Enter ACHILLES. ACHIL. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all. AGAM. So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night. Ajax commands the guard to tend on you. HECT. Thanks, and good night, to the Greeks' general. MEN. Good night, my lord. HECT. Good night, fweet Menelaus.* THER. Sweet draught: fink, fweet fewer. ACHIL. Good night, Sweet, quoth 'a! fweet And welcome, both to thofe that go, or tarry. AGAM. Good night. [Exeunt AGAM. and MEN. ACHIL. Old Neftor tarries; and you too, Diomed, Keep Hector company an hour or two. Dio. I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now.-Good night, great Hector. HECT. Give me your hand. ULYSS. Follow his torch, he goes [Afide to TROILUS. To Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company. TRO. Sweet fir, you honour me. fweet Menelaus.] Old copy, redundantly,-fweet lord Menelaus. STEEVENS. 5 Sweet draught:] Draught is the old word for forica. It is ufed in the vulgar tranflation of the Bible. MALONE. So, in Holinfhed, and a thousand other places. STEEVENS, HECT. And fo good night. [Exit DIOMED; ULYSSES and TROILUS following. ACHIL. Come, come, enter my tent. 4 [Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NEST. THER. That fame Diomed's a falfe-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more truft him when he leers, than I will a ferpent when he hiffes: he will spend his mouth, and promife, like Brabler the hound; but when he performs, aftronomers foretell it; it is prodigious, there will come fome change; the fun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to fee Hector, than not to dog him: they fay, he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll after. -Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets! [Exit. he will spend his mouth, and promife, like Brabler the bound;] If a hound gives his mouth, and is not upon the scent of the game, he is by fportfmen called a babler or brabler. The proverb fays," Brabling curs never want fore ears." ANONYMUS. -prodigious,] i. e. portentous, ominous. So, in King Richard III: 66 Prodigious, and untimely brought to light." STEEVENS. 6they fay, he keeps a Trojan drab,] This character of Diomed is likewife taken from Lydgate. STEEVENS. SCENE II. The fame. Before Calchas' Tent. Enter DIOMED. Dio. What are you up here, ho? fpeak. CAL. [Within.] Who calls? DIO. Diomed.-Calchas, I think.-Where's your daughter? CAL. [Within.] She comes to you. Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them THERSITES. ULYSS. Stand where the torch may not discover us. Enter CRESSIDA. TRO. Creffid come forth to him! D10. How now, my charge? CRES. Now, my fweet guardian!-Hark! a word with you. TRO. Yea, fo familiar! [Whispers. ULrss. She will fing any man at first fight." THER. And any man may fing her, if he can take her cliff; fhe's noted. 7 She will fing any man at firft fight.] We now fay-fing at fight. The meaning is the fame. MALONE. 8ber cliff;] That is, her key. Clef, French. JOHNSON. Cliff, i. e. a mark in mufick at the beginning of the lines of a Dro. Will you remember? CRES. D10. Remember? yes. Nay, but do then ;' And let your mind be coupled with your words. TRO. What should fhe remember? ULYSS. Lift! CRES. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly. THER. Roguery! DIO. Nay, then, CRES. I'll tell you what: D10. Pho! pho! come, tell a pin: You are for fworn. CRES. In faith, I cannot: What would you have me do? THER. A juggling trick, to be-secretly open. DIO. What did you fwear you would bestow on me? CRES. I pr'ythee, do not hold me to mine oath; Bid me do any thing but that, fweet Greek. fong; and is the indication of the pitch, and bespeaks what kind of voice-as bafe, tenour, or treble, it is proper for. SIR J. HAWKINS. So, in The Chances, by Beaumont and Fletcher, where Antonio, employing mufical terms, fays: Will none but my C. cliff ferve your turn?" that's a bird Again, in The Lover's Melancholy, 1629: "Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes." STEEVENS. 8 Nay, but do then ;] I fuppofe, for the fake of metre, the word-Nay, fhould be omitted. Yet fuch is the irregularity or mutilation of this dialogue, that it is not always eafy to determine how much of it was meant for profe or verfe. STEEVENS. DIO. Good night. TRO. ULYSS. CRES. Hold, patience! How now, Trojan? Diomed, Dio. No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no more. TRO. Thy better must. CRES. Hark, one word in your ear, TRO. O plague and madness! ULrss. You are mov'd, prince; let us depart, I pray you, Left your displeasure should enlarge itself ULYSS. Now, my good lord, go off: You flow to great deftruction; come, my lord. TRO. I pr'ythee, stay. ULrss. 9 You have not patience; come. 9 You flow to great deftruction;] means, I think, your impetuofity is fuch as muft neceffarily expofe you to imminent danger. You flow to great deftruction ; The quarto: JOHNSON. MALONE, I would adhere to the old reading: You flow to great deftruction, or diffraction, means the tide of your imagination will hurry you either to noble death from the hand of Diomed, or to the height of madness from the predominance of your own paffions. STEEVENS. Poffibly we ought to read deftruction, as Ulyffes has told Troilus juft before: this place is dangerous; "The time right deadly." M. MASON. |