I Writing their own reproach; to whofe foft feizure The cygnet's down is harfh, and spirit of fenfe Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'ft me, As true thou tell'ft me, when I fay-I love her; But, faying thus, inftead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gafh that love hath given me The knife that made it. Pan. I fpeak no more than truth. Troi. Thou doft not speak fo much. Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as fhe is if he be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, he has the mends in her own hands. 2 Troi. The circumftance itself feems to have strongly impreffed itself on his mind. Antony cannot endure that the hand of Cleopatra fhould be touched: -To let a fellow that will take rewards -and fpirit of fenfe Hard as the palm of ploughman! MALONE, In comparison with Creffid's hand, fays he, the Spirit of fenfe, the utmost degree, the moft exquifite power of fenfibility, which implies a foft hand, fince the fenfe of touching, as Scaliger fays in his Exercitations, refides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and infenfible palm of the ploughman. Warbur ton reads: Hanmer, fpite of fenfe: to th' Spirit of fenfe. It is not proper to make a lover profefs to praife his mistress in pite of fenfe; for though he often does it in spite of the fenfe of others, his own fenfes are fubdued to his defires. JOHNSON. fhe has the mends] She may mend her complexion by the affiftance of cofmetics. JOHNSON. I believe it rather means-She may make the best of a bad bargain. So, in Waman's a Weathercock, 1612: "I shall stay here and have my head broke, and then I have the mends in my own hands." Again, in S. Goffon's School of Abuse, 1579: -turne him Troi. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? Pan. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. Troi. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? Pen. Because fhe is kin to me, therefore fhe's not fo fair as Helen: an fhe were not kin to me, fhe would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an fhe were a black-amoor; 'tis all one to me, Troi. Say I, fhe is not fair? Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool, to ftay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and fo I'll tell her, the next time I fee her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. Troi. Pandarus, Pan. Not I. Troi. Sweet Pandarus, Pan. Pray you, fpeak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit Pandarus. [Sound alarum. Troi. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude founds! Fools on both fides! Helen mufl needs be fair, It is too ftarv'd a fubject for my fword. But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me! with his back full of ftripes, and his hands loden with his own amendes." Again, in the Wild-Goofe Chace, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The mends are in mine own hands, or the furgeon's." STEEVENS, As As she is stubborn-chafte against all fuit. Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? Troi. Becaufe not there; This woman's answer forts, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, Æneas, from the field to-day? Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt. Ene. Troilus, by Menelaus. Troi. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a fcar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. Ene. Hark! what good fport is out of town to day! Troi. Better at home, if would I might, were may.But, to the sport abroad;-Are you bound thither? Ene. In all swift hafte. Troi. Come, go we then together. [Exeunt. SCENE SCENE A Street. II. Enter Crefida, and Alexander her fervant. Cre. Who were those went by. Serv. Up to the eastern tower, Whofe height commands as fubject all the vale, * Before the fun rofe, he was harnefs'd light, And 3 Hedor, whofe patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd,-] Patience fure was a virtue, and therefore cannot, in propriety of expreffion, be faid to be like one. Is as the virtue fix'd, We thould read: i. e. his patience is as fixed as the goddess Patience itself. So we find Troilus a little before faying: Patience herself, what goddefs ere the be, Doth leffer blench at fufferance than I do. It is remarkable that Dryden, when he altered this play, and found this falfe reading, altered it with judgment to: -whofe patience 'Is fix'd like that of heaven. Which he would not have done had he feen the right reading here given, where his thought is fo much better and nobler expreffed. WARBURTON. I think the present text may ftand. Hector's patience was as a virtue, not variable and accidental, but fixed and conftant. If I would alter it, it fhould be thus: -Hector, whofe patience Is all a virtue fix'd, All, in old English, is the intenfive or enforcing particle. JOHNSON. 4 Before the fun rofe, he was harness'd light,] Does the poet mean And to the field goes he; where every flower In Hector's wrath. Cre. What was his caufe of anger? Serv. The noife goes, this: There is among the mean (fays Mr. Theobald) that Hector had put on light armoir? mean! what elfe could he mean? He goes to fight on foot; and was not that the armour for his purpofe? So, Fairfax, in Taffo's Jerufalem: "The other princes put on barnefs light "As footmen ufe Yet, as if this had been the higheft abfurdity, he goes on, Or does he mean that Hector was sprightly in his arms even before funrife? or is a conundrum aimed at, in fun rofe and harness'd light? Was any thing like it? But to get out of this perplexity, he tells us, that a very flight alteration makes all thefe conftructions unneceffary, and fo changes it to harness-dight. Yet indeed the very flightest alteration will at any time let the poet's sense through the critic's fingers: and the Oxford editor very contentedly takes up with what is left behind, and reads harness-dight too, in order, as Mr. Theobald well expreffes it, to make all contruction unnecessary. WARBURTON. How does it appear that Hector was to fight on foot rather to-day, than on any other day? It is to be remembered, that the ancient heroes never fought on horfeback; nor does their manner of fighting in chariots feem to require less activity than on foot. JOHNSON. It is true that the heroes of Homer-never fought on horfeback; yet fuch of them as make a fecond appearance in the Eneid, like their antagonists the Rutulians, had cavalry among their troops. Little can be inferred from the manner in which Afcanius and the young nobility of Troy are introduced at the conclufion of the funeral games, as Virgil very probably, at the expence of an anachronism, meant to pay a compliment to the military exercifes inftituted by Julius Cæfar, and improved by Auguftus. It appears from different paffages in this play, that Hector fights on horseback; and it fhould be remembered, that Shakspeare was indebted for most of his materials to a book which enumerates Efdras and Pythagoras among the bastard children of king Priamus. Shakspeare might have been led into his mistake by the manner in which Chapman has tranflated several parts of the Iliad, where the heroes mount their chariots or defcend from them. Thus B. 6. fpeaking of Glaucus and Diomed: From horfe then both defcend." STEEVENS. A lord |