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Agam. March patiently along.-Let one be sent To pray Achilles see us at our tent.

If in his death the gods have us befriended,

Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.

[Exeunt, marching.

SCENE XI. Another Part of the Field.

Enter ENEAS and Trojans.

Ene. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field. Never go home; here starve we out the night.

Enter TROILUS.

Tro. Hector is slain.

All.

Hector?-The gods forbid!

Tro. He's dead; and at the murderer's horse's tail,
In beastly sort, dragged through the shameful field.-
Frown on, you heavens; effect your rage with speed!
Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile1 at Troy!
I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on!

Ene. My lord, you do discomfort all the host.
Tro. You understand me not, that tell me so;
I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death;
But dare all imminence, that gods and men
Address their dangers in. Hector is gone!
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him, that will a screech-owl aye be called,
Go into Troy, and say there-Hector's dead.
There is a word will Priam turn to stone;
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word,
But, march, away:
no more to say.

Scare Troy out of itself.
Hector is dead; there is

1 Hanmer and Warburton read :

"smite at Troy."

Stay yet. You vile, abominable tents,

Thus proudly pight' upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,

I'll through and through you!-And thou, great-sized coward!

No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;
I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thoughts.-
Strike a free march to Troy !-with comfort go:
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

[Exeunt ENEAS and Trojans.

As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS.

Pan. But hear you, hear you!

2

3

Tro. Hence, broker lackey! ignomy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! [Exit TROILUS.

Pan. A goodly med'cine for my aching bones!-0 world! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a' work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavor be so loved, and the performance so loathed ? what verse for it? what instance for it?-Let me

see:

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
And being once subdued in armed tail,
Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.—

Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths.*
As many as be here of Pandar's hall,
Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall.
Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.

1 Pitched, fixed.

2 Broker anciently signified a bawd of either sex.

3 Ignominy.

4 Canvass hangings for rooms, painted with emblems and mottoes.

Brethren, and sisters, of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be made;
It should be now, but that my fear is this,-
Some galled goose of Winchester1 would hiss;
Till then I'll sweat,2 and seek about for eases,
And, at that time, bequeath you my diseases.

1 See King Henry VI. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
2 See Measure for Measure, Act i. Sc. 2.

[Exit.

THIS play is more correctly written than most of Shakspeare's compositions; but it is not one of those in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed. As the story abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with great exactness. His vicious characters disgust, but cannot corrupt; for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and condemned. The comic characters seem to have been the favorites of the writer: they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously filled and powerfully impressed. Shakspeare has, in his story, followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his version of Homer.*

JOHNSON.

*It should, however, be remembered that Thersites had been long in possession of the stage in an interlude bearing his name.

"The first seven books of Chapman's Homer were published in 1596, and again in 1598, twelve books not long afterward, and the whole 24 books at latest in 1611. The classical reader may be surprised that Shakspeare, having had the means of being acquainted with the great father of poetry, through the medium of Chapman's translation, should not have availed himself of such an original instead of the Troy Booke; but it should be recollected that it was his object, as a writer for the stage, to coincide with the feelings and prejudices of his audience, who, believing themselves to have drawn their descent from Troy, would by no means have been pleased to be told that Achilles was a braver man than Hector. They were ready to think well of the Trojans as their ancestors, but not very anxious about knowing their history with much correctness; and Shakspeare might have applied to worse sources of information than even Lydgate."-Boswell.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THE story of the Misanthrope is told in almost every collection of the time, and particularly in two books, with which Shakspeare was intimately acquainted-The Palace of Pleasure, and the Translation of Plutarch, by sir Thomas North. The latter furnished the Poet with the following hint to work upon:-"Antonius forsook the city and companie of his friendes, saying that he would lead Timon's life, because he had the like wrong offered him that was offered unto Timon; and for the unthankfulness of those he had done good unto, and whom he tooke to be his friends, he was angry with all men, and would trust no man."

Mr. Strutt, the engraver, was in possession of a MS. play on this subject, apparently written, or transcribed, about the year 1600. There is a scene in it resembling Shakspeare's banquet, given by Timon to his flatterers. Instead of warm water, he sets before them stones painted like artichokes, and afterwards beats them out of the room. He then retires to the woods, attended by his faithful steward, who (like Kent in King Lear) has disguised himself to continue his services to his master. Timon, in the last act, is followed by his fickle mistress, &c., after he was reported to have discovered a hidden treasure by digging. The piece itself (though it appears to be the work of an academic) is a wretched one. The persona dramatis are as follows:-" Timon: Laches, his faithful servant. Eutrapelus, a dissolute young man. Gelasimus, a cittie heyre. Pseudocheus, a lying traveller. Demeas, an orator. Philargurus, a covetous churlish old man. Hermogenes, a fiddler. Abyssus, a usurer. Lollio, a country clowne, Philargurus' sonne. Stilpo, and Speusippus, two lying philosophers. Grunnio, a lean servant of Philargurus. Obba, Timon's butler. Padio, Gelasimus' page. Two sergeants. A sailor. Callimela, Philargurus' daughter. Blatte, her prattling nurse.-Scene, Athens."

To this manuscript play Shakspeare was probably indebted for some parts of his plot. Here he found the faithful steward, the banquet scene, and the story of Timon's being possessed of great sums of gold, which he had dug up in the wood; a circumstance which it is not likely he had

from Lucian, there being then no translation of the dialogue that relates to that subject.

Malone imagines that Shakspeare wrote his Timon of Athens in the year 1610.

"Of all the works of Shakspeare, Timon of Athens possesses most the character of a satire-a laughing satire in the picture of the parasites and flatterers, and a Juvenalian in the bitterness and the imprecations of Timon against the ingratitude of a false world. The story is treated in a very simple manner, and is definitely divided into large masses:-in the first act, the joyous life of Timon, his noble and hospitable extravagance, and the throng of every description of suitors to him; in the second and third acts, his embarrassment, and the trial which he is thereby reduced to make of his supposed friends, who all desert him in the hour of need; in the fourth and fifth acts, Timon's flight to the woods, his misanthropical melancholy, and his death. The only thing which may be called an episode, is the banishment of Alcibiades, and his return by force of arms. However, they are both examples of ingratitude,-the one of a state towards its defender, and the other of private friends to their benefactor.* As the merits of the general towards his fellow-citizens suppose more strength of character than those of the generous prodigal, their respective behaviors are no less different. Timon frets himself to death; Alcibiades

* "It appears to me," says Singer, "that Schlegel and professor Richardson have taken more unfavorable view of the character of Timon, than our great Poet intended to convey. Timon had not only been a benefactor to his private, unworthy friends, but he had rendered the state service, which ought not to have been forgotten. He himself expresses his consciousness of this, when he sends one of his servants to request a thousand talents at the hands of the senators

'Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have
Deserved this hearing.'

And Alcibiades afterwards confirms this:

I have heard, and grieved

How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth,
Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbor states,
But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them."

"Surely, then, he suffered as much mentally from the ingratitude of the state, as from that of his faithless friends. Shakspeare seems to have entered entirely into the feeling of bitterness, which such conduct was likely to awaken in a good and susceptible nature, and has expressed it with vehemence and force. The virtues of Timon, too, may be inferred from the absence of any thing which could imply dissoluteness or intemperance in his conduct: as Richardson observes, 'He is convivial, but his enjoyment of the banquet is in the pleasure of his guests; Phrynia and Timandra are not in the train of Timon, but of Alcibiades. He is not so desirous of being distinguished for magnificence, as of being eminent for courteous and beneficent actions: he solicits distinction, but it is by doing good.' Johnson has remarked that the attachment of his servants in his declining fortunes, could be produced by nothing but real virtue and disinterested kindness. I cannot, therefore, think that Shakspeare meant to stigmatize the generosity of Timon as that of a fool, or that he meant his misanthropy to convey to us any notion of the vanity of wishing to be singular.'”

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