But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance,
As heart can think, or courage execute.

DIO. The one and other Diomed embraces. Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health: But when contention and occasion meet,

By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life,
With all my force, pursuit, and policy.

ENE. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly
With his face backward.-In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,
Welcome, indeed! By Venus' hand I swear,"
No man alive can love, in such a sort,
The thing he means to kill, more excellently.
DIO. We sympathize:-Jove, let Æneas live,
If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
A thousand complete courses of the sun!
But, in mine emulous honour, let him die,
With every joint a wound; and that to-morrow!
ENE. We know each other well.

DIO. We do; and long to know each other worse. PAR. This is the most despiteful gentle greeting, The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.— What business, lord, so early?

ENE. I was sent for to the king; but why, I know not.

8

PAR. His purpose meets you; 'Twas to bring this Greek

By Venus hand I swear,] insinuate his resentment for Diomedes' the hand. WARBURTON.

This oath was used to wounding his mother in

I believe Shakspeare had no such allusion in his thoughts. He would hardly have made Æneas civil and uncivil in the same breath. STEEVENS.

8

• His purpose meets you;] I bring you his meaning and his orders. JOHNSON.

To Calchas' house; and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid:
Let's have your company; or, if you please,
Haste there before us: I constantly do think,
(Or, rather, call my thought a certain knowledge,)
My brother Troilus lodges there to-night;
Rouse him, and give him note of our approach,
With the whole quality wherefore: I fear,
We shall be much unwelcome.

That I assure you;

ENE. Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece, Than Cressid borne from Troy.

PAR.

The bitter disposition of the time

There is no help;

[Exit.

Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.
ENE. Good morrow, all.

PAR. And tell me, noble Diomed; 'faith, tell me

true,

Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,-
Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen best,
Myself, or Menelaus?

DIO.

Both alike:

He merits well to have her, that doth seek her
(Not making any scruple of her soilure,)
With such a hell of pain, and world of charge;
And you as well to keep her, that defend her
(Not palating the taste of her dishonour,)
With such a costly loss of wealth and friends:
He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;"

9

a flat tamed piece;] i. e. a piece of wine out of which the spirit is all flown. WARBURTON.

This word, with a somewhat similar sense, occurs in Coriolanus:

"His remedies are tame i'the present peace

STEEVENS.

You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
Are pleas'd to breed out your inheritors:
Both merits pois'd, each weighs nor less nor more;
But he as he, the heavier for a whore.1

PAR. You are too bitter to your countrywoman.

DIO. She's bitter to her country: Hear me,
Paris,-

For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple.
Of her contaminated carrion weight,

A Trojan hath been slain: since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath,
As for her Greeks and Trojans suffer'd death.

PAR. Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy:

1 Both merits pois'd, each weighs nor less nor more; But he as he, the heavier for a whore.] I read: But he as he, each heavier for a whore.

Heavy is taken both for weighty, and for sad, or miserable. The quarto reads:

But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

I know not whether the thought is not that of a wager. It must then be read thus:

But he as he. Which heavier, for a whore? That is, for a whore staked down, which is the heavier ?

As the quarto reads,

the heavier for a whore,

JOHNSON.

I think all new pointing or alteration unnecessary. The sense appears to be this: the merits of either are sunk in value, because the contest between them is only for a strumpet.

STEEVENS.

The merits of each, whatever they may be, being weighed one against the other, are exactly equal; in each of the scales, however, in which their merits are to be weighed, a harlot must be placed, since each of them has been equally attached to one. This is the reading of the quarto. The folio reads,

which heavier for a whore. MALONE.

But we in silence hold this virtue well,

We'll not commend what we intend to sell.2
Here lies our way.

[Exeunt.

"We'll not commend what we intend to sell.] I believe the meaning is only this: though you practise the buyer's art, we will not practise the seller's. We intend to sell Helen dear, yet will not commend her. JOHNSON.

STEEVENS.

Dr. Warburton would read-not sell.
The sense, I think, requires we should read-condemn.

TYRWHITT.

When Dr. Johnson says, they meant to sell Helen dear, he evidently does not mean that they really intended to sell her at all, (as he has been understood,) but that the Greeks should pay very dear for her, if they had her. We'll not commend what we intend to make you pay very dear for, if you have her. So Ajax says, in a former scene: however, he shall pay for me,

ere he has me."

66

Commend is, I think, the true reading, our author having introduced a similar sentiment in two other places. In Love's Labour's Lost, we have

"To things of sale a seller's praise belongs." Again, in his 21st Sonnet:

This

"I will not praise that purpose not to sell."

passage favours Dr. Warburton's emendation; but intend not sell sounds very harsh. However, many very harsh combinations may be found in these plays, where rhymes are introduced. MALONE.

Surely Dr. Warburton's reading is the true one.

We'll not commend what we intend not sell,

is evidently opposed to

"Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy:"

in the same speech.

Of such elliptical phraseology as is introduced by Dr. Warburton's emendation, our author's plays will afford numerous examples. STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

The same. Court before the House of Pandarus. Enter TROILUS and CRESSIDA.

TRO. Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold. CRES. Then, sweet my lord, I'll call mine uncle

down;

He shall unbolt the gates.

3

Trouble him not;

TRO.
To bed, to bed: Sleep kill those pretty eyes,
And give as soft attachment to thy senses,
As infants' empty of all thought!

CRES.

TRO. Pr'ythee now, to bed.

CRES.

Good morrow then.

Are you aweary of me?

5

TRO. O Cressida! but that the busy day, Wak'd by the lark, hath rous'd the ribald crows, And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer, I would not from thee.

3

CRES.

Night hath been too brief.

Sleep kill-] So the old copies. The moderns haveSleep seal. JOHNSON.

Seal was one of the numerous innovations introduced by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

And give as soft attachment to thy senses,

As infants' empty of all thought!] So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

5

"Sleep she as sound as careless infancy." STEEVens.

ribald crows,] See note on Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. sc. viii.

6

HARRIS.

-hide our joys-] Thus the quarto. The folio hashide our eyes. MALONE.