AJAX. If I might in entreaties find fuccefs, (As feld I have the chance,) I would defire My famous coufin to our Grecian tents.

Dio. 'Tis Agamemnon's wifh: and great Achilles Doth long to fee unarm'd the valiant Hector. HECT. Æneas, call my brother Troilus to me: And fignify this loving interview

To the expecters of our Trojan part;

Defire them home.-Give me thy hand, my cousin; I will go eat with thee, and fee your knights.?

AJAX. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here. HECT. The worthieft of them tell me name by

name;

But for Achilles, my own fearching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly fize.

8

AGAM. Worthy of arms! as welcome as to one That would be rid of fuch an enemy;

But that's no welcome: Underftand more clear, What's paft, and what's to come, is ftrew'd with hufks

And formlefs ruin of oblivion;

But in this extant moment, faith and troth,

7

your knights.] The word knight, as often as it occurs, is fure to bring with it the idea of chivalry, and revives the memory of Amadis and his fantastic followers, rather than that of the mighty confederates who fought on either fide in the Trojan war. I wish that eques and armiger could have been rendered by any other words than knight and 'quire. Mr. Pope, in his tranflation of the Iliad, is very liberal of the latter. STEEVENS.

Thefe knights to the amount of about trvo hundred thousand (for there were not lefs in both armies) Shakspeare found with all the appendages of chivalry in The Three Deftructions of Troy.

MALONE.

8 Worthy of arms!] Falio. Worthy all arms! Quarto. The quarto has only the firft, fecond, and the laft line of this falutation; the intermediate verfes feem added on a revision.

JOHNSON.

Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee, with most divine integrity,"
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.
HECT. I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.'
AGAM. My well-fam'd lord of Troy, no less to
[To TROILUS.
MEN. Let me confirm my princely brother's
greeting;-

you.

You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.
HECT. Whom must we answer?

MEN.'

The noble Menelaus."

HECT. O you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks!

Mock not, that I affect the untraded oath;
Your quondam wife fwears ftill by Venus' glove: 5
She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.

9

2

3

-divine integrity,] i. e. integrity like that of heaven.

heart of very heart,] So, in Hamlet:

"In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart."

STEEVENS.

STEEVENS.

maft imperious Agamemnon.] Imperious and imperial had formerly the fame fignification. So, in our author's Venus and

Adonis :

"Imperious fupreme of all mortal things." MALONE. Again, in Titus Andronicus:

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King, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy name."

STEEVENS.

4 Men. The noble Menelaus.] Mr. Ritfon fuppofes this fpeech to belong to Eneas. REED.

5 Mock not, &c.] The quarto has here a ftrange corruption: Mock not thy affect, the untreaded earth. JOHNSON.

the untraded oath;] A fingular oath, not in common use. So, in King Richard II:

fome way of common trade."

Under the lady's oath perhaps more is meant than meets the ear; unless the poet caught his idea from Grange's Golden Aphroditis,

MEN. Name her not now, fir; fhe's a deadly theme.

HECT. O, pardon; I offend.

NEST. I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft, Labouring for destiny, make cruel way

Through ranks of Greekifh youth: " and I have feen thee,

As hot as Perfeus, fpur thy Phrygian fteed,
Defpifing many forfeits and fubduements,

8

4to. 1577, fign. Mij: "At this upper borde nexte unto Jupiter on the right hande fat Juno, that honourable and gracious goddeffe his wyfe: Nexte unto hyr fatte Venus, the goddeffe of love with a GLOVE made of floures flicking in hyr bofome." MALONE.

Glove, in the preceding extract, must be a corruption of fome other word, perhaps of Globe. A flowery globe might have been worn by Venus as an emblem of the influence of Love, which, by adding graces and pleasures to the world, may, poetically, be faid to cover it with flowers.

Our ancient nofegays alfo (as may be known from feveral old engravings) were nearly globular.-But what idea can be communicated by a glove made of flowers? or how could any form refembling a glove, be produced out of fuch materials?

STEEVENS,

6 Labouring for deftiny, &c.] The vicegerent of Fate. So, in Coriolanus:

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His fword, death's ftamp,

"Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
"He was a thing of blood, whofe every motion
"Was tim'd with dying cries: alone he enter'd
"The mortal gate of the city, which he painted
"With fhunlefs deftiny." MALONE.

"As hot as Perfeus, fpur-] As the equeftrian fame of Perfeus, on the prefent occafion, muft be alluded to, this fimile will ferve to countenance my opinion, that in a former inftance his horfe was meant for a real one, and not, allegorically, for a fhip. See p. 245, n. 7. STEEVENS.

Defpifing many forfeits and fubduements,] Thus the quarto. The folio reads:

And feen thee fcorning forfeits and fubduements.

JOHNSON.

When thou haft hung thy advanced fword i'the air,
Not letting it decline on the declin'd;"
That I have faid to fome my standers-by,
Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!

And I have feen thee paufe, and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in,
Like an Olympian wrestling: This have I feen;
But this thy countenance, ftill lock'd in fteel,
I never faw till now. I knew thy grandfire,"
And once fought with him: he was a foldier good;
But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,

Never like thee: Let an old man embrace thee;
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.
ENE. 'Tis the old Neftor.3

HECT. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,

9 When thou haft hung thy advanced fword i'the air,

Not letting it decline on the declin'd;] Dr. Young appears to have imitated this paffage in the fecond act of his Bufiris:

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my rais'd arm

"Has hung in air, forgetful to defcend,

"And for a moment fpar'd the proftrate foe."

So, in King Henry IV. Part II:

"And hangs refolv'd correction in the air,
"That was uprear'd to execution."

The declin'd is the fallen. So, in Timon of Athens:

STEEVENS.

"Not one accompanying his declining foot." MALONE. 2thy grandfire,] Laomedon. STEEVENS.

3 'Tis the old Neftor.] So, in Julius Cæfar:

"Old Caffius till."

If the poet had the fame idea in both paffages, Æneas means, "Neftor is ftill the fame talkative old man, we have long known him to be." He may, however, only mean to inform Hector that Neftor is the person who has addreffed him. MALONE.

I believe, that Æneas, who acts as mafter of the ceremonies, is now merely announcing Neftor to Hector, as he had before announced Menelaus to him; for as Mr. Ritfon has obferved, the fixth speech, p. 391, most evidently belongs to Æneas.

That haft fo long walk'd hand in hand with time :Most reverend Neftor, I am glad to clafp thee.

NEST. I would, my arms could match thee in contention,

As they contend with thee in courtesy.

HECT. I would they could.

NEST. Ha!

By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow. Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the timeULrss. I wonder now how yonder city stands, When we have here her base and pillar by us.

HECT. I know your favour, lord Ulyffes, well. Ah, fir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead, Since first I faw yourself and Diomed

In Ilion, on your Greekish embassy.

ULrss. Sir, I foretold you then what would enfue: My prophecy is but half his journey yet;

For yonder walls, that pertly front your town, Yon towers, whofe wanton tops do bufs the clouds,"

5 As they contend-] This line is not in the quarto.

JOHNSON. Yon towers, whofe wanton tops do bufs the clouds,] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

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Threatening cloud kiffing Ilion with annoy." Again, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609:

"Whofe towers bore heads fo high, they kifs'd the clouds.” Ilion, according to Shakspeare's authority, was the name of Priam's palace, that was one of the richest and ftrongest that ever was in all the world. And it was of height five hundred paces, befides the height of the towers, whereof there was great plenty, and fo high as that it feemed to them that faw them from farre, they raught up unto the heaven." The Deftruction of Troy, Book II. p. 478:

So alfo Lydgate, fign. F 8, verfo:

"And whan he gan to his worke approche,
"He made it builde hye upon a roche,

"It for to affure in his foundation,

"And called it the noble Ylion."