TRO. O, that I thought it could be in a woman, (As, if it can, I will prefume in you,) To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;" Might be affronted with the match' and weight not a word of fo little importance that a fentence fhall have juft the fame meaning whether a negative is contained in it or taken from it. But for all inaccuracies of this kind our poet himself is undoubtedly anfwerable.-Sir T. Hanmer, to obtain some sense, arbitrarily reads: A fign you love not. MALONE. To feed for aye her lamp &c.] Troilus alludes to the perpetual lamps which were fuppofed to illuminate fepulchres: 66 lafting flames, that burn "To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn.” See my note on Pericles, A&t III. fc. i. STEEVENS. 6fwifter than blood decays!] Blood in Shakspeare frequently means defire, appetite. MALONE. In the present inftance, the word blood has its common fignification. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "Time hath not yet fo dry'd this blood." STEEVENS. 7 Might be affronted with the match-] I wish "my integrity might be met and matched with fuch equality and force of pure ummingled love." JOHNSON. So, in Hamlet: 66 that he, as 'twere by accident, may here "Affront Ophelia." STEEVENS. 8 And fimpler than the infancy of truth.] This is fine; and means, "Ere truth, to defend itself against deceit in the commerce of the world, had, out of neceffity, learned worldly policy." WARBURTON. CRES. In that I'll war with you. TRO. O virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most right! True fwains in love fhall, in the world to come, Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes, Full of proteft, of oath, and big compare," Want fimiles, truth tir'd with iteration,2As true as steel,' as plantage to the moon,* 9 B. III: compare,] i. e. comparifon. So Milton, Paradife Loft, "Beyond compare the son of God was feen-." STEEVENS. 2 True fwains in love fhall, in the world to come, Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes, Full of proteft, of oath, and big compare, Want fimiles, truth tir'd with iteration,-] The metre, as well as the fenfe, of the laft verfe will be improved, I think, by reading: Want fimiles of truth, tir'd with iteration,—. So, a little lower in the fame fpeech: Yet after all comparifons of truth. TYRWHITT. This is a very probable conjecture. verb to which it can relate. MALONE. Truth at present has no 3 As true as fteel,] As true as fteel is an ancient proverbial fimile. I find it in Lydgate's Troy Book, where he speaks of Troilus, L. II. ch. xvi: "Thereto in love tree as any fiele." STEEVENS. Mirrours formerly being made of steel, I once thought the mean ing might be, as true as the mirrour, which faithfully exhibits every image that is prefented before it." But I now think with Mr. Steevens, that-As true as feel was merely a proverbial expreffion, without any fuch allufion. A paffage in an old piece entitled The Pleafures of Poetry, no date, but printed in the time of Queen Elizabeth, will admit either interpretation: "Behold in her the lively glaffe, "The pattern, true as fteel." MALONE. — as plantage to the moon,] Alluding to the common opinion of the influence the moon has over what is planted or fown, which was therefore done in the increase: "Rite Latonæ puerum canentes, Profperam frugum, —.” WARBURTON. Plantage is not, I believe, a general term, but the herb which As fun to day, as turtle to her mate, As truth's authentick author to be cited," CRES. Prophet may you be! If I be falfe, or fwerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When water-drops have worn the ftones of Troy, And blind oblivion fwallow'd cities up," we now call plantain, in Latin, plantago, which was, I fuppofe, imagined to be under the peculiar influence of the moon. JOHNSON. Shakspeare fpeaks of plantain by its common appellation in Romeo and Juliet; and yet in Sapho and Phas, 1591, Mandrake is called Mandrage: "Sow next thy vines mandrage." From a book entitled The profitable Art of Gardening, &c. by Tho. Hill, Londoner, the third edition, printed in 1579, I learn, that neither fowing, planting, nor grafting, were ever undertaken without a fcrupulous attention to the encrease or waning of the moon.-Dryden does not appear to have understood the paffage, and has therefore altered it thus: As true as flowing tides are to the moon. STEEVENS. This may be fully illuftrated by a quotation from Scott's Difcoverie of Witchcraft: "The poore hufbandman perceiveth that the increase of the moone maketh plants frutefull: fo as in the full moone they are in the beft ftrength; decaieing in the wane; and in the conjunction do utterlie wither and vade." FARMER. ▲ As iron to adamant,] So, in Greene's Tu Quoque, 1614: "As true to thee as feel to adamant." MALONE. 5 As truth's authentick author to be cited,] Troilus fhall crown the verfe, as a man to be cited as the authentick author of truth; as one whose proteftations were true to a proverb. JOHNSON. 6 crown up the verse,] i. e. conclude it. Finis coronat opus. STEEVENS. ↑ And blind oblivion fwallow'd cities up,] So, in K. Richard III: quarto, 1598: And almoft fhoulder'd in this wallerving gulph "Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.” MALONE. And mighty ftates characterlefs are grated From falfe to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falfehood! when they have faid-as falfe As air, as water, wind, or fandy earth, PAN. Go to, a bargain made: feal it, seal it; I'll be the witness.-Here I hold your hand; here, my coufin's. If ever you prove falfe one to another, fince I have taken fuch pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be call'd to the world's end after my name, call them allPandars; let all conftant men be Troilufes, all false 8 conftant men- Though Sir T. Hanmer's emendation [inconftant] be plaufible, I believe Shakspeare wrote-conftant. He feems to have been lefs attentive to make Pandar talk confequentially, than to account for the ideas actually annexed to the three names. Now it is certain, that, in his time, a Troilus was as clear an expreffion for a conftant lover, as a Creffida and a Pandar were for a jilt and a pimp. TYRWHITT. I entirely agree with Mr. Tyrwhitt, and am happy to have his opinion in fupport of the reading of the old copy, from which, in my apprehenfion, we ought not to deviate, except in cafes of extreme neceffity. Of the affertion in the latter part of his note relative to the conftancy of Troilus various proofs are furnished by our old poets. So, in A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant inventions, &c. 4to. 1578: But if thou me forfake, "As Creffid that forgot "True Troilus, her make," &c. Again, ibid: "As Troilus' truth fhall be my fhield, "So Creffid's crafte fhall kepe the field, "For to refound thy fhame." Mr. M. Mafon objects, that conftant cannot be the true reading, women Creffids, and all brokers-between Pandars! fay, amen. TRO. Amen. CRES. Amen. PAN. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed, which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, prefs it to death: away. And Cupid grant all tongue-ty'd maidens here, Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this geer! [Exeunt. because Pandarus has already fuppofed that they fhould both prove falfe to each other, and it would therefore be abfurd for him to fay that Troilus fhould be quoted as an example of conftancy. But to this the answer is, that Shakspeare himself knew what the event of the story was, and who the perfon was that did prove falfe; that many expreffions in his plays have dropped from him in confequence of that knowledge that are improper in the mouth of the fpeaker; and that in his licentious mode of writing, the words, " if ever you prove falfe to one another," may mean, not, if you both prove falfe, but, if it should happen that any falfhood or breach of faith fhould difunite you who are now thus attached to each other. This might and did happen, by one of the parties proving falfe, and breaking her engagement. The modern editions read-if ever you prove falfe to one another; but the reading of the text is that of the quarto and folio, and was the phrafeology of Shakspeare's age. MALONE. It is clearly the intention of the poet that this imprecation fhould be fuch a one as was verified by the event, as it is in part to this very day. But neither was Troilus ever used to denote an inconftant lover, nor, if we believe the ftory, did he ever deferve the character, as both the others did in truth deserve that shame here imprecated upon them. Befides, Pandarus, feems to adjuft his imprecation to thofe of the other two preceding, juft as they dropped from their lips; as falfe as Creffid, and confequently as true (or as conftant) as Troilus. HEATH. 8 and a bed,] These words are not in the old copy, but what follows fhews that they were inadvertently omitted. MALONE. This deficiency was fupplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer. He reads, however, " a chamber with a bed; which bed, because" &c. STEEVENS. |