Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood,1
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
Do to this body what extremes you can;

But the strong base and building of my love 2
Is as the very center of the earth,

Drawing all things to it.-I'll go in, and weep;-
PAN. Do, do.

CRES. Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks;

Crack my clear voice with sobs, and break my heart With sounding Troilus. I will not go from Troy.3. [Exeunt. 1 the very crown of falsehood,] So, in Cymbeline: my supreme crown of grief.”

66

Again, in The Winter's Tale:

66

the crown and comfort of my life." MALONE. See page 353, note 9. STEEVens.

the strong base and building of my love-] So, in our author's 119th Sonnet:

"And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"Let not the piece of virtue, which is set
"Betwixt us as the cement of our love,
"To keep it builded, be the ram to batter
"The fortress of it." MALONE.

I will not go from Troy.] I believe the verb-go (which roughens this line) should be left out, in conformity to the ancient elliptical mode of writing, which, in like instances, omits it as unnecessary to sense. Thus, in p. 383, we find— "I would not from thee;"

i. e. I would not go from thee. STEEVens.

SCENE III.

The same. Before Pandarus' House.

Enter PARIS, TROILUS, ENEAS, DEIPHOBUS,
ANTENOR, and DIOMEDES.

PAR. It is great morning; and the hour prefix'd Of her delivery to this valiant Greek

Comes fast upon : 5-Good my brother Troilus,
Tell you the lady what she is to do,

And haste her to the purpose.

Walk in to her house;"

TRO.
I'll bring her to the Grecian presently:

And to his hand when I deliver her,

Think it an altar; and thy brother Troilus

A priest, there offering to it his own heart. [Exit.

PAR. I know what 'tis to love;

And 'would, as I shall pity, I could help!—
Please you, walk in, my lords.

[Exeunt.

4

- great morning;] Grand jour; a Gallicism.

STEEVENS.

• Comes fast upon:] Though fast upon, only signifies-fast I must suppose, with Sir T. Hanmer, we ought to read:

on,

Comes fast upon us :

The metre, as it stands at present, is obviously defective.

STEEVENS.

Walk in to her house;] Here, I believe, we have an interpolation similar to those in p. 386 and in the preceding page. In elliptical language the word-walk (which in the present instance destroys the measure) is frequently omitted. So, in King Henry IV. Part I:

"I'll in and haste the writer."

i. e. I'll walk, or go in. Again, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "I'll in, I'll in: follow your friend's advice; I'll in." In, therefore, in the speech of Troilus, will signify walk or go in, the omitted verb being understood. STEEVENS.

SCENE IV.

The same. A Room in Pandarus' House.

Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA,

PAN. Be moderate, be moderate.

CRES. Why tell you me of moderation?
The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong

As that which causeth it: How can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affection,
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief:

" The grief &c.] The folio reads:

The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And no less in a sense as strong

As that which causeth it.

The quarto otherwise:

The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong

As that which causeth it.

Violenteth is a word with which I am not acquainted, yet perhaps it may be right. The reading of the text is without authority. JOHNSON.

I have followed the quarto. Violenceth is used by Ben Jonson, in The Devil is an Ass:

"Nor nature violenceth in both these."

And Mr. Tollet has since furnished me with this verb as spelt in the play of Shakspeare: "His former adversaries violented any thing against him." Fuller's Worthies in Anglesea.

Dr. Farmer likewise adds the following instance from Latimer, p. 71: "Maister Pole violentes the text for the maintenance of the bishop of Rome."

The modern and unauthorized reading was:

And in its sense is no less strong, than that
Which causeth it.- STEEVENS.

My love admits no qualifying dross :
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.

Enter TROILus.

PAN. Here, here, here he comes.-Ah sweet ducks!

CRES. O Troilus! Troilus!

[Embracing him.

PAN. What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too: O heart, as the goodly saying

1s,

o heart, o heavy heart,

Why sigh'st thou without breaking?

where he answers again,

Because thou canst not ease thy smart,
By friendship, nor by speaking.

There never was a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we may live to have need of such a verse; we see it, we see it.-How now, lambs?

TRO. Cressid, I love thee in so strain'd' a purity, That the blest gods-as angry with my fancy, More bright in zeal than the devotion which Cold lips blow to their deities,-take thee from me. CRES. Have the gods envy?

PAN. Ay, ay, ay, ay; 'tis too plain a case. CRES. And is it true, that I must go from Troy? TRO. A hateful truth.

CRES.

What, and from Troilus too?

o heavy heart,] O, which is not in the old copy, was added, for the sake of the metre, by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

9

- strain'd-] So the quarto. The folio and all the moderns have strange. JOHNSON,

TRO. From Troy, and Troilus.

CRES.

Is it possible?

TRO. And suddenly; where injury of chance
Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by
All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents

Our lock'd embrasures, strangles our dear vows
Even in the birth of our own labouring breath:
We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other,' must poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
Injurious time now, with a robber's haste,
Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how:
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,

With distinct breath and consign'd kisses to them,*
He fumbles up into a loose adieu;

And scants us with a single famish'd kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.3

1 Did buy each other,] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "A thousand kisses buys my heart from me,

"And With distinct breath and consign'd kisses to them,] Consign'd means sealed; from consigno, Lat. So, in King Henry V: "It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to." Our author has the same image in many other places. So, in Measure for Measure:

pay them at thy leisure, one by one.' MALONE.

"But my kisses bring again,

“Seals of love, but seal'd in vain.”

Again, in his Venus and Adonis :

"Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted."

MALONE.

Distasted with the salt of broken tears.] i. e. of tears to which we are not permitted to give full vent, being interrupted and suddenly torn from each other. The poet was probably thinking of broken sobs, or broken slumbers. This is the reading of the quarto. The folio has-distasting. MALONE.