網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

By god's lid, it does one's heart good:-Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris: look ye yonder, niece: [PARIS passes over.] Is 't not a gallant man too, is 't not?-Why, this is brave now.-Who said he came hurt home today? he 's not hurt: why, this will do Helen's heart good now. Ha! 'would I could see Troilus now!-you shall see Troilus anon.

CRES. Who's that?

HELENUS passes over.

PAN. That's Helenus,-I marvel where Troilus is:-That 's Helenus;—I think he went not forth to-day :-That 's Helenus.

CRES. Can Helenus fight, uncle?

PAN. Helenus? no;-yes, he 'll fight indifferent well:-I marvel where Troilus is!-Hark; do you not hear the people cry, Troilus?-Helenus is a priest. CRES. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

TROILUS passes over.

PAN. Where? yonder? that 's Deiphobus: 'Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! -Hem!-Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry.

CRES. Peace, for shame, peace!

PAN. Mark him; note him;-0 brave Troilus!-look well upon him, niece; look you, how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's: And how he looks, and how he goes!-O admirable youth! he ne'er saw three-and-twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris?-Paris is dirt to him; and I warrant, Helen, to change, would give money to boot.

Forces pass over the stage.

CRES. Here come more.

PAN. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i' the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone; crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus, than Agamemnon and all Greece.

CRES. There is among the Greeks, Achilles; a better man than Troilus.
PAN. Achilles? a drayman, a porter, a very camel.

CRES. Well, well.

PAN. Well, well?-Why, have you any discretion? have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and so forth, the spice and salt that season a man?

a So forth in the folio-the quarto, such like.

CRES. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie,-for

then the man's date 's out.

PAN. You are such another a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie. CRES. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

PAN. Say one of your watches.

CRES. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that 's one of the chiefest of them too; if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it 's past watching. PAN. You are such another!

Enter TROILUS' Boy.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
PAN. Where?

Boy. At your own house; [there he unarms him."]
PAN. Good boy, tell him I come :

I doubt, he be hurt.-Fare ye well, good niece.

CRES. Adieu, uncle.

PAN. I'll be with you, niece, by and by.

CRES. To bring, uncle,

PAN. Ay, a token from Troilus.

CRES. By the same token-you are a bawd.

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
He offers in another's enterprise :

But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see

Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be;

Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing:

That she belov'd knows nought that knows not this,—
Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is:

That she was never yet that ever knew

Love got so sweet, as when desire did sue:

Therefore this maxim out of love I teach,

Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:

Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from my eyes appear.

a Another in the folio-the quarto, a.

[Exit Boy.

[Exit PANDARUS.

[Exit.

The words in brackets are not in the folio.

[ocr errors]

Gifts is the reading of all the old copies. Griefs has crept into all the modern editions.

SCENE III.-The Grecian Camp. Before Agamemnon's Tent.

Senet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and others.

AGAM. Princes,

What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?

The ample proposition that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below,

Fails in the promis'd largeness: checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd;

As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.

Nor, princes, is it matter new to us,

That we come short of our suppose so far,

That, after seven years' siege, yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought

That gave 't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
with cheeks abash'd behold our works;

Do you

And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought else

But the protractive trials of great Jove,

To find persistive constancy in men?

The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love: for then, the bold and coward,

The wise and fool, the artist and unread,

The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.
NEST. With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply

Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance

Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way

With those of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold

TRAGEDIES.-VOL. II.

a Broad in the quarto-the folio, loud.

B

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,

Like Perseus' horse: Where's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rivall'd greatness? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so

Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide,

In storms of fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,

The herd hath more annoyance by the brize a

Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind

Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under shade, why, then, the thing of courage,

As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathise,

And, with an accent tun'd in self-same key,

Returns to chiding fortune.

[blocks in formation]

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,

Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit,

In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up,-hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides the applause and approbation.

The which,-most mighty for thy place and sway,-
And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life,—
I give to both your speeches,-which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again,
As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver ",
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axletree
On which the heavens ride, knit all Greeks' ears
To his experienc'd tongue,-yet let it please both,-
Thou great, and wise,-to hear Ulysses speak.
AGAM. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be 't of less expect
That matter needless, of importless burden,

Divide thy lips, than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his masticke jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

a Brize-the gad-fly.

Hatch'd. Gifford says "to hatch is to inlay."

[To AGAMEMNON.

[TO NESTOR.

• This is the reading of the folio, except in the substitution of on for in. The quarto has

e

"On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears.

a This speech of Agamemnon is not in the quarto.

• Mastick. We retain the word of the original. Masticke is there printed with a capital initial, as marking something emphatic. In all modern editions the word is rendered mastive. We are inclined to think that mastick is not a typographical mistake. Every one has heard of Prynne's celebrated book, 'Histrio-Mastix: The Player's Scourge;' but it is not so generally known that this title was borrowed by the great controversialist from a play first printed in 1610, but supposed

ULYSS. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,
But for these instances.

The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive,
To whom the foragers shall all repair,

What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,

And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: But when the planets,
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,

What plagues, and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!

Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak'd,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,

The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters

Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:

to be written earlier, which is a satire upon actors and dramatic writers from first to last. We attach little importance to the circumstance that the author of that satire has introduced a dialogue between Troilus and Cressida; for the subject had most probably possession of the stage before Shakspere's play. But it appears to us by no means improbable that an epithet should be applied to the "rank Thersites" which should pretty clearly point at one who had done enough to make himself obnoxious to the poet's fraternity.

« 上一頁繼續 »