'd, beseech.
• Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear. [Exit.

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Changes to Agamemnon's Tent in the Grecian Camp.

Trumpets. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Dio

Agam. P

medes, Menelaus, with others.

RINCES,

What grief hath set the jaundice on your

cheeks?

The ample proposition, that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below,

Fails in the promis'd largeness.

Checks and disasters

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 Suppose so far,
That after sev'n years' fiege, yet Troy-walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart; not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
'That gave 't surmised shape. Why then, you Princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our Works?
And think them shame, which are, indeed, nought

elfe

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find perfistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

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

Broad, quarto; the folio reads loud,

And

And what hath mass, or matter by itself,
Lies rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Nest. With due observance of thy godlike Seat,

Great Agamemnon, & Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of Chance

Lies the true proof of men: the Sea being smooth,

3 With due obfervance of thy goodly Seat.] Goodly is an epithet carries no very great compliment with it; and Nestor feems here to be paying deference to Agamemnon's state and pre-eminence. The old books have it, to thy godly Seat; godlike, as I have reform'd the text, seems to me the epithet design'd; and is very conformable to what Eneas afterwards says of Aga

memnon;

Which is that God in office, guiding men!

So godlike Seat is here, State fupreme above other commanders. THEOBALD.

This emendation Theobald might have found in the quarto, which has,

How

mises that he will make this application; but we find nothing like it. He only repeats Agamemnon's general observation, and illustrates it by another image; from whence it appears, that Shakespear wrote,

-Neftor shall SUPPLY

Thy latest words. And it must be owned, the poet never wrote any thing more in character. Neftor, a talkative old man, was glad to catch at this common-place, as it would furnish him with much matter for prate. And, therefore, on pretence that Agamemnon had not been full enough upon it, he begs leave to supply the topic with some diverfified flourishes of his own. And what could be more natural than for a wordy old man to call the repetition of the fame thought, a fupplial. We may observe further, that according to this reading the introduc

-the godlike feat.

4 -Neftor shall APPLY

apology,

With due obfervance of thy goodly Seat,

Thy latest words. -) What were these latest words? A common-place observation, illustrated by a particular image, that oppo-tory fition and adversity were useful to try and diftinguish between the waliant man and the coward, the wife man and the fool. The application of this was to the Greeks, who had remained long unfuccessful before Troy, but might make a good use of their misfor tunes by learning patience and perfeverance, Now Neftar pro

is very proper: it being a kind of infinuation, to the prejudice of Agamemnon's facundity, that Nestor was forced to supply his speech. Whereas had the true reading been apply, the apology had been impertinent: for in fuch a cafe we must have supposed,

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