PATR. The first was Menelaus' kiss;-this, mine: Patroclus kisses you. MEN. O, this is trim ! 2 PATR. Paris, and I, kiss evermore for him. MEN. I'll have my kiss, sir:-Lady, by your leave. CRES. In kissing, do you render, or receive?" PATR. Both take and give. CRES. 8 I'll make my match to live, The kiss you take is better than you give; Therefore no kiss. MEN. I'll give you boot, I'll give you three for one. CRES. You're an odd man; give even, or give none. MEN. An odd man, lady? every man is odd. CRES. No, Paris is not; for, you know, 'tis true, That you are odd, and he is even with you. MEN. You fillip me o'the head. CRES. No, I'll be sworn. ULYSS. It were no match, your nail against his horn. May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you? In kissing, do you render, or receive?] Thus, Bassanio, in The Merchant of Venice, when he kisses Portia : 66 Fair lady, by your leave, "I come by note, to give, and to receive." STEEVENS. • Patr. Both take and give.] This speech should rather be given to Menelaus. TYRWHITT. I'll make my match to live,] I will make such bargains. I may live by, such as may bring me profit, therefore will not take a worse kiss than I give. JOHNSON. as I believe this only means-I'll lay my life. TYRWHITT. CRES. You may. ULYSS. CRES. I do desire it. Why, beg then.1 ULYSS. Why then, for Venus' sake, give me a kiss, When Helen is a maid again, and his. 2 CRES. I am your debtor, claim it when 'tis due. ULYSS. Never's my day, and then a kiss of you." DIO. Lady, a word;-I'll bring you to your father. [DIOMED leads out CRESSIDA. NEST. A woman of quick sense. ULYSS. Fye, fye upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks ;3 her wanton spirits look out 1 Why, beg then.] For the sake of rhyme we should read: Why beg two. If you think kisses worth begging, beg more than one. JOHNSON. 2 Never's my day, and then a kiss of you.] I once gave both these lines to Cressida. She bids Ulysses beg a kiss; he asks that he may have it, "When Helen is a maid again,-." She tells him that then he shall have it,-When Helen is a maid again: "Cres. I am your debtor, claim it when 'tis due. Ulyss. Never's my day, and then a kiss for you." But I rather think Ulysses means to slight her, and that the present reading is right. JOHNSON. 3 There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; &c.] One would almost think that Shakspeare had, on this occasion, been reading St. Chrysostom, who says "Non loquuta es lingua, sed loquuta es gressu; non loquuta es voce, sed oculis loquuta es clarius quam voce;" i. e. "They say nothing with their mouthes, they speake in their gate, they speake with their eyes, they speake in the carriage of their bodies." I have borrowed this invective against a wanton, as well as the translation of it, from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III. Sect. ii. Memb. 2. Subs. 3. STEEVENS. At every joint and motive of her body. motive of her body.] Motive, for part that contributes to motion. JOHNSON. This word is also employed, with some singularity, in All's well that ends well: "As it hath fated her to be my motive "And helper to a husband." STEEVENS. 5 0, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,] Ere what comes? As this passage stands, the pronoun it has no antecedent. Johnson says, a coasting means an amorous address, courtship, but he has given no example to prove it, or shown how the word can possibly bear that meaning. I have no doubt but we should read: And give accosting welcome ere it come. M. MASON. Mr. M. Mason's conjecture is plausible and ingenious; and yet, without some hesitation, it cannot be admitted into the text. A coasting welcome may mean a side-long glance of invitation. Ere it comes, may signify, before such an overture has reached her. Perhaps, therefore, the plain sense of the passage may be, that Cressida is one of those females who throw out their lure, before any like signal has been made to them by our sex. I always advance with reluctance what I cannot prove by examples; and yet, perhaps, I may be allowed to add, that in some old book of voyages which I have formerly read, I remember that the phrase, a coasting salute, was used to express a salute of guns from a ship passing by a fortified place at which the navigator did not design to stop, though the salute was instantly returned. So, in Othello: Again: "They do discharge their shot of courtesy; They give this greeting to the citadel: "This likewise is a friend." Cressida may therefore resemble a fortress which salutes before it has been saluted. STEEVENS. A coasting welcome is a conciliatory welcome; that makes And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts And daughters of the game. ALL. The Trojans' trumpet. AGAM. [Trumpet within. Yonder comes the troop. Enter HECTOR, armed; ENEAS, TROILUS, and other Trojans, with Attendants. ENE. Hail, all the state of Greece! what shall be done To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose, A victor shall be known? will you, the knights Pursue each other; or shall they be divided AGAM. Which way would Hector have it? silent advances before the tongue has uttered a word. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "Anon she hears them chaunt it lustily, "And all in haste she coasteth to the cry." MALONE. sluttish spoils of opportunity,] Corrupt wenches, of whose chastity every opportunity may make a prey. JOHNSON. what shall be done 6 To him that victory commands] This phrase is scriptural, and signifies-what honour shall he receive? So, in I. Samuel xvii. 26: "What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine?" STEEVENS. 7 to the edge of all extremity-] So, in All's well that ends well: "To the extreme edge of hazard." STEEVENS. ACHIL. 'Tis done like Hector; but securely done, 'Tis done like Hector, but securely done,] This speech, in the old copies, is given to Agamemnon. MALOne. It seems absurd to me, that Agamemnon should make a remark to the disparagement of Hector for pride, and that Æneas should immediately say "If not Achilles, sir, what is your name?"" To Achilles I have ventured to place it; and consulting Mr. Dryden's alteration of this play, I was not a little pleased to find, that I had but seconded the opinion of that great man in this point. THeobald. Though all the old copies agree in giving this speech to Agamemnon, I have no doubt but Theobald is right in restoring it to Achilles. It is this very speech, so much in character, that makes Æneas immediately recognize Achilles, and say in reply "If not Achilles, sir, what is your name?" And it is to, Achilles he afterwards addresses himself in reply to this speech; on which he answers the observation it contains on Hector's conduct, by giving his just character, and clearing himself from the charge of pride.—I have already observed that the copies of this play are uncommonly faulty with respect to the distribution of the speeches to the proper persons. M. MASON. securely done,] In the sense of the Latin, securussecurus admodum de bello, animi securi homo. A negligent security arising from a contempt of the object opposed. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton truly observes, that the word securely is here used in the Latin sense: and Mr. Warner, in his ingenious letter to Mr. Garrick, thinks the sense peculiar to Shakspeare; "for (says he) I have not been able to trace it elsewhere.' This gentleman has treated me with so much civility, that I am bound in honour to remove his difficulty. It is to be found in the last act of The Spanish Tragedy: "O damned devil, how secure he is." neither let any In my Lord Bacon's Essay on Tumults," prince or state be secure concerning discontents." And besides these, in Drayton, Fletcher, and the vulgar translation of the Bible. Mr. Warner had as little success in his researches for the word religion in its Latin acceptation. I meet with it however in Hoby's translation of Castilio, 1561: "Some be so scrupulous, as it were, with a religion of this their Tuscane tung.” |