As true thou tell'ft me, when I fay-I love her; PAN. I fpeak no more than truth. TROI. Thou doft not speak fo much. PAN. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as fhe is: if the be fair, 'tis the better for her; an fhe be not, she has the mends in her own hands.* TRO. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? PAN. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and infenfible palm of the ploughman. Warburton reads: fpite of fenfe: Hanmer, to th' fpirit of fenfe. It is not proper to make a lover profefs to praife his mistress in fpite of fenfe; for though he often does it in spite of the fenfe of others, his own fenfes are fubdued to his defires. JOHNSON. Spirit of fenfe is a phrafe that occurs again in the third act of this play: nor doth the eye itself, "That moft pure fpirit of fenfe, behold itself." Mr. M. Mafon (from whom I have borrowed this parallel) recommends Hanmer's emendation as a neceffary one. STEEVENS. 4fhe has the mends-] She may mend her complexion by the affiftance of cofmeticks. JOHNSON. I believe it rather means-She may make the best of a bad bargain. This is a proverbial faying. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: "I shall stay here and have my head broke, and then I have the mends in my own hands." Again, in S. Goffon's School of Abuse, 1579: turne him with his back full of ftripes, and his hands loden with his own amendes." Again, in The Wild Goofe Chafe, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The mends are in mine own hands, or the furgeon's." between and between, but fmall thanks for my labour. TRO. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? PAN. Because she is kin to me, therefore she's not fo fair as Helen: an fhe were not kin to me, she would be as fair on friday, as Helen is on funday. But what care I? I care not, an fhe were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. TRO. Say I, fhe is not fair? PAN. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and fo I'll tell her, the next time I fee her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. TRO. Pandarus, PAN. Not I. TRO. Sweet Pandarus, PAN. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PANDARUS. An Alarm. TRO. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude founds! Fools on both fides! Helen must needs be fair, 5to ftay behind her father;] Calchas, according to Shakfpeare's authority, The Deftruction of Troy, was "a great learned bishop of Troy," who was fent by Priam to confult the oracle of Delphi concerning the event of the war which was threatened by Agamemnon. As foon as he had made his oblations and demaunds for them of Troy, Apollo (fays the book) aunfwered unto him, faying; Calchas, Calchas, beware that thou returne not back again to Troy; but goe thou with Achylles, unto the Greekes, and depart never from them, for the Greekes fhall have victorie of the Troyans by the agreement of the Gods." Hift. of the Deftruction of Troy, tranflated by Caxton, 5th edit. 4to. 1617. This prudent bishop followed the advice of the Oracle, and immediately joined the Greeks. MALONE. When with your blood you daily paint her thus. It is too ftarv'd a fubject for my fword. Alarum. Enter ENEAS. ENE. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? 8 TRO. Because not there; This woman's answer forts," 6 Ilium,] Was the palace of Troy. JOHNSON. Ilium, properly fpeaking, is the name of the city; Troy, that of the country. STEEVENS. 7 this failing Pandar, Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.] So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "This punk is one of Cupid's carriers ; 66 Clap on more jails," &c. MALONE. 8 How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield?] Shakspeare, it appears from various lines in this play, pronounced Troilus improperly as a diffyllable; as every mere English reader does at this day. So alfo, in his Rape of Lucrece: "Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus fwounds." MALONE. 9forts,] i. e. fits, fuits, is congruous. So, in King Henry V: "It forts well with thy fiercenefs." STEEVENS. For womanifh it is to be from thence. ENE. That Paris is returned home, and hurt. TRO. By whom, Æneas? ENE. Troilus, by Menelaus. TRO. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a fcar to fcorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. ENE. Hark! what good fport is out of town to-day! TRO. Better at home, if would I might, were may. But, to the sport abroad;-Are you bound thither? ENE. In all swift hafte. Up to the eastern tower, CRES. And whither go they? Whose height commands as fubject all the vale, 9 Hedor, whofe patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd,] Patience fure was a virtue, and there He chid Andromache, and ftruck his armourer; And, like as there were husbandry in war," fore cannot, in propriety of expreffion, be faid to be like one. We fhould read: Is as the virtue fix'd, i. e. his patience is as fixed as the goddess Patience itself. So we find Troilus a little before faying: "Patience herfelf, what goddefs ere she be, "Doth leffer blench at fufferance than I do." It is remarkable that Dryden, when he altered this play, and found this falfe reading, altered it with judgement to: -whofe patience Is fix'd like that of heaven. Which he would not have done had he feen the right reading here given, where his thought is fo much better and nobler expreffed. WARBURTON. I think the present text may ftand. Hector's patience was as a virtue, not variable and accidental, but fixed and conftant. If I would alter it, it should be thus: -Hector, whofe patience Is all a virtue fix'd, All, in old English, is the intenfive or enforcing particle. JOHNSON. I had once almoft perfuaded myself that Shakspeare wrote, whofe patience Is, as a statue fix'd. So, in The Winter's Tale, fc. ult "The ftatue is but newly fix'd." The fame idea occurs alfo in the celebrated paffage in Twelfth Night: -fat like patience on a monument.” The old adage-Patience is a virtue, was perhaps uppermoft in the compofitor's mind, and he therefore inadvertently substituted the one word for the other. A virtue fixed may, however, mean the flationary image of a virtue. STEEVENS. bufbandry in war,] So, in Macbeth: Troilus alludes to "There's husbandry in heaven." STEEVENS. Hufbandry means economical prudence. Hector's early rifing. So, in King Henry V: 66 our bad neighbours make us early ftirrers, "Which is both healthful and good husbandry." MALONE, |