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TRO. I pray you, stay; by hell, and all hell's tor

ments,

I will not speak a word.

DIO.

CRES. Nay, but you part in anger.

And so, good night.

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DIO. Pho, pho! adieu; you palter.?

CRES. In faith, I do not; come hither once again.

ULYSS. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?

You will break out.

TRO.

ULYSS.

She strokes his cheek!

Come, come.

TRO. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word: There is between my will and all offences A guard of patience:-stay a little while.

THER. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

Dro. But will you then?

"-palter.] i. e. shuffle, behave with duplicity. So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

"And palter in the shifts of lowness." STEEVENS.

• How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles these together!] Potatoes were anciently regarded as provocatives. See Mr. Collins's note, which, on account of its length, is given at the end of the play. STEEVENS.

CRES. In faith, I will, la; never trust me else. DIO. Give me some token for the surety of it. CRES. I'll fetch you one.

ULYSS. You have sworn patience.

TRO.

[Exit.

Fear me not, my lord;

I will not be myself, nor have cognition
Of what I feel; I am all patience.

Re-enter CRESSIDA.

THER. Now the pledge; now, now, now!
CRES. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.*

keep this sleeve.] The custom of wearing a lady's sleeve for a favour, is mentioned in Hall's Chronicle, fol. 12: "-One ware on his head-piece his lady's sleeve, and another bare on his helme the glove of his deareling."

Again, in the second canto of The Barons' Wars, by Drayton: "A lady's sleeve high-spirited Hastings wore."

Again, in the Morte Arthur, p. 3, ch. 119: " When Queen Genever wist that Sir Launcelot beare the red sleeve of the faire maide of Astolat, she was nigh out of her minde for anger." Holinshed, p. 884, says, King Henry VIII. " had on his head a ladies sleeve full of diamonds." The circumstance, however, was adopted by Shakspeare from Chaucer, T. and C. 1. 5. 1040: "She made him were a pencell of her sleeve." A pencell is a small pennon or streamer. STEEVENS.

In an old play, (in six acts,) called Histriomastix, 1610, this incident seems to be burlesqued. Troilus and Cressida are introduced by way of interlude; and Cressida breaks out: "O Knight, with valour in thy face, "Here take my skreene, wear it for "Within thy helmet put the same,

grace;

"Therewith to make thine enemies lame.”

A little old book, The Hundred Hystoryes of Troye, tells us, "Bryseyde whom master Chaucer calleth Cresseyde, was a damosell of great beaute; and yet was more quaynte, mutable, and full of vagaunt condysions." FARMER.

TRO. O beauty! where's thy faith?

ULYSS.

My lord,

TRO. I will be patient; outwardly I will. CRES. You look upon that sleeve; Behold it well.He loved me-O false wench!-Give't me again. DIO. Who was't?

CRES.

No matter, now5 I have't again. I will not meet with you to-morrow night:

I pr'ythee, Diomed, visit me no more.

THER. Now she sharpens;-Well said, whetstone. Dio. I shall have it."

CRES.

DIO.

What, this?

Ay, that.

CRES. O, all you gods!-O pretty pretty pledge! Thy master now lies thinking in his bed Of thee, and me; and sighs, and takes my glove,

This sleeve was given by Troilus to Cressida at their parting, and she gave him a glove in return. M. MASON.

What Mr. Steevens has observed on the subject of ladies' sleeves is certainly true; but the sleeve given in the present instance was the sleeve of Troilus. It may be supposed to be an ornamented cuff, such perhaps as was worn by some of our young nobility at a tilt, in Shakspeare's age.

On second consideration, I believe, the sleeve of Troilus, which is here given to Diomedes, was such a one as was formerly worn at tournaments. See Spenser's View of Ireland, p. 43, edit. 1633: "Also the deepe smocke sleive, which the Irish women use, they say, was old Spanish, and is used yet in Barbary; and yet that should seeme rather to be an old English fashion, for in armory the fashion of the manche which is given in armes by many, being indeed nothing else but a sleive, is fashioned much like to that sleive." MALONE.

No matter, now &c.] Old copies, redundantly,—It is no matter, &c. STEEVENS.

• I shall have it.] Some word or words, necessary to the metre, are here apparently omitted. STEEVENS.

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