Re-enter TROILUS. Tro. Ajax hath ta'en Æneas; shall it be? No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven, He shall not carry him; I'll be taken too, Or bring him off: Fate, hear me what I say! I reck not though thou end my life to-day. [Exit. Enter one in sumptuous armour. Hect. Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark: No? wilt thou not?-I like thy armour well; Why, then, fly on; I'll hunt thee for thy hide. [Exeunt. SCENE VII.-The same. Enter ACHILLES, with Myrmidons. Achil. Come here about me, you my Myr midons : Mark what I say:-Attend me where I wheel: SCENE VIII.-The same. Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting: then THERSITES. Ther. The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double-henned sparrow! 'loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull has the game :-'ware horns, ho! [Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS. Enter MARGARELON. Mar. Turn, slave, and fight! Ther. What art thou? Mar. A bastard son of Priam's. Ther. I am a bastard too; I love bastards: I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour; in everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed; the quarrel's most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment. Farewell, bastard. Mar. The devil take thee, coward! [Exeunt. SCENE IX. Another part of the Field. Enter HECTOR. Hect. Most putrified core, so fair without, Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death! [Puts off his helmet, and hangs his shield behind him. Enter ACHILLES and Myrmidons. Achil. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set; How ugly night comes breathing at his heels: Even with the vail and darkening of the sun, To close the day up, Hector's life is done. Hect. I am unarmed; forego this 'vantage, Greek. Achil. Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I So, Ilion, fall thou! Now, Troy, sink down; [A retreat sounded. Hark! a retreat upon our Grecian part. Myr. The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord. Achil. The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth, And, stickler-like, the armies separates. Pleased with this dainty bit, thus goes to bed.— SCENE X.-The same. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, Agam. Hark! hark! what shout is that? Voices within. Achilles ! Achilles !-Hector's slain !-Achilles ! Dio. The bruit is-Hector's slain, and by Achilles. Ajax. If it be so, yet bragless let it be; Great Hector was a man as good as he. Agam. March patiently along: let one be sent In beastly sort, dragged through the shameful field. Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed! Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy! I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy, And linger not our sure destruction 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, Scare Troy out of itself. But march, away: Hector is dead; there is no more to say. 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, greatsized coward! No space of earth shall sunder our two hates; AS TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, Pan. But hear you, hear you! 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! O 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 endeavour 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, Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths. As many as be here of pander'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. 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 galléd goose of Winchester would hiss: Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases; And, at that time, bequeath you my diseases. [Exit. NOTES. "Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again."-Act I., Scene 1. The word "varlet" anciently signified an attendant on a knight. Holinshed, speaking of the battle of Agincourt, says:-"Divers were relieved by their varlets, and conveyed out of the field." "Handlest in thy discourse, 'Oh, that her hand.'' Act I., Scene 1. "Handlest" is here used metaphorically, with an allusion at the same time to its literal meaning. Shakspere has, on various occasions, adverted to the beauty of the female hand: as, in "ROMEO AND JULIET:"— "They may seize On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand." In the "WINTER'S TALE," Florizel descants with equal warmth and fancy on the hand of Perdita : "I take thy hand; this hand As soft as dove's down, and as white as it; "She's a fool to stay behind her father.”—Act I., Scene 1. According to Shakspere's authority, "THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY," Calchas was "a great learned bishop of Troy," who was sent by Priam to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning the event of the war which was threatened by Agamemnon. As soon as he had made "his oblations and demands for them of Troy, Apollo answered unto him, saying, 'Calchas, Calchas, beware that thou return not back again to Troy; but go thou with Achilles unto the Greeks, and depart never from them; for the Greeks shall have victory of the Trojans, by the agreement of the gods."" Calchas discreetly took the hint, and immediately joined the enemies of his country. "Between our Ilium and where she resides.”-Act I., Scene 1. "Ilium," or "Ilion" (it is spelled both ways), was the name of Priam's palace. According to "THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY," it was "one of the richest and the strongest that ever was in all the world. And it was of height five hundred paces, besides the height of the towers, whereof there was great plenty, and so high as that it seemed to them that saw them from far, they raught up into the heaven." There is a more particular allusion to these towers in Act IV., Scene 5. Steevens observes, that Ilium, properly speaking, is the name of the city; Troy, that of the country. "How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield?" Act I., Scene 1. It appears from various lines in this play, that Shakspere pronounced "Troilus" as a dissyllable. So also in his "RAPE OF LUCRECE:" " "Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds." Pope, in his translation of Homer, has made the same classical lapse (b. xxiv.): "Mestor the brave, renowned in ranks of war; "Bounding between the two moist elements, Of the allegorical horse alluded to in the text, "THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY" gives the following account:-" Of the blood that issued out [from Medusa's head], there engendered Pegasus, or the flying horse. By the flying horse that was engendered of the blood issued from her head, is understood that, of her riches issuing of that realm, he [Perseus] founded and made a ship named Pegase; and this ship was likened unto an horse flying," &c. The only flying horse of antiquity was Pegasus, who was the property not of Perseus, but Bellerophon. If the poet intended to speak literally, he has fallen into an error. -"The thing of courage, As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathise." Act I., Scene 3. The "thing of courage" here alluded to is supposed to be the tiger. "Venerable Nestor, hatched in silver."-Act I., Scene 3. "Hatched in silver" is an allusion to Nestor's white hair and beard. To hatch is a term for a particular method of engraving. The phrase is not unfrequent in writings of the same period: as, in "LOVE IN A MAZE," 1632: "Thy hair is fine as gold, thy chin is hatched To hatch in silver, was to inlay a design with lines of silver; a process often used for the hilts of swords, handles of daggers, and stocks of pistols. -"But when the planets, In evil mixture, to disorder wander."-Act I., Scene 3. Meaning, in astrological phrase, when the planets form malignant configurations; when their aspects are evil towards one another. A short extract from Spenser's "FAERY QUEEN" (b. v.) will, perhaps, more accurately, as well as more pleasingly, illustrate the passage in the text: "For who so list into the heavens look, And search the courses of the rolling spheres, Shall find that from the point where they first took Their setting forth, in these few thousand years They all are wandered much; that plain appears. For that same golden fleecy Ram, which bore Phrixus and Helle, from their stepdames' fears, Hath now forgot where he was placed of yore, And shouldered hath the Bull which fair Europa bore." "Thou mongrel beef-witted lord !"-Act II., Scene 1. So in "TWELFTH NIGHT," Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, "I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit." Thersites calls Ajax mongrel on account of his father being a Grecian, and his mother a Trojan. "Thou stool for a witch!"-Act II., Scene 1. In one way of trying a witch, they used to place her on a chair or stool, with her legs tied across, that all the weight of her body might rest upon her seat; and by that means, after some time, the circulation of the blood would be much stopped, and her sitting would be as painful as on the wooden horse. "And, for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive." Act II., Scene 2. The aunt alluded to was Hesione, Priam's sister, whom Hercules, being enraged at Priam's breach of faith, gave to Telamon, who by her had Ajax. "And do a deed that Fortune never did."—Act II., Scene 2. This obscure passage is thus explained by Malone:"Fortune was never so unjust and mutable as to rate a thing on one day above all price, and on the next to set no estimation whatsoever upon it. You are now going to do what Fortune never did." "Not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy.”—Act II., Scene 2. On this passage Steevens observes, "Let it be remembered, as often as Shakspere's anachronisms occur, that errors in computing time were very frequent in those an cient romances which seem to have formed the greater part of his library. Even classic authors are not exempt from such mistakes. In the fifth book of Statius's 'THEBIAD,' Amphiarus talks of the fates of Nestor and Priam, neither of whom died till long after him." "The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy." Act II., Scene 3. That the elephant was incapable of bending the leg, was formerly a very prevalent error; as, in "ALL'S LOST BY LUST" (1633): "Is she pliant?" "Twixt his active and his mental parts, "The genius and the mortal instruments Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection." "So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress."-Act III., Scene 2. The allusion is to bowling. What is now termed the "jack," seems in Shakspere's time to have been called the "mistress." A bowl that kisses the "jack," or "mistress," is in the most advantageous situation. "Rub on" is a term used in the same game; as, in "NO WIT LIKE A WOMAN'S," a comedy by Middleton (1657): "So, a fair riddance: There's three rubs gone; I've a clear way to the mistress." And in Decker's "SATIROMASTIX" (1602):-" Since he hath hit the mistress so often in the fore-game, we'll even play out the rubbers." "The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i the river." Act III., Scene 2. Pandarus probably means that he will match his niece against her lover. The "tercel" is the male hawk; by the "falcon," is generally understood the female. "In witness whereof the parties interchangeably—' ' Act III., Scene 2. -"Have set their hands and seals," would complete the sentence. So, afterwards :-"Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it." Shakspere appears to have had here an idea in his thoughts that he has several times expressed; as, in "MEASURE FOR MEASURE :”— "But my kisses bring again; "Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, |
