Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted :
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,

To give me now a little benefit,

Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.

AGAM. What would'st thou of us, Trojan? make demand.

CAL. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,

Again, in Daniel's Civil Warres, B. IV. st. 72, edit. 1602; "She doth conspire to have him made away,"Thrust thereinto not only with her pride,

"But by her father's counsell and consent.” Again, in our author's All's well that ends well:

66

I'll stay at home,

"And pray God's blessing into thy attempt." MALONE, The folio reads

-in things to love,

which appears to me to have no meaning, unless we adopt the explanation of Mr. Steevens, which would make sense of it. The present reading, though supported by Johnson and Malone, is little better than nonsense, and there is this objection to it, that it was Juno, not Jove, that persecuted the Trojans. Jove wished them well; and though we may abandon a man to his enemies, we cannot, with propriety, say, that we abandon him to his friends. Let me add, that the speech of Calchas would have been incomplete, if he had said that he abandoned Troy, from the sight he bore of things, without explaining it by adding the words to come. I should, therefore, adhere to that reading, which I consider as one of those happy amendments which do not require any authority to support them.

The merit of Calchas did not merely consist in his having come over to the Greeks; he also revealed to them the fate of Troy, which depended on their conveying away the palladium, and the horses of Rhesus, before they should drink of the river Xanthus. M. MASON.

8

-Antenor,] Very few particulars respecting this Trojan are preserved by Homer. But as Professor Heyne, in his seventh Excursus to the first Æneid, observes, "Fuit Antenor inter

Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you, (often have you thanks therefore,)
Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied: But this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest in their affairs,

eos, in quorum rebus ornandis ii maxime scriptores laborarunt, qui narrationes Homericas novis commentis de suo onerarunt; non aliter ac si delectatio a mere fabulosis & temere effusis figmentis proficisceretur." STEEvens.

9

such a wrest in their affairs,] According to Dr. Johnson, who quotes this line in his Dictionary, the meaning is, that the loss of Antenor is such a violent distortion of their affairs, &c. But as in a former scene [p. 273-see n. 2,] we had o'er-rested for o'er-wrested, so here I strongly suspect wrest has been printed instead of rest. Antenor is such a stay or support of their affairs, &c. All the ancient English muskets had rests by which they were supported. The subsequent wordswanting his manage-appear to me to confirm the emendation. To say that Antenor himself (for so the passage runs, not the loss of Antenor,) is a violent distortion of the Trojan negociations, is little better than nonsense.

MALONE.

I have been informed that a wrest anciently signified a sort of tuning-hammer, by which the strings of some musical instruments were screwed or wrested up to their proper degree of tension. Antenor's advice might be supposed to produce a congenial effect on the Trojan councils, which otherwise

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must slack,

Wanting his manage ;

STEEVENS.

Wrest is not misprinted for rest, as Mr. Malone supposes, in his correction of Dr. Johnson, who has certainly mistaken the sense of this word. It means an instrument for tuning the harp by drawing up the strings. Laneham, in his Letter from Kenilworth, p. 50, describing a minstrel, says, "his harp in good grace dependaunt before him; his wreast tyed to a green lace and hanging by." And again, in Wynne's History of the Gwedir Family: "And setting forth very early before day, unwittingly carried upon his finger the wrest of his cosen's harpe." To wrest, is to wind. See Minsheu's Dictionary. The form of the wrest may be seen in some of the illuminated service books, wherein David is represented playing on his harp; in the second part of Mersenna's Harmonics, p. 69; and in the Syntagmata of Prætorius, Vol. II. Fig. xix. DOUCE.

That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,

In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
In most accepted pain.'

AGAM.

Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither; Calchas shall have
What he requests of us.-Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:

Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
DIO. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent.

ULYSS. Achilles stands i'the entrance of his
tent:-

Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:
I will come last: 'Tis like, he'll question me,
Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on
him :2

1

1 In most accepted pain.] Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, read:

In most accepted pay.

They do not seem to understand the construction of the passage. Her presence, says Calchas, shall strike off, or recompense the service I have done, even in those labours which were most accepted. JOHNSON.

2

Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on him:] If the eyes were bent on him, they were turn'd on him. This

If so, I have derision med'cinable,
To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink ;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.

AGAM. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along;-
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

ACHIL. What, comes the general to speak with me?

You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. AGAM. What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

NEST. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

MEN. How do you? how do you?

[Exit MENELAUs,

tautology, therefore, together with the redundancy of the line, plainly show that we ought to read, with Sir Thomas Hanmer: Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him

STEEVENS.

ACHIL. Good morrow.3

AJAX.

Ay, and good next day too.

[Exit AJAX.

ACHIL. What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

PATR. They pass by strangely: they were us'd to bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly, as they us'd to creep
To holy altars.

ACHIL. What, am I poor of late?
'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer;
And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honour; but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess,

Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;

Good morrow.] Perhaps, in this repetition of the salute, we should read, as in the preceding instance,-Good morrow, Ajax; or, with more colloquial spirit,-I say, good. morrow. Otherwise the metre is defective. STEEVENS.

but honour-] Thus the quarto. The folio reads but honour'd. MALONE.