Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

let's fee your picture. Alas the day, how loth you are to offend day-light? an 'twere dark, you'd close fooner. So, fo, rub on, and kifs the miftrefs; how now, a kiss in fee-farm? build there, carpenter, the air is fweet. Nay, you fhall fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The faulcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i'th' river: (25) go to, go to.

Troi. You have bereft me of all words, lady.

Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you of deeds too, if the call your activity in question: what, billing again? here's, in witness whereof the parties interchangeably. -come in, come in, I'll go [Exit Pandarus.

get a fire.

Cre. Will you walk in, my lord?

Troi. O Creffida, how often have I wisht me thus? Cre. Wifht, my lord! the Gods grant-O my lord. Troi. What fhould they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? what too curious dreg efpies my fweet lady in the fountain of our love?

Cre. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. Troi. Fears make devils of cherubins, they never fee truly.

Cre. Blind fear, which feeing reafon leads, finds safer footing than blind reafon ftumbling without fear. To fear the worst, oft cures the worse.

as they fufpected would misbehave, (defert, or decline Fighting ;) in the mid Ranks; fo that they might be watch'd on every hand.

— κακός δ' ες μέσσον έλασσεν, Οφρα καὶ ἐκ ἐθέλων τις αναγκαίη πολεμίζη.

Iliad. A. 299.

This Method the fhort Scholiaft explains thus; μεταξύ δύο ανδρείων ἕνα nanòv éCanner. i. e. he threw one bad Man in betwixt two approv'd one's, brave Soldiers. This is what we now call putting in the Files. Elian has taken Notice, that Homer was the firft who seems to have been acquainted with Tactics.

(25) The Falcon has the Tercel, for all the Ducks i'th River.] This Reading first got Place cafually, as I prefume, in Mr. Rowe's Edition; and was implicitly follow'd by Mr. Pope. But they Both deprave the Text. Pandarus, feeing Troilus kifs with Fervour, and Creffida meet his Kiffes with equal Zeal, means, that he'll match his Neice against her Lover for any Bett. The Tercel is the male Hawk; by the Faulcon, we generally underfland the Female.

Troi. O, let my lady apprehend no fear; in all Cupid's Pageant there is prefented no monster.

Cre. Nor nothing monftrous neither?

Troi. Nothing, but our Undertakings; when we vow to weep feas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tygers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devife impofition enough, than for us to undergo any difficulty impofed. This is the monftruofity in love, lady, that the will is infinite, and the execution confin'd; that the defire is boundless, and the act a flave to limit.

Cre. They fay, all loyers fwear more performance than they are able; and yet reserve an ability, that they never perform: vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions, and the act of hares, are they not monftrous?

Troi. Are there fuch? fuch are not we: praise us as we are tafted, allow us as we prove our head shall go bare, 'till merit crown it; no perfection in reverfion fhall have a praise in prefent; we will not name defert before his birth, and, being born, his addition shall be humble; few words to fair faith. Troilus fhall be fuch to Creffida, as what envy can fay worst, fhall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak trueft, not truer than Troilus.

Cre. Will you walk in, my lord?

Enter Pandarus.

Pan. What, blufhing ftill? have you not done talking yet?

Cre. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to

you.

Pan. I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you'll give him me; be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.

Troi. You know now your hoftages; your uncle's word and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too; our kindred, though they be long ere they are woo'd, they are con

ftant,

ftant, being won: they are burrs, I can tell you, they'll ftick where they are thrown.

Cre. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart:
Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day,
For many weary months.

Troi. Why was my Crefid then so hard to win?
Cre. Hard to feem won: but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever-pardon me-
If I confefs much, you will play the tyrant:
I love you now; but not till now, so much
But I might mafter it-in faith, I lie

My thoughts were, like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother; fee, we fools!
Why have I blabb'd? who fhall be true to us,
When we are fo unfecret to our felves?
But though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;
And yet, good faith, I wifht my self a man:
Or that We women had mens privilege,

Of fpeaking firft. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue;
For in this rapture I shall surely speak

The thing I fhall repent; fee, fee, your filence
(Cunning in dumbnefs) from my weakness draws
My very foul of counfel. Stop my mouth.
Troi. And fhall, albeit fweet mufick iffues thence.

Pan. Pretty, i'faith.

Cre. My lord, I do befeech you, pardon me; 'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss:

I am afham'd ;

[Kissing.

-O heav'ns, what have I done!

For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

Troi. Your leave, fweet Creffid?

Pan. Leave an you take leave till to morrow morning.

Cre. Pray you, content you.

Troi. What offends you, lady?
Cre. Sir, mine own company.
Troi. You cannot fhun your felf.

Cre. Let me go try:

I have a kind of felf refides with you:
But an unkind self, that it felf will leave,

To

To be another's fool. Where is my wit?
I would be gone: I speak, I know not what.

Troi. Well know they what they speak, that speak fo wifely.

Cre. Perchance, my lord, I fhew more craft than love, And fell fo roundly to a large confeffion,

To angle for your thoughts: but you are wife,
Or else you love not: To be wife and love, (26)
Exceeds man's might, and dwells with Gods above.
Troi. O, that I thought it could be in a woman,
(As, if it can, I will prefume in you,)
To feed for ay her lamp and flames of love,
To keep her conftancy in plight and youth
Out-living Beauties outward; with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!

(26)

-To be wife and love,

Exceeds Man's Might, and dwells with Gods above.] This Sentiment has ftrongly the Air of Imitation. Our Author feems partly to have borrow'd it from this Verse falsely father'd on Seneca ;

Amare & fapere vix Deo conceditur.

and partly from what Terence has left us upon the fame Subject.
Here, que Res in fe neq; confilium neq; modum
Habet ullum, eam Confilio regere non potes.

nibilo plus agas,

Quam fi des Operam ut cum ratione infanias.

Eunuch. Ad i. Sc. 1.

Horace has borrow'd a good Part of his Argument concerning a Lover's mad Behaviour, from this Scene of Terence; and follow'd the StagePoet's very Words, as far as he could make them conform to the Difference of Numbers. (Serm. lib. ii. 3.) Pliny the Younger, among fome other Verses from Sentius Augurinus, quotes one much to our Subject ;

I nunc, qui fapias, amare noli.

And gives it the Praise of being acute, apt, and exprefs. Book IV. Epift. 27.

A Lover, in the Greek Epigram, declining to marry his Mistress because The was poor, yet profeffing to love her, is faid by the Poet to be a Lyer, not a Lover, for that right Reasoning cannot belong to a Spirit in Love. Ου φιλέεις εψεύσαω. πώς δύναται

Ψυχὴ ἐρωμανέειν ὀρθὰ λογιζομών ;

But Menander has left us the fmartest Piece of Satire upon Lovers being mad, that I can any where else remember.

Ἀλλ ̓ ὅταν ἐρῶνα νὲν ἔχειν τὶς ἀξιοῖ,

Παρά τινι τὸ ἀνόηλον ἔτος ὄψεται ;

But when any one will allow a Lover to be in his Wits, whom will fuch a Man allow to have the Symptoms of Madness?

Or,

Or, that perfwafion could but thus convince me,
That my integrity and truth to you

Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of fuch a winnow'd purity in love:
How were I then up-lifted! but alas,
I am as true as truth's fimplicity,
And fimpler than the infancy of truth.
Cre. In that I'll war with you.

Troi. O virtuous fight!

When Right with Right warrs who fhall be most right.
True fwains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truths by Troilus; when their rhimes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,

Want fimilies: truth, tired with iteration,
As true as steel, as Planets to their Moons, (27)
As Sun to day, as turtle to her mate,

As iron to adamant, as earth to th' center:
Yet after all comparisons of truth,

(As truth's authentick author to be cited)

(27) as Planets to the Moon.] Plantage is certainly very justly thrown out, as a Reading of no Senfe or Truth: and yet the Text is a little corrupted, and must be help'd thus ;

as Planets to their Moons.

[ocr errors]

He fetches here his Comparisons of true Love from the Sympathy or Affection of the feveral Parts of Nature. As true as Steel,I know, by this Phrafe, Men generally mean as true as a well-temper'd Sword is to the Hand of the Warrior: but I am perfuaded, the Phrase had another Original; and that was, from obferving its ftrange Affection to the Loadfione. -But other Planets, befides the Earth, (before the Time of our Author,) were discover'd to have their Moons which revolv'd round them. Jupiter has four Moons, and Saturn five. The Aftronomers fometimes call'd thefe, Moons; and fometimes, Satellites. Sometimes, when they spoke of the Moon, they call'd it the Earth's Satellite: and when they spoke of the Satellites of the other Planets, they call'd them Jupiter, or Saturn's Moons. Their conftant unerring Attendance on their respective Planets made this Phenomenon very proper for Comparison: Tho, properly speaking, as it is here put, it is inverted; for Becaute the Moons it fhould be, as true as Moons to their Planets.

depend on their Planets, not the Planets on their Moons. But that this inverted Order is nothing with Shakespeare, is plain from many Places of his Works, and particularly from the immediate following Words, As Sun to Day ;which is likewife in the fame manner inverted: for the Day depends on the Sun, and not the Sun on the Day.

[ocr errors]

Mr. Warburton.

As

« AnkstesnisTęsti »