T R o I L U s

A N D

CRESSID A.

Vol. IX.

A

IN Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece

The princes' orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Atbens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy: within whose strong immures,
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and That's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come ;
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains,
The fresh, and yet unbruised, Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions. ? Priam's six-gated city,
(Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Chetas, Troian,
And Anterioridas) with mely staples,

Ant

The princes orgillous,] Orgillous, i. e. proud, disdainful.. Orgueilleux, Fr. STEEVENS.

Priam's fix-gated city,
(Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Trojar,
And Antenonidus) with molly staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,

Stir up the sons of Troy. This has been a most miferably mangled paffage through all the editions ; corrupted at once into false concord and false reasoning. Priam's fixgared city stirre up the fons of Troy ?-Here's a verb plaral. governed of a nominative fangular. But that is cafily remedied. The next question to be asked is, In what sense a city, having fix strong gates, and those well barred and bolted, can be faid to flir up its inhabitants ? unless they may be supposed to derive some spirit from the strength of their fortinications. But this could not be the poet's thought. He must mean, I take it, that the Greeks had pitched their tents upon the plains before Troy; and that the Trojans were securely barricaded within the walls and gates of their city. This fenic my correétion

A 2

reftores.

And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperrs up the sons of Troy.
Now expeétation, tickling skittish spirits
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on bazard :--- And bither am I come
* A prologue arnd; but not in confidence

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yestores. To sperre, or Spar, from the old Teutonic word
(SPEREN) fignifies, to jut up, defend by bars, &c.

THEOBALD,
“ Therto his cyte | compassed enuysowne
“ Hadde gates VI to entre into the towne:
“ The firlte of all and strengest eke with all,
“ Largest also and mofte pryncypall,
“ Of myghty byldyng alone pereless,
“ Was by the kynge called | Dardanydes ;
“ And in storye | lyke as it is founde,
“ Tymbria was named the seconde ;
“ And the thyrde called Helyas,
“ The fourthe gate | hyghte also Cetheas;
“ The fyfthe Trojara, the fyxth Anthonydes,
“ Stronge and myghty | both in werre and pes."

Lond. empr. by R. Pynson, 1513, Fol. b. ii. ch. 11, The Troye Boke was somewhat modernized, and reduced into regular ftanzas, about the beginning of the last century, under the name of, The Life and Death of Hector—who fought a Hundred mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians ; wherein there were faire on both sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thousand, Fourscore and Sixe Men. Fol. no date. This work Dr. Fuller, and several other criticks, have erroneously quoted as the original; and observe in consequence, that “ if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper *** learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined standard for “ purer language: so that one might mistake him for a modern 66 writer." FARMER.

On other occasions, in the course of this play, I shall insert my quotations from the Troye Boke modernized, as being the möft intelligible of the two. STEEVENS.

2 A prologue arm’d;--] I come here to speak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the author's or actor's abilities, but merely in a character suited to the subject, in a dress of war, before a warlike play. JOHNSCH.

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