to her?-Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture. Alas the day, how loth you are to offend daylight! an 'twere dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress.7 How now, a kiss in feefarm! build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay,

5

the fills.] That is, in the shafts. Fill is a provincial word used in some counties for thills, the shafts of a cart or waggon. See Vol. IV, p. 338, n 9.

The editor of the second folio, for fills, the reading of the first folio, substituted files, which has been adopted in all the modern editions. The quarto has filles, which is only the more ancient spelling of fills. The words "draw backward" show that the ori. ginal is the true reading. Malone.

Sir T. Hanmer supports the reading of the second folio, by saying-put you in the files, "alludes to the custom of putting men suspected of cowardice [i. e. of drawing backward,] in the middle places." Thus, Homer, Iliad IV, 299: · κακὸς δ ̓ ἐς μέσσον ἐ έλασσεν,

66"00po ἐκ ἐθέλων τις ἀνακαι η πολεμίζη Steevens. The word files does not mean the middle places, but the ranks. The common soldiers of an army are called the rank and file; and when the serjeants or corporals misbehave, it is usual to punish them by reducing them to the files, that is, to the rank of private men. To draw backward, is hereby to fall back, and has no reference to drawing in a carriage. M. Mason.

6 Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture.] It should seem, from these words, that Cressida, like Olivia in Twelfth Night, was intended to come in veiled. Pandarus however had, as usual, a double meaning. Malone.

7 So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress.] The allusion is to bowling. What we now call the jack, seems, in Shakspeare's time, to have been termed the mistress A bowl that kisses the jack or mistress, is in the most advantageous situation. Rub on is a term at the same game. So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657:

66 So, a fair riddance;

"There's three rubs gone; I've a clear way to the mistress."

Again, in Decker's Satiromastix, 1602:

"Mini. Since he hath hit the mistress so often in the foregame, we'll even play out the rubbers.

"Sir Vaugh. Play out your rubbers in God's name; by Jesu I'll never bowl in your alley." Malone.

An instance to the same effect was long ago suggested in a note on Cymbeline, Act II, sc. i. Steevens.

8 a kiss in fee-farm!] is a kiss of a duration that has no bounds; a fee-farm being a grant of lands in fee, that is, for ever, reserving a certain rent. Malone.

to her?-Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture. Alas the day, how loth you are to offend daylight! an 'twere dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in feefarm! build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay,

5 the fills.] That is, in the shafts. Fill is a provincial word used in some counties for thills, the shafts of a cart or wag. gon. See Vol. IV, p. 338, n. 9.

The editor of the second folio, for fills, the reading of the first folio, substituted files, which has been adopted in all the modern editions. The quarto has filles, which is only the more ancient spelling of fills. The words "draw backward" show that the original is the true reading. Malone.

Sir T. Hanmer supports the reading of the second folio, by saying-put you in the files, "alludes to the custom of putting men suspected of cowardice [i. e. of drawing backward,] in the middle places." Thus, Homer, Iliad IV, 299:

66-- - κακὸς δ ̓ ἐς μέσσον έλασσεν,

σε Όφρα ἐκ ἐθέλων τις ἀνακαιη πολεμίζη” Steevens, The word files does not mean the middle places, but the ranks. The common soldiers of an army are called the rank and file; and when the serjeants or corporals misbehave, it is usual to punish them by reducing them to the files, that is, to the rank of private men. To draw backward, is hereby to fall back, and has no reference to drawing in a carriage. M. Mason.

6 Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture.] It should seem, from these words, that Cressida, like Olivia in Twelfth Night, was intended to come in veiled. Pandarus however had, as usual, a double meaning. Malone.

7 So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress.] The allusion is to bowling. What we now call the jack, seems, in Shakspeare's time, to have been termed the mistress. A bowl that kisses the jack or mistress, is in the most advantageous situation. Rub on is a term at the same game. So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657:

66 So, a fair riddance;

"There's three rubs gone; I've a clear way to the mistress."

Again, in Decker's Satiromastix, 1602:

"Mini. Since he hath hit the mistress so often in the foregame, we'll even play out the rubbers.

"Sir Vaugh. Play out your rubbers in God's name; by Jesu I'll never bowl in your alley." Malone.

An instance to the same effect was long ago suggested in a note on Cymbeline, Act II, sc. i. Steevens.

8

a kiss in fee-farm!] is a kiss of a duration that has no bounds; a fee-farm being a grant of lands in fee, that is, for ever, reserving a certain rent. Malone.

you shall fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river:1* go to.

Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady.

go to,

Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she 'll bereave you of the deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here 's-In witness whereof the parties interchangeably2-Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire. [Exit PAN.

How much more poetically is the same idea expressed in Coriolanus, when the jargon of law was absent from our author's thoughts!

66

9-

O, a kiss,

'Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!" Steevens.

build there, carpenter; the air is sweet.] So, in Macbeth: does approve

"By his lov'd mansionry, that heaven's breath

"Smells wooingly here." Steevens.

1 The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river :] Pandarus means, that he 'll match his niece against her lover for any bett. The tercel is the male hawk; by the falcon we generally understand the female. Theobald.

I think we should rather read-at the tercel-. Tyrwhitt. Mr. M. Mason observes, that the meaning of this difficult passage is, "I will back the falcon against the tiercel, I will wager that the falcon is equal to the tiercel." Steevens.

*The explanation of M. Mason is ingenious; and did I place confidence in the text, I would concur with him in opinion; but, in passing through the hands of transcribers, proof readers, and printers, the current of Shakspeare, could not be expected to flow onward without being contaminated: In the present instance if an error exists, it may be chargeable to the carelessness of the corrector of the press, or to the ignorance of his assistant (generally the most useless apprentice), who, if a cockney, would have read the passage, did it stand thus in the original;—“The falcon has the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river:" exactly as it is given in the text:-i. e. without aspirating the consonant h in has, it would probably pass the proof-reader, as: From this defect in the person whose duty it is to read the copy to the corrector, numerous errors have crept into many of the best works in the English language; thus we meet with, wether, for whether; wich, for which; arm, for harm; air, for hair; &c. and, as frequently as, for has. I would therefore read, and because I think it restores the true meaning:

"The falcon has the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river.". i. e. The falcon has caught the tercel;-the falcon has conquered; the falcon has won; &c. Am. Ed.

Cres. Will you walk in, my lord?

Tro. O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus? Cres. Wished my lord?-The gods grant!-O my lord!

Tro. What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.3 Tro. Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.

Cres. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: To fear the worst, oft cures the worst.

Tro. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster.4

Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Tro. Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers ;5 thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough, than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is

2

the parties interchangeably —] have set their hands and seals. So, afterwards: "Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it." Shakspeare appears to have had here an idea in his thoughts that he has often expressed. So, in Measure for Measure:

"But my kisses bring again,

"Seals of love but seal'd in vain.”

Again, in his Venus and Adonis:

3

-

"Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,

"What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?" Malone.

if my fears have eyes.] The old copies have-tears. Corrected by Mr. Pope. Malone.

4 — no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster] From this passage, however, a Fear appears to have been a personage in other pageants; or perhaps in our ancient moralities. To this circumstance Aspatia alludes in The Maid's Tragedy:

and then a Fear:

"Do that Fear bravely, wench."

See also Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, sc. ii. Steevens.

5

weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers;] Here we have, not a Trojan prince talking to his mistress, but Orlando Furioso vowing that he will endure every calamity that can be imagined; boasting that he will achieve more than ever knight performed. Malone.