a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris!-Paris is dirt to him; and I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. Forces pass over the Stage. Cres. Here come more. Pan. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i'the 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. Cres. There is among the Greeks, Achilles; a better man than Troilus. Pan. Achilles? a drayman, a porter, a very camel. Cres. Well, well. Pan. Well, well? - Why, have you any discretion? 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 such like, the spice and salt that season a man? Cres. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pye3, for then the man's date is out. Pan. You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie.+ Cres. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches. Pan. Say one of your watches. Cres. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too; if I cannot ward what I would 3 ·no date in the pye,] To account for the introduction of this quibble, it should be remembered that dates were an ingredient in ancient pastry of almost every kind. at what ward you lie.] A metaphor from the art of defence. not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it is past watching. Pan. You are such another! Enter TROILUS' Boy. Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you. Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him. [Exit Boy. I doubt, he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece. Cres. Adieu, uncle. Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by. Words, vows, griefs, tears, and love's full sacrifice, He offers in another's enterprize: But more in Troilus thousand fold I see Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be; Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing: That she was never yet, that ever knew 6 [Exit. 5 Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:] The meaning of this obscure line seems to be-"Men, after possession, become our commanders: before it, they are our suppliants." 6 · my heart's content-] Content for capacity, or perhaps for consent. SCENE III. The Grecian Camp. Before Agamemnon's Tent. Trumpets. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYsses, MENELAUS, and Others. Agam. Princes, What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? In all designs begun on earth below, Fails in the promis'd largeness: checks and disasters As knots, by the conflúx of meeting sap, That we come short of our suppose so far, That, after seven years' siege, yet Troy walls stand; That gav't surmised shape. Why then, you princes, And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought else To find persistive constancy in men? In fortune's love: for then, the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft, seem all affin'd' and kin: 7affin'd] i. e. joined by affinity. And what hath mass, or matter, by itself Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat, 8 Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth, Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of nobler bulk? But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, And flies fled under shade', Why, then, the thing of 2 courage, As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize, And, with an accent tun'd in self-same key, Returns to chiding3 fortune. Ulyss. Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, In whom the tempers and the minds of all Nestor shall apply-] Perhaps Nestor means, that he will attend particularly to, and consider, Agamemnon's latest words. by the brize,] The brize is the gad or horse-fly. 9 1 And flies fled under shade,] i. e. And flies are fled under shade. 2 the thing of courage,] It is said of the tiger, that in storms and high winds he rages and roars most furiously. • Returns to chiding-] Chiding is noisy, clamorous. Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks. Besides the applause and approbation The which, most mighty for thy place and sway,[To AGAMEMNON. And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life, — I give to both your speeches, [TO NESTOR. which were such, Should with a bond of air (strong as the axletree speeches, which were such, As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece Should with a bond of air knit all the Greekish ears To his experienc'd tongue,] Ulysses begins his oration with praising 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 method of engraving. Hacher, to cut, Fr. JOHNSON. The commentators differ in some respects from this explanation. |