Puslapio vaizdai
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Hect. What vice is that? good Troilus, chide me for it. Troi. When many times the captive Grecians fall,

Ev'n in the fan and wind of your fair fword,

You bid them rife, and live.

Heat. O, 'tis fair play.

Troi. Fool's play, by Heaven, Hector.
Het. How now? how now?

Troi. For love of all the Gods,

Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers;
And when we have our armours buckled. on,
The venom'd vengeance ride upon our fwords,
Spur them to rueful work, rein them from ruth.
Het. Fie, favage, fie!

Trot. Hector, thus 'tis in wars.

Hett. Troilus, I would not have you fight to day.
Troi. Who fhould with-hold me?

Not fate; obedience, nor the hand of Mars,
Beckoning with fiery truncheon my Retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,

Their eyes o'er-galled with recourfe of tears;
Nor you, my brother, with your true fword drawn.
Oppos'd to hinder me, fhould ftop my way,
But by my ruin.

Enter Priam and Caffandra.

Caf. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast : He is thy crutch; now if thou lofe thy Stay,

Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,

Fall all together.

Priam. Hedor, come, go back:

Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had vifions;
Caffandra doth forefee; and I

my felf

Am, like a prophet, fuddenly enrapt

To tell thee, that this day is ominous :
Therefore come back.

Helt. Eneas is a-field,

And I do ftand engag'd to many Greeks,
Ev'n in the faith of valour, to appear

This morning to them.

Priam. But thou fhalt not go.

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Het.

Hect. I must not break my faith: .⠀

You know me dutiful, therefore, dear Sir,
Let me not fhame refpect; but give me leave
To take that courfe by your confent and voice,
Which you do here forbid me, Royal Priam.
Caf. O, Priam, yield not to him.
And. Do not, dear father.

Helt. Andromache, I am offended with you."
Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

I

[Exit Androm. Troi. This foolish, dreaming, fuperftitious girl

Makes all these bodements.

Caf. O farewel, dear Hector :

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Look, how thou dieft; look, how thy eyes turn pale!
Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents!
Hark, how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;
How poor Andromache fhrills her dolour forth!
Behold, distraction, frenzy and amazement,
Like witless anticks, one another meet,
And all cry, Hector, Hector's dead! O Hector!
Trai. Away! Away!

Caf. Farewel: yet, Soft: Hector, I take my leave; Thou do'ft thy felf and all our Troy deceive..

[Exit.

Het. You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim: Go in and cheer the town, we'll forth and fight; Do deeds worth praife, and tell you them at night. Priam. Farewel: the Gods with fafety ftand about thee ! ·₤Alarum. Troi. They're at it, hark: proud Diomede, believe, I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.

Enter Pandarus.

Pand. Do you hear, my lord? do you hear?
Troi. What now?

Pand. Here's a letter come from yond poor girl."

Troi. Let me read.

Pand. A whorfon ptifick, a whorfon rafcally ptifick fo troubles me; and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing and what another, that I fhall leave you one o' thefe days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too,

and fuch an ach in my bones, that unless a man were curft, I cannot tell what to think on't. What fays fhe, there? Troi. Words, words, meer words; no matter from the heart:

Th' effect doth operate another way.

[Tearing the letter. Go, wind to wind; there turn and change together: My love with words and errors ftill she feeds;

But edifies another with her deeds.

Pand. Why, but hear

you

Troi. Hence, brothel-lacquey! ignominy and shame (48) Pursue thy life, and live ay with thy name!

[Exeunt.

SCENE changes to the Field between Troy and

Ther.

[Alarum.]

Ni

the Camp.

Enter Therfites.

OW they are clapper-clawing one another, I'll go look on: that diffembling abominable varlet, Diomede, has got that fame fcurvy, doating, foolish young knave's fleeve of Troy, there, in his helm: I would fain fee them meet; that, that fame young Trojan afs, that loves the whore there, might fend that Greekih whore-mafterly villain, with the fleeve, back to the dif fembling luxurious drab, of a fleeveless Errant. O'th' other fide, (49) the policy of those crafty fneering raf

(48) Hence, brothel, lacquey!] In this, and the Repetition of it, towards the Clofe of the Play, Troilus is made abfurdly to call Pandarus bawdy-houfe; for Brothel fignifies nothing else that I know of: but he meant to call him an Attendant on a Bawdy-house, a Meffenger of obscene Errands: a Sense which I have retriev'd, only by clapping an Hyphen betwixt the two Words.

(49) O'th other Side, the Policy of thofe crafty fwearing Rafcals, &c.] But in what Sense are Neftor and Ulyffes accus'd of being fwearing Rafcals? What, or to Whom, did they fwear? I am pofitive, I have reftor'd the true Reading. They had collogued with Ajax, and trim'd him up with infincere Praises, only in Order to have ftir'd Achilles's Emulation. In this, they were true Sneerers; betraying the first, to gain their Ends on the latter by that Artifice.

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cals, that ftale old moufe-eaten dry cheese Nestor, and that fame dog-fox Ulyffes, is not prov'd worth a blackberry. They fet me up in policy that mungri cur Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles. And now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to day: whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarifm, and policy grows into an ill opi

nion.

Soft

Enter Diomede and Troilus.

here comes fleeve, and t'other.

Troi. Fly not; for should'st thou take the river Styx, I would swim after.

Dio. Thou doft mifcall Retire:

I do not fly; but advantageous care

Withdrew me from the odds of multitude;

Have at thee!

[They go off, fighting. Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian: now for thy whore, Trojan: now the fleeve, now the fleeve, now the fleeve !

Enter Hector.

Heat. What art thou, Greek! art thou for Hector's match?

Art thou of blood and honour?

Ther. No, no: I am a rafcal; a fcurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue. Hect. I do believe thee live.

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[Exit. Ther. God o' mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think, they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle yet, in a fort, letchery eats it felf: I'll feek them.

Enter Diomede and Servant.

[Exit.

Dio. Go, go, my fervant, take thou Troilus' horfe,
Prefent the fair Steed to my lady Creffid:

Fellow, commend my service to her beauty:
Tell her, I have chaftis'd the amorous Trojan,
And am her Knight by proof.

VOL. VII.

H

Ser.

Ser. I go, my lord.

Enter Agamemnon,

Aga. Renew, renew the fierce Polydamas
Hath beat down Menon: baftard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prifoner,

And ftands Coloffus-wife, waving his beam
Upon the pashed coarses of the Kings,
Epistropus and Odius. Polyxenus is flain;
Amphimachus and Thoas deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta'en or flain, and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruis'd; the dreadful Sagittary (50)
Appals our numbers: hafte we, Diomede,

To reinforcement, or we perish all.

Enter Neftor.

Neft. Go bear Patroclus' body to Achilles, And bid the fnail-pac'd Ajax arm for fhame, There are a thousand Hectors in the field:

(50) The dreadful Sagittary

Now

Appals our Numbers.] Mr. Pope will have it that by Sagittary is meant Teucer, because of his Skill in Archery. Were we to take this Interpretation for granted, we might expect that upon this Line in Othello,

Lead to the Sagittary the raised Search,

Mr. Pope fhould tell us, this meant to the Sign of Teucer's Head: tho, indeed, it means only that Sign, which the Poet, in his Comedy of Errors, calls by an equivalent Name the Centaur. Befides, when Teucer is not once mention'd by Name throughout the whole Play, would Shakespeare decypher him by fo dark and precarious a Defcription? I dare be pofitive, he had no Thought of that Archer here. To confefs the Truth, this Paffage contains a Piece of private Hiftory, which, perhaps, Mr. Pope never met with, unless he confulted the old Chronicle containing the three Deftructions of Troy, printed by Caxton in 1471, and Wynken de Werde in 1503 from which Book our Poet has borrow'd more Circumstances of this Play, than from Lollius or Chaucer. I fhall transcribe a Short Quotation from thence, which will fully explain Shakespeare's Meaning in this Paffage. Beyonde the Royalme of "Amafonne came an auncyent Kynge, wyfe and dyfcreete, named "Epyftrophus, and brought a M. knyghtes, and a mervayllouse Befte "that was call'd Sagittarye, that behynde the myddes was an horse, "and to fore a Man: This Befte was heery lyke an horfe, and had "his Eyen rede as a Cole, and fhotte well with a bowe: This Beste

66

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