and potatoe finger, tickles these together! Fry, Unless she said, My mind is now turn'd whore. lechery, fry! Dio. But will you then? Cres. In faith, I will, la: never trust me else. Cres. I'll fetch you one. Ulyss. You have sworn patience. [Exit. Fear me not, my lord; Cres. No matter, now I have't again. Cres. Dio. What, this? Ay, that. Cres. O, all you gods!-O pretty pretty pledge! Dio. I had your heart before, this follows it. Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; 'faith you Dio. I will have this; Whose was it? Dio. Come, tell me whose it was. 'Tis no matter. Ulyss. All's done, my lord. It is. Tro. Let it not be believ'd for womanhood! Tro. Nothing at all, unless that this were she. Cres. 'Twas one's that loved me better than you will. Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate Dio. Whose was it? Dio. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm ; Cres. Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past ;-And yet it Dio. What, shall I come? the hour? Do come :---I shall be plagu'd. Dio. Farewell till then. Cres. Good night. I pr'ythee, come Divides more wider than the sky and earth; Ay, come :-O Jove! | Hark, Greek; As much as I do Cressid love, [Exit DIOMEDES. [Exit CRESSIDA. Ther. A proof of strength she could not publish more, Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy. Tro. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false, Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, Hect. What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me And they'll seem glorious. Ene. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord: Tro. Have with you, prince:-My courteous lord, adieu : Farewell, revolted fair!--and, Diomed, Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head! Hect. How now? how now? Tro. For the love of all the gods, [Exeunt TROILUS, ENEAS, and ULYSSES. Tro. Hect. Ho! bid my trumpet sound! Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire; Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM. Cas. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast: Pri. Come, Hector, come, go back: Hect. Eneas is a-field; Cas. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet bro-You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir, ther. Hect. Begone, I say: the gods have heard me swear. And. O! be persuaded: Do not count it holy Cas. It is the purpose, that makes strong the vow: Hect. How now, young man? mean'st thou to fight to-day? Tro. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you, Let me not shame respect; but give me leave [Erit ANDROMACHE. Tro. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements. Cas. O farewell, dear Hector. Cas. Farewell.-Yet, soft.-Hector, I take my Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive [Exit. Hect. You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim: Go in, and cheer the town, we'll forth, and fight; Do deeds worth praise, and tell you them at night. Pri Farewell: the gods with safety stand about thee! [Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums. Tro. They are at it; hark! Proud Diomed, believe, I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve. Pan. Here's a letter from yon' poor girl. Pan. A whoreson ptisic, a whoreson rascally ptisic so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl; and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o' these days: And I have a rheum in mine eyes too; and such an ache in my bones, that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what to think on't. -What says she there? Tro. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; [Tearing the letter. The effect doth operate another way.Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.My love with words and errors still she feeds; But edifies another with her deeds. [Exeunt severally. SCENE IV. Between Troy and the Grecian Camp. Alarums: Excursions. Enter THERSITES. Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his helm: I would fain see them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling luxurious drab, on a sleeveless errand. O' the other side, The policy of those crafty swearing rascals,-that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor; and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not proved worth a blackberry:-They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles: and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. Soft! here come sleeve, and t' other. Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following. Agam. Renew, renew! the fierce Polydamus And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam, Enter NESTOR. Nest. Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles; And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame. There is a thousand Hectors in the field: Now here he fights on Galathe his horse, Enter ULYSSES. Ulyss. O courage, courage, princes! great Achilles With such a careless force, and forceless care, Tro. Fly not; for, shouldst thou take the river Styx, As if that luck, in very spite of cunning, I would swim after. Thou dost miscall retire: Bade him win all. Enter AJAX. Ajar. Troilus, thou coward Troilus! Ay, there, there. Achil. Where is this Hector? SCENE VI.-Another Part of the Field. Enter AJAX. Ajax. Troilus, thou coward Troilus, shew thy head Dio. Troilus, I say! where's Troilus? Enter TROILUS. Tro. O traitor Diomed!-turn thy false face. thou traitor, SCENE IX.-Another Part of the Field. Hect. Most putrified core, so fair without, Achil. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set; So, Ilion, fall thou next; now, Troy, sink down; [A retreat sounded. SCENE XI.-Another Part of the Field. Enter NEAS and Trojans. Ene. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field: Ene. My lord, you do discomfort all the host. There is a word will Priam turn to stone; [coward! AS TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS. Pan. But hear you, hear you! Tro. Hence, broker lackey! ignomy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name. [Exit TROILUS. THIS play is more correctly written than most of Shakspeare's compositions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed. As the story abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with great exactness. His vicious characters disgust but cannot corrupt, for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and contemned. The comic characters Pan. A goodly med'cine for my aching bones!— O world! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a'work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so loved, and the performance so loathed? what verse for it? what instance for it!Let me see : Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, Till he hath lost his honey, and his sting: And being once subdued in armed tail, Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.— Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths. As many as be here of pander's hall, Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall: Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans, Though not for me, yet for your aching bones. Brethren, and sisters, of the hold-door trade, Some two months hence my will shall here be made It should be now, but that my fear is this,-Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss: Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases; And, at that time, bequeath you my diseases. [Exit. seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously filled and powerfully impressed. Shakspeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his version of Homer.-JOHNSON. TIMON OF ATHENS. THERE is no edition of this play previous to that of 1623. The date of its production rests on mere conjecture. Malone supposes it to have been written in 1610, and Mr. Chalmers in 1601, or 1602. The subject is from Plutarch's Life of Antony, which Shakspeare might have read in North's translation. The passage respecting Timon is as follows:-" Antonius forsook the citie and companie of his friends, saying, that he would lead li mon's life, because he had the like wrong offered him that was offered unto Timon; and for the unthankfulness of those he had done good unto, and whom he tooke to be his friendes, he was angry with all men, and would trust no man.' There is an old MS. play on the same subject, which was for; merly in the possession of Mr. Strutt the engraver, and which, according to Steevens, was written or transcribed in 1600. Though evidently the work of a scholar, it is a most wretched production; but as it contains a faithful steward, and a mock banqueting scene, the critics have imagined that Shakspeare must have seen the MS. before he commenced his own work upon the subject. It is perhaps rather unfair. on such uncertain grounds, to accuse Shakspeare as the plagiarist, and acquit the unknown author.-lhe circumstance of Timon's becoming possessed of great sums of gold is taken from Lucian. |