Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

PAN. How now, how now? how go maidenheads? -Here, you maid! where's my cousin Cressid? CRES. Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle!

You bring me to do," and then you flout me too. PAN. To do what? to do what?-let her say what: what have I brought you to do?

CRES. Come, come; beshrew your heart! you'll ne'er be good,

Nor suffer others.

PAN. Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! a poor capocchia!'-hast not slept to-night? would he not, à naughty man, let it sleep? a bugbear take him! [Knocking. CRES. Did I not tell you?-'would he were knock'd o'the head!

"Cresseide answerde, nevir the bet for you,
"Foxe that ye ben, God yeve your hertè care,
"God help me so, ye causid all this fare," &c.

STEEVENS.

So,

9 to do,] To do is here used in a wanton sense. in The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio says: "I would fain be doing."

Again, in All's well that ends well, Lafeu declares that he is "past doing." COLLINS.

1

a poor capocchia!] Pandarus would say, I think, in English-Poor innocent! Poor fool! hast not slept to-night? These appellations are very well answered by the Italian word capocchio: for capocchio signifies the thick head of a club; and thence metaphorically, a head of not much brain, a sot, dullard, heavy gull. THEOBALD.

The word in the old copy is chipochia, for which Mr. Theobald substituted capocchio, which he has rightly explained. Capochia may perhaps be used with propriety in the same sense, when applied to a female; but the word has also an entirely different meaning, not reconcilable to the context here, for which I choose to refer the reader to Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598. MALONE.

[blocks in formation]

Who's that at door? good uncle, go and see.--
My lord, come you again into my chamber:
You smile, and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.
TRO. Ha, ha!

such thing.

CRES. Come, you are deceiv'd, I think of no [Knocking. How earnestly they knock!-pray you, come in; I would not for half Troy have you seen here. [Exeunt TROILUS and CRESSIDA.

PAN. [Going to the door.] Who's there? what's the matter? will you beat down the door? How now? what's the matter?

[ocr errors]

Enter ENEAS.

ENE. Good morrow, lord, good morrow. PAN. Who's there? my lord Æneas? By my troth, I knew you not: what news with you so early?

ENE. Is not prince Troilus here?

PAN. Here! what should he do here?

ENE. Come, he is here, my lord, do not deny him;

It doth import him much, to speak with me.

PAN. Is he here, say you? 'tis more than I know, I'll be sworn :-For my own part, I came in late: What should he do here?

as if-] Here, I believe, a common ellipsis has been destroyed by a playhouse interpolation: As, in ancient language, has frequently the power of-as if. I would therefore omit the latter conjunction, which encumbers the line without enforcing the sense. Thus, in Spenser's Fairy Queen:

"That with the noise it shook as it would fall."

STEEVENS.

ENE. Who!-nay, then :

Come, come, you'll do him wrong ere you are 'ware: You'll be so true to him, to be false to him:

Do not you know of him, yet go fetch him hither; Go.

[ocr errors]

AS PANDARUS is going out, enter TROILUS.

TRO. How now? what's the matter?

ENE. Mylord, I scarce have leisure to salute you, My matter is so rash: There is at hand Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,

5

The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor
Deliver'd to us; and for him forthwith,
Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,
We must give up to Diomedes' hand
The lady Cressida.

TRO.

Is it so concluded?

ENE. By Priam, and the general state of Troy: They are at hand, and ready to effect it. TRO. How my achievements mock me!

yet go fetch &c.] Old copy, redundantly-but yet &c,

STEEVENS. matter is so rash:] My business is so hasty and so abrupt. JOHNSON.

So, in King Henry IV. Part II:

66

aconitum, or rash gunpowder." STEEVENS.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet :

"It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden;
"Too like the lightning," &c. MALONE,

• Deliver'd to us ; &c.] So the folio. The quarto thus: Delivered to him, and forthwith.

6

JOHNSON.

How my achievements mock me!] So, in Antony and

Eleopatra:

"And mock our eyes with air."

STEEVENS.

I will go meet them: and, my lord Æneas,
We met by chance; you did not find me here."
ENE. Good, good, my lord; the secrets of nature
Have not more gift in taciturnity.

[Exeunt TROILUS and ENEAS.

PAN. Is't possible? no sooner got, but lost? The devil take Antenor! the young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I would, they had broke's neck!

We met by chance; you did not find me here.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"See where he is, who's with him, what he does:
"I did not send you." MALONE.

the secrets of nature

Have not more gift in taciturnity.] This is the reading of both the elder folios; but the first verse manifestly halts, and betrays its being defective. Mr. Pope substitutes:

the secrets of neighbour Pandar.

If this be a reading ex fide codicum (as he professes all his various readings to be) it is founded on the credit of such copies as it has not been my fortune to meet with. I have ventured to make out the verse thus:

The secret's things of nature, &c.

i, e. the arcana naturæ, the mysteries of nature, of occult philosophy, or of religious ceremonies. Our poet has allusions of this sort in several other passages. THEOBALD.

Mr. Pope's reading is in the old quarto. So great is the necessity of collation. JOHNSON.

I suppose the editor of the folio meant-the secretest of nature, and that secrets was an error of the press. So, in Macbeth:

"The secret'st man of blood." MALONE.

I suppose our author to have written-secrecies.
A similar thought occurs in Antony and Cleopatra:

secrecy

[ocr errors]

"In nature's infinite book of Wherever there is redundant metre, as in the reading of the quarto, corruption may always be suspected. STEEVENS.

Enter CRESSIDA.

CRES. How now? What is the matter? Who was here?

PAN. Ah, ah!

CRES. Why sigh you so profoundly? where's my lord gone?

Tell me, sweet uncle, what's the matter?

PAN. 'Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!

CRES. O the gods!-what's the matter?

PAN. Pr'ythee, get thee in; 'Would thou had'st ne'er been born! I knew, thou would'st be his death:-O poor gentleman!—A plague upon Antenor!

CRES. Good uncle, I beseech you on my knees, I beseech you, what's the matter?

PAN. Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art changed for Antenor: thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus; 'twill be his death; 'twill be his bane; he cannot bear it.

k

CRES. O you immortal gods!-I will not go.
PAN. Thou must.

CRES. I will not, uncle: I have forgot my father; I know no touch of consanguinity;

No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me,
As the sweet Troilus.-O you gods divine!

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

MALONE.

Touch of consanguinity is sense or feeling of relationship.

« AnteriorContinuar »