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Pan. No, no, no such matter, you are wide;" come, your disposer is sick.

Par. Well, I'll make excuse.

Pan. Ay, good my lord. Why should you say-Cressida? no, your poor disposer's sick.

Par. I spy. 8

Pan. You spy! what do you spy?-Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen.

Helen. Why, this is kindly done.

Pan. My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

Helen. She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my lord Paris.

Pan. He! no, she 'll none of him; they two are twain. Helen. Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.9

Pan. Come, come, I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing you a song now.

Helen. Ay, ay, pr'ythee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.2

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[To Paris.

"Helen. I'll lay my life, with my deposer Cressida."

She calls Cressida her deposer, because she had deposed her in the affections of Troilus, whom Pandarus, in a preceding scene, is ready to swear she loved more than Paris. Ritson.

7 --you are wide;] i. e. wide of your mark; a common exclamation when an archer missed his aim. So, in Spenser's State of Ireland: " Surely he shoots wide on the bow-hand, and very far from the mark." Steevens.

8 Par. I spy.] This is the usual exclamation at a childish game called Hie, spy, hie. Steevens.

9 Falling in, after falling out, &c.] i. e. the reconciliation and wanton dalliance of two lovers after a quarrel, may produce a child, and so make three of two. Tollet.

1- sweet lord,] In the quarto-sweet lad. Johnson.

2- a fine forehead.] Perhaps, considering the character of Pandarus, Helen means that he has a forehead illuminated by eruptions. To these Falstaff has already given the splendid names of-brooches, pearls, and ouches. See notes on King Henry IV, Part II, Vol. IX, p. 61, n. 4. Steevens.

Pan. Ay, you may, you may.

Helen. Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all. O, Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

Pan. Love! ay, that it shall, i' faith.

Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.
Pan. In good troth, it begins so:

Love, love, nothing but love, still more!

For, oh, love's bow

Shoots buck and doe:

The shaft confound 3
Not that it wounds,4

But tickles still the sore.

These lovers cry-Oh! oh! they die!
Yet that which seems the wound to kill,
Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!
So dying love lives still:5

Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha!
Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha!
Hey ho!

3 The shaft confounds-] To confound, it has already been observed, formerly meant to destroy. Malone.

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that it wounds] i. e. that which it wounds. Musgrave. Both Malone and Musgrave have mistaken the sense of this passage. Pandarus means to say, that "the shaft confounds," not because the wounds it gives are severe, but because "it tickles still the sore."

To confound does not signify here to destroy, but to annoy or perplex; and that it wounds does not mean that which it wounds, but in that it wounds, or because it wounds.

5 These lovers cry-Oh! Oh! they die!

M. Mason.

Yet that which seems the wound to kill,
Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!

So dying love lives still:] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis:

"For I have heard, it [love] is a life in death,

"That laughs and weeps, and all but in a breath!" Malone. The wound to kill may mean the wound that seems mortal.

The wound to kill is the killing wound.

M. Mason.

Johnson.

A passage in Massinger's Fatal Dowry may prove the aptest comment on the third line of this despicable ditty:

"Beaumelle. [Within.] Ha! ha! ha!

"Charalois. How 's this? It is my lady's laugh-
"When first I pleas'd her, in this

"She gave me thanks." Steevens.

merry language

Helen. In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose. Par. He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.

Pan. Is this the generation of love? hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds?-Why, they are vipers: Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who's a-field to-day?7

Par. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed to-day but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?

Helen. He hangs the lip at something;-you know all, lord Pandarus.

Pan. Not I, honey-sweet queen.-I long to hear how they sped to-day.-You'll remember your brother's excuse?

Par. To a hair.

Pan. Farewel, sweet queen.

Helen. Commend me to your niece.

Pan. I will, sweet queen.

[Exit.

[A Retreat sounded. Par. They are come from field: let us to Priam's hall, To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you To help unarm our Hector: his stubborn buckles, With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd, Shall more obey, than to the edge of steel,

6a generation of vipers?] Here is an apparent allusion to the whimsical physiology of Shakspeare's age. Thus, says Thomas Lupton, in The Seventh Booke of Notable Thinges, 4to. bl. 1: "The female vyper doth open her mouth to receyve ye generative &c. of the male vyper, which receyved, she doth byte off his head. This is the maner of the froward generating of vypers. And, after that, the young vipers that springs of the same, do eate or knaw asunder their mother's belly, therby comming or bursting forth. And so they (being revengers of theyr father's iniurye) do kyll theyr owne mother. You may see, they were a towardly kynde of people, that were called the generation of vipers." St. Matthew, iii, 7, &c. Steevens.

7 Pan. Is this the generation of love? &c.. Sweet lord, who's a-field to-day?] However Pan. may have got shuffled to the head of this speech, no more of it, I am confident, than the last five or six words belongs to that character. The rest is clearly Helen's,

Ritson.

Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more
Than all the island kings, disarm great Hector.

Helen. 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris: Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty,

Gives us more palm in beauty than we have;

Yea, overshines ourself.

Par. Sweet, above thought I love thee.

SCENE II.

The same. Pandarus' Orchard.

[Exeunt.

Enter PANDARUS and a Servant, meeting.

Pan. How now? where's thy master? at my cousin Cressida's?

Serv. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither. Enter TROILUS.

Pan. O, here he comes.-How now, how now?

Tro. Sirrah, walk off.

Pan. Have you seen my cousin?

[Exit Serv.

Tro. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to those fields,
Where I may wallow in the lily beds

Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid!

Pan. Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight.

[Exit PAN. Tro. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.

The imaginary relish is so sweet

That it enchants my sense; What will it be,
When that the watry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed nectar? death. I fear me;
Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tun'd too sharp in sweetness,
For the capacity of my ruder powers:

8

9

above thought I love thee] So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "She's cunning past man's thought." Steevens.

-tun'd too sharp-] So the quarto, and more accurately than the folio, which has-and too sharp. Johnson.

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I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;

As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pan. She's making her ready, she 'll come straight: you must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were frayed with a sprite:* I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain:-she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta'en sparrow. [Exit PAN. Tro. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom :* My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse; And all my powers do their bestowing lose, Like vassalage at unawares encount❜ring The eye of majesty.3

Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA.

Pan. Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby. Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her, that you have sworn to me.- -What, are you gone again? you must be watched ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we 'll put you i' the fills.5 Why do you not speak

1 -frayed-] i. e. frighted. So, in Chapman's version of the 21st Iliad:

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"Left for the Greeks, could put on looks of no more overthrow

"Than now fray'd life." Steevens.

2 Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom:] So, in The Merchant of Venice:

66 rash-embraced despair."

Malone.

3 Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring

The eye of majesty.] Mr. Rowe seems to have imitated this passage in his Ambitious Stepmother, Act I:

"Well may th' ignoble herd

"Start, if with heedless steps they unawares

"Tread on the lion's walk: a prince's genius

"Awes with superior greatness all beneath him."

Steevens

•you must be watched ere you be made tame, ne,] Alluding to the manner of taming hawks So, in The Taming of the Shrew: to watch her as we watch these kites." Steevens. Hawks were tamed by being kept from sleep, and thus Pandarus means that Cressida should be tamed. Malone.

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