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ACHIL. There's for you, Patroclus.

THER. I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. [Exit.

PATR. A good riddance.

ACHIL. Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:

That Hector, by the first hour of the sun,
Will, with a trumpet, 'twixt our tents and Troy,
To-morrow morning call some knight to arms,
That hath a stomach; and such a one, that dare
Maintain-I know not what; 'tis trash: Farewell.

p. 14, in which the spit or bodkin forms but a very small part of the whole. LORT.

Broch was, properly, a trinket with a pin affixed to it, and is consequently used by Shakspeare for an ornament in general. So, in Hamlet:

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he is the brooch indeed "And gem of all the nation.".

So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

66

-not the imperious show

"Of the full fortun'd Cæsar, ever shall
"Be broach'd with me."

But Thersites could not mean to compliment Patroclus, and therefore this cannot, I think, be the true reading. Brach, which was introduced by Mr. Rowe, might serve well enough, but that it certainly meant a bitch. [See Vol. IX. p. 16, n. 9.] It is possible, however, that Shakspeare might have used the word as synonymous to follower, without any regard to sex.

I have sometimes thought that the word intended might have been Achilles's brock, i. e. that over-weening conceited coxcomb, who attends upon Achilles. Our author has used this term of contempt in Twelfth-Night: "Marry, hang thee, brock!" So, in The Jests of George Peele, quarto, 1657: "This self-conceited brock had George invited," &c.

MALONE.

-

A brock, literally, means-a badger. STEEVENS.
6 the first-] So the quarto. Folio-the fifth-.

MALONE.

AJAX. Farewell. Who shall answer him?

ACHIL. I know not, it is put to lottery; other

wise,

[blocks in formation]

Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and
HELENUS.

PRI. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks; Deliver Helen, and all damage else―

As honour, loss of time, travel, expence,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd In hot digestion of this cormorant war,

Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to't? HECT. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,

As far as toucheth my particular, yet,

Dread Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,

More spungy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out-Who knows what follows?"
Than Hector is: The wound of peace is surety,

7

66

spungy-] So, in Macbeth:

his spungy officers." STEEVENS.

-Who knows what follows?] Who knows what ill consequences may follow from pursuing this or that course?

MALONE,

Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,
Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
If we have lost so many tenths of ours,
To guard a thing not ours; not worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten;
What merit's in that reason, which denies
The yielding of her up?

TRO.

Fye, fye, my brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king, So great as our dread father, in a scale

Of common ounces? will you with counters sum The past-proportion of his infinite?1

And buckle-in a waist most fathomless,

With spans and inches so diminutive

As fears and reasons? fye, for godly shame!

HEL. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at

reasons,

2

9 -many thousand dismes,] Disme, Fr. is the tithe, the tenth. So, in the Prologue to Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1554:

"The disme goeth to the battaile.”

Again, in Holinshed's Reign of Richard II: "-so that there was levied, what of the disme, and by the devotion of the people," &c. STEEVENS.

The past-proportion of his infinite?] Thus read both the copies. The meaning is, that greatness to which no measure bears any proportion. The modern editors silently give: The vast proportion-. JOHNSON.

2

though you bite so sharp at reasons, &c.] Here is a wretched quibble between reasons and raisins, which in Shakspeare's time, were, I believe, pronounced alike. Dogberry, in Much Ado about Nothing, plays upon the same words: "If Justice cannot tame you, she shall never weigh more reasons in her balance." MALONE.

You are so empty of them. Should not our father Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons, Because your speech hath none, that tells him so? TRO. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother Here are your

priest,

You fur your gloves with reason.

reasons:

You know, an enemy intends you harm;
You know, a sword employ'd is perilous,
And reason flies the object of all harm:
Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels;
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
Or like a star dis-orb'd?3-Nay, if we talk of rea-

son,

Let's shut our gates, and sleep: Manhood and ho

nour

Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their

thoughts

With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect
Make livers pale, and lustihood deject.*

The present suspicion of a quibble on the word-reason, is not, in my opinion, sufficiently warranted by the context.

And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,

STEEVENS.

Or like a star dis-orb'd?] These two lines are misplaced in all the folio editions. POPE.

-reason and respect

Make livers pale, &c.] Respect is caution, a regard to consequences. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

"Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating die!
"Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age!—
"Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage."

Again, in Timon of Athens:

❝and never learn'd

"The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd
"The sugar'd game before thee." MALONE.

HECT. Brother, she is not worth what she doth

cost

The holding.

TRO. What is aught, but as 'tis valued? HECT. But value dwells not in particular will It holds his estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry,
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected merit."
TRO. I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;7
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment: How may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? there can be no evasion
To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour:

8

And the will dotes, that is attributive-] So the quarto. The folio reads-inclinable, which Mr. Pope says " is better." MALONE.

I think the first reading better; the will dotes that attributes or gives the qualities which it affects; that first causes excellence, and then admires it. JOHNSON.

"Without some image of the affected merit.] We should read:

the affected's merit.

i. e. without some mark of merit in the thing affected.

WARBURTON.

The present reading is right. The will affects an object for some supposed merit, which Hector says is censurable, unless the merit so affected be really there. JOHNSON.

7-in the conduct of my will;] i. e. under the guidance of my will. MALONE.

blench-] See p. 234, n. 6. STEEVENS.

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