In such a rein 29, in full as proud a place As broad Achilles: keeps his tent like him; (A slave, whose gall coins slanders like a mint) Ulyss. They tax our policy, and call it cowardice; They call this-bed-work, mappery, closet-war : Nest. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Makes many Thetis' sons. Agam. Great Agamemnon's tent, I pray? 29 i. e. carries himself haughtily; bridles up. See Cotgrave in Se rengorger.' 30 How rank soever rounded in with danger. How strongly soever encompassed by danger. So in King Henry V.: How dread an army hath enrounded him.' Agam. Even this. Ene. May one, that is a herald, and a prince, Do a fair message to his kingly ears? Agam. With surety stronger than Achilles' arm 'Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice Call Agamemnon head and general. Ene. Fair leave, and large security. How may A stranger to those most imperial looks Know them from eyes of other mortals 31 ? - Agam. Ene. Ay; I ask, that I might waken reverence, Which is that god in office, guiding men? How? Agam. This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy Are ceremonious courtiers. Ene. Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm'd, As bending angels; that's their fame in peace : But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls, Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove's accord: Nothing so full of heart 32. But peace, Æneas, 31 And yet this was the seventh year of the war. Shakspeare, who so wonderfully preserves character, usually confounds the customs of all nations, and probably supposed that the ancients (like the heroes of chivalry) fought with beavers to their helmets. In the fourth act of this play, Nestor says to Hector : But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel, I never saw till now.' Those who are acquainted with the embellishments of ancient manuscripts and books well know that the artists gave the costume of their own time to all ages. But in this anachronism they have been countenanced by other ancient poets as well as Shakspeare. 32 Malone and Steevens see difficulties in this passage; the former proposed to read' Jove's a god;' the latter, Love's a Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips! That breath fame follows; that praise, sole pure, transcends. Agam. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Æneas? Ene. Ay, Greek, that is Agam. my name. What's your affair, I pray you? Ene. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears. Agam. He hears nought privately that comes from Troy. Ene. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him: I bring a trumpet to awake his ear; To set his sense on the attentive bent, Agam. Speak frankly 33 as the wind; It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour: Ene. Trumpet, blow loud, Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;- [Trumpet sounds. We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince call'd Hector (Priam is his father), lord.' There is no point after the word accord in the quarto copy, which reads ' great Jove's accord.' Theobald's interpretation of the passage is, I think, nearly correct:-' They have galls, good arms, &c. and Jove's consent:-Nothing is so full of heart as they. I have placed a colon at accord, by which the sense is rendered clearer. 33 So Jaques, in As You Like It: I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, Who in this dull and long continued truce 34 That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril; Than ever Greek did compass in his arms; say in Troy, when he retires, The Grecian dames are sun-burn'd, and not worth The splinter of a lance 36. Even so much. Agam. This shall be told our lovers, lord Æneas; If none of them have soul in such a kind, We left them all at home: But we are soldiers: That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he. 34 Of this long truce there has been no notice taken; in this very act it is said, that Ajax coped Hector yesterday in the battle.' Shakspeare found in the seventh chapter of the third book of The Destruction of Troy that a truce was agreed on, at the desire of the Trojans, for six months. 35 Confession for profession, made with idle vows to the lips of her whom he loves.' 36 Steevens remarks that this is the language of romance, Such a challenge would have better suited Palmerin or Amadis, than Hector or Æneas. Nest. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now; But, if there be not in our Grecian host One noble man, that hath one spark of fire Agam. Fair lord Æneas, let me touch your hand; To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir. Achilles shall have word of this intent; So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent: And find the welcome of a noble foe. [Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR. Ulyss. Nestor, Nest. What says Ulysses? Ulyss. I have a young conception in my brain, Be you my time to bring it to some shape 38. Nest. What is't? Ulyss. This 'tis : Blunt wedges rive hard knots: The seeded pride That hath to this maturity blown up 39 In rank Achilles, must or now be cropp'd, 37 An armour for the arm. Avant bras. Milton uses the word in Samson Agonistes, and Heywood in his Iron Age, 1632:— peruse his armour, The dint's still in the vantbrace.' 38 Be you to my present purpose what time is in respect of all other schemes, viz. a ripener and bringer of them to maturity. 39 Thus in the Rape of Lucrece : How will thy shame be seeded in thine age, |