Cres. In that I'll war with you.
Tro.
O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall, in the world to come,
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare 15,
Want similes of truth, tir'd with iteration 16
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon 17,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,-
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,

As truth's authentick author to be cited,
As true as Troilus shall crown up 18 the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

Cres.

Prophet may you be !

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,

And mighty states characterless are grated
To dusty nothing; yet let memory,

From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood! when they have said-as false

As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son;

15 Comparisons.

16 In the old copy this line stands :

'Wants similes truth tird with iteration.'

The emendation was proposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt.

17 Plantage is here put for any thing planted, which was thought to depend for its success upon the influence of the moon. The poore husbandman perceiveth that the increase of the moone maketh plants fruitfull; so as in the full moone they are in their best strength; decaieing in the wane; and in the conjunction do utterlie wither and vade.'-Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. 18 i. e. conclude it. Finis coronat opus.

Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, As false as Cressid.

Pan. Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it: I'll be the witness.-Here I hold your hand; here, my cousin's. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world's end after my name, call them all— Pandars; let all constant 19 men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen.

Tro. Amen.

Cres. Amen.

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed, which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death: away.

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,
Bed, chamber, Pandar, to provide this geer!

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The Grecian Camp.

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done you, The advantage of the time prompts me aloud To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind, That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove1

19 Hanmer altered this to inconstant men;' but the poet seems to have been less attentive to make Pandarus talk consequentially, than to account for the ideas actually annexed to the three names in his own time.

1 The old copies all concur in reading

That through the sight I bear in things to love.' No longer assisting Troy with my advice, I have left it to the dominion of love,

Which Steevens thinks may be explained:

I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; séquest'ring from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,
Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit,

Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which you say, live to come in my behalf.

Agam. What would'st thou of us, Trojan? make demand.

Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore), Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange, Whom Troy hath still denied: But this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest3 in their affairs,

to the consequences of the amour of Paris and Helen.' The present reading of the text is supported by Johnson and Malone; to which Mason makes this objection:- That it was Juno and not Jove that persecuted the Trojans. Jove wished them well, and though we may abandon a man to his enemies, we cannot, with propriety, say that we abandon him to his friends.' Some modern editions have the line thus:

"That through the sight I bear in things to come.' Which is an emendation to which I must confess I incline: for, as Mason observes, the speech of Calchas would have been incomplete, if he had said he abandoned Troy, from the sight he bore of things, without explaining it by adding the words to come.'

The merit of Calchas did not merely consist in having come over to the Greeks; he also revealed to them the fate of Troy, which depended on their conveying away the palladium, and the horses of Rhesus, before they should drink of the river Xanthus.

2 Into for unto; a common form of expression in old writers. Thus in the Paston Letters, vol. ii. p. 5:- And they that have justed with him into this day, have been as richly beseen,' &c.

3 A wrest is an instrument for tuning harps, &c. by drawing

That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,

In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,

In most accepted pain *.

Agam.

Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither; Calchas shall have
What he requests of us.-Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:

Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent.

Ulyss. Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent:Please it our general to pass strangely by him, As if he were forgot; and, princes all, Lay negligent and loose regard upon him: I will come last: 'Tis like, he'll question me, Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on

him:

If so, I have derision med'cinable,

up the strings. Its form may be seen in some of the illuminated service books, where David is represented; in the Second Part of Mersenna's Harmonics; and in the Syntagmata of Prætorius, vol. ii. fig. xix. So in King James's Edict against Combats, &c. p. 45:

This small instrument the tongue, being

Kept in tune by the wrest of awe.'

4 Hanmer and Warburton read, In most accepted pay.' But the construction of the passage, as it stands, appears to be, 'Her presence shall strike off, or recompense the service I have done, even in those labours which were most accepted.'

To use between our strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink;
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Agam. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along;
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?
Achil.

Nest. Nothing, my lord.

No.

[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and Nestor.

Men. How do you? how do you?

Achil.

Ajax. How now, Patroclus?

Good day, good day.

[Exit MENELAUS.

What, does the cuckold scorn me?

Good morrow, Ajax.

Achil.

Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not

Achilles?

Patr. They pass by strangely: they were us'd

to bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly, as they us❜d to creep
To holy altars.