In such a rein 29, in full as proud a place

As broad Achilles: keeps his tent like him;
Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war,
Bold as an oracle and sets Thersites

(A slave, whose gall coins slanders like a mint)
To match us in comparisons with dirt;
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger 30.

Ulyss. They tax our policy, and call it cowardice;
Count wisdom as no member of the war;
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand: the still and mental parts,-
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on; and know, by measure
Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight,-
Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:

They call this-bed-work, mappery, closet-war :
So that the ram, that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poize,
They place before his hand that made the engine;
Or those, that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

Nest. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse
[Trumpet sounds.
What trumpet? look, Menelaus.

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,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phœbus :

Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

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!
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth :
But what the repining enemy commends,

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,
And then to speak.

Agam.

Speak frankly 33 as the wind;

It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour:
That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

Ene.

Trumpet, blow loud,

Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;-
And
every Greek of mettle, let him know,
What Troy means fairly, shall be spoke aloud.

[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,
To blow on whom I please.'

Who in this dull and long continued truce 34
Is rusty grown; he bade me take a trumpet,
And to this purpose speak. Kings, princes, lords!
If there be one among the fairest of Greece,
That holds his honour higher than his ease;

That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril;
That knows his valour, and knows not his fear;
That loves his mistress more than in confession 35
(With truant vows to her own lips he loves),
And dare avow her beauty and her worth,
In other arms than hers,-to him this challenge,
Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,
Shall make it good, or do his best to do it,
He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer,

Than ever Greek did compass in his arms;
And will to-morrow with his trumpet call,
Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy,
To rouse a Grecian that is true in love:
If any come, Hector shall honour him;
If none, he'll

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:
And
may that soldier a mere recreant prove,
That means not, hath not, or is not in love!
If then one is, or hath, or means to be,

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
To answer for his love, Tell him from me,-
I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vantbrace 37 put this wither'd brawn ;
And, meeting him, will tell him, That my lady
Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste
As may be in the world: His youth in flood,
I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.
Ene. Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth!
Ulyss. Amen.

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:
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,

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,
When thus thy vices bud before thy spring,'