Let him, that will a screech-owl aye be call'd, Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives, I'll through and through you!-And thou, greatsiz'd coward! No space of earth shall sunder our two hates; go: [Exeunt ÆNEAS and Trojans. As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS. 4 Tro. Hence, broker 3 lackey! ignomy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! [Exit TROILUS. 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 2 Pitched, fixed. 3 Broker anciently signified a bawd of either sex. So in King John: 'This bawd, this broker, this all changing word,' &c. 4 Ignominy. loathed? what verse for it? what instance for it? Let me see: Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths 5. 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 6 would hiss : Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases; And, at that time, bequeath you my diseases. [Exit. 5 Canvass hangings for rooms, painted with emblems and mottoes. See vol. iii. p. 164, note 29. 6 See King Henry VI. Part 1. Act i. Sc. 3, note 8, p. 23. 7 See vol. ii. p. 11, note 4. 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 comick characters 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. *It should, however, be remembered that Thersites had been long in possession of the stage in an Interlude bearing his name. The first seven books of Chapman's Homer were published in 1596, and again in 1598, twelve books not long afterward, and the whole twenty-four books at latest in 1611. The classical reader may be surprised that Shakspeare, having had the means of being acquainted with the great father of poetry through the medium of Chapman's translation, should not have availed himself of such an original instead of the Troy Booke; but it should be recollected that it was his object as a writer for the stage to coincide with the feelings and prejudices of his audience, who, believing themselves to have drawn their descent from Troy, would by no means have been pleased to be told that Achilles was a braver man than Hector. They were ready to think well of the Trojans as their ancestors, but not very anxious about knowing their history with much correctness; and Shakspeare might have applied to worse sources of information than even Lydgate.'-Boswell. END OF VOL. VII. C. and C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick. |