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To be another's fool. I would be gone :-
Where is my wit? I know not what I speak."
TRO. Well know they what they speak, that
speak so wisely.

CRES. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;

And fell so roundly to a large confession,
To angle for your thoughts: But you are wise;
Or else you love not; For to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above."

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gone :

Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.] Thus the quartos. The folio reads:

7

To be another's fool. Where is my wit?

I would be gone. I speak I know not what. MALONE,

But you are wise;

Or else you love not; For to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might; &c.] I read:
but we're not wise,

Or else we love not; to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might ;

Cressida, in return to the praise given by Troilus to her wisdom,
replies: "That lovers are never wise; that it is beyond the
power
of
man to bring love and wisdom to an union."

JOHNSON.

I don't think that this passage requires any amendment. Cressida's meaning is this: "Perchance I fell too roundly to confession, in order to angle for your thoughts; but you are not so easily taken in; you are too wise, or too indifferent; for to be wise and love, exceeds man's might." M. MASON,

to be wise, and love,

Exceeds man's might;] This is from Spenser, Shepherd's Calendar, March:

"To be wise, and eke to love,

"Is granted scarce to gods above."

TYRWHITT.

This thought originally belongs to Publius Syrus, among whose sentences we find this:

"Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur."

Marston, in The Dutch Courtezan, 1605, has the same thought, and the line is printed as a quotation :

TRO. O, that I thought it could be in a woman, (As, if it can, I will presume in you,) To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love; To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays!" Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me,— That my integrity and truth to you

"But raging lust my fate all strong doth move; "The gods themselves cannot be wise, and love." Cressida's argument is certainly inconsequential: "But you are wise, or else you are not in love; for no one who is in love can be wise." I do not, however, believe there is any corruption, as our author sometimes entangles himself in inextricable difficulties of this kind. One of the commentators has endeavoured to extort sense from the words as they stand, and thinks there is no difficulty. In these cases, the surest way to prove the inaccuracy, is, to omit the word that embarrasses the sentence. Thus, if, for a moment, we read:

But you are wise;

Or else you love; for to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might: &c.

the inference is clear, by the omission of the word not: which is not a word of so little importance that a sentence shall have just the same meaning whether a negative is contained in it or taken from it. But for all inaccuracies of this kind our poet himself is undoubtedly answerable.—Sir T. Hanmer, to obtain some sense, arbitrarily reads:

A sign you love not. MALONE.

To feed for aye her lamp &c.] Troilus alludes to the perpetual lamps which were supposed to illuminate sepulchres: lasting flames, that burn

See

66

"To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn.” my note on Pericles, Act III. sc. i. STEEVENS.

swifter than blood decays!] Blood, in Shakspeare, frequently means desire, appetite. MALONE.

In the present instance, the word blood has its common signification. So, in Much Ado about Nothing:

"Time hath not yet so dry'd this blood-" STEEVENS.

TRO. O, that I thought it could be in a woman, (As, if it can, I will presume presume in you,) To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love; To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays!9 Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me,That my integrity and truth to you

"But raging lust my fate all strong doth move; "The gods themselves cannot be wise, and love." Cressida's argument is certainly inconsequential: "But you are wise, or else you are not in love; for no one who is in love can be wise." I do not, however, believe there is any corruption, as our author sometimes entangles himself in inextricable difficulties of this kind. One of the commentators has endeavoured to extort sense from the words as they stand, and thinks there is no difficulty. In these cases, the surest way to prove the inaccuracy, is, to omit the word that embarrasses the sentence. Thus, if, for a moment, we read:

But you are wise;

Or else you love; for to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might: &c.

the inference is clear, by the omission of the word not: which is not a word of so little importance that a sentence shall have just the same meaning whether a negative is contained in it or taken from it. But for all inaccuracies of this kind our poet himself is undoubtedly answerable.-Sir T. Hanmer, to obtain some sense, arbitrarily reads:

A sign you love not. MALONE.

To feed for aye her lamp &c.] Troilus alludes to the perpetual lamps which were supposed to illuminate sepulchres: lasting flames, that burn

66

"To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn.” See my note on Pericles, Act III. sc. i. STEEVENS.

9 swifter than blood decays!] Blood, in Shakspeare, frequently means desire, appetite. MALONE.

In the present instance, the word blood has its common signification. So, in Much Ado about Nothing:

"Time hath not yet so dry'd this blood." STEEVENS.

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