So, traitor!-when she comes! When is she thence? 7 PAN. Well, she look'd yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look; or any woman else. TRO. I was about to tell thee, - When my heart, As wedged with a figh, would rive in twain; Left Hector or my father should perceive me, I have (as when the fun doth light a storm,) 8 Bury'd this figh in wrinkle of a smile: 9 But forrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to fudden fadness. PAN. An her hair were not fomewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to,) there were no more comparison between the women,-But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her,-But I would fomebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your fifter Caffandra's wit: but TRO. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,一 When I do tell thee, There my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad In Creffid's love: Thou answer'st, She is fair; Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice; Handleft in thy discourse, O, that her hand, - when she comes! - When is she thence?] Both the old copies read then the comes, when she is thence. rected the former error, and Mr. Pope the latter. 9 Mr. Rowe cor- Corrected by Mr. "He in wrinkle of a smile :) So, in Twelfth Night: doth Smile his face into more lines than the new map with the augmentation of the Indies." MALONE. Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." STEEVENS. • Handleft in thy discourse, O, that her hand, &c.] Handleft is In whose comparison all whites are ink, me, here used metaphorically, with an allusion at the same time to its literal meaning; and the jingle between hand and handleft is perfectly in our author's manner. The beauty of a female hand seems to have made a strong impreffion on his mind. Antony cannot endure that the hand of Cleopatra should be touched : To let a fellow that will take rewards, "And say, God quit you, be familar with "My playfellow, your hand, this kingly feal, "And plighter of high hearts." Again, in Romeo and Juliet : they may feize "On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand." In The Winter's Tale, Florizel with equal warmth, and not less poetically, defcants on the hand of his mistress: 66 I take thy hand; this hand "As foft as dove's down, and as white as it; "Or Ethiopian's tooth; or the fann'd snow "That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er." This passage has, I think, been wrong pointed in the late editions: Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait; her voice We have the fame play of words in Titus Andronicus : Though our author has many and very confiderable obligations to Mr. Malone, I cannot regard the foregoing fuppofition as one of them; for in what does it confift? In making Shakspeare anfwerable for two of the worst lines in a degraded play, merely because they exhibit a jingle similar to that in the speechbefore us. STEEVENS. i 3 and spirit of fense Hard as the palm of ploughman!] In comparison with Cressida's hand, fays he, the spirit of fense, the utmost degree, the most exquifite power of fenfibility, which implies a foft hand, fince the fenfe of touching, as Scaliger says in his Exercitations, refides As true thou tell'st me, when I fay-I love her; PAN. I speak no more than truth. PAN. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as the is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands. TRO. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus ? PAN. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and infenfible palm of the ploughman. Warburton reads: -fpite of fense: Hanmer, - to th' spirit of fenfe. It is not proper to make a lover profess to praise his mistress in spite of fenfe; for though he often does it in spite of the sense of others, his own fenfes are fubdued to his defires. JOHNSON. Spirit of fenfe is a phrafe that occurs again in the third act of this play : -nor doth the eye itself, "That most pure spirit of fenfe, behold itself." Mr. M. Mafon (from whom I have borrowed this parallel) recommends Hanmer's emendation as a necessary one. STEEVENS. 4-she has the mends - She may mend her complexion by the affiftance of cofmeticks. JOHNSON. I believe it rather means-She may make the best of a bad bargain. This is a proverbial saying. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: " I shall stay here and have my head broke, and then I have the mends in my own hands." Again, in S. Gosson's School of Abuse, 1579: - turne him with his back full of stripes, and his hands loden with his own amendes." Again, in The Wild Goofe Chafe, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The mends are in mine own hands, or the furgeon's." 1 between and between, but small thanks for my labour. TRO. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? PAN. Because she is kin to me, therefore she's not fo fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on friday, as Helen is on sunday. But what care I? I care not, an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. TRO. Say I, she is not fair? PAN. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her, the next time I fee her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. TRO. Pandarus, PAN. Not I. TRO. Sweet Pandarus, PAN. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PandarUS. An Alarm. TRO. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude founds! Fools on both fides! Helen must needs be fair, to stay behind her father;] Calchas, according to Shakspeare's authority, The Destruction of Troy, was " a great learned bishop of Troy," who was sent by Priam to confult the oracle of Delphi concerning the event of the war which was threatened by Agamemnon. As foon as he had made " his oblations and demaunds for them of Troy, Apollo (says the book) aunswered unto him, saying; Calchas, Calchas, beware that thou returne not back again to Troy; but goe thou with Achylles, unto the Greekes, and depart never from them, for the Greekes shall have victorie of the Troyans by the agreement of the Gods." Hift. of the Deftruction of Troy, tranflated by Caxton, 5th edit. 4to. 1617. This prudent bishop followed the advice of the Oracle, and immediately joined the Greeks. MALONE. When with your blood you daily paint her thus. 6 Alarum. Enter ÆNEAS. ANE. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? 8 TRO. Because not there; This woman's answer forts, - Ilium,] Was the palace of Troy. JOHNSON. Ilium, properly speaking, is the name of the city; Troy, that of the country. STEEVENS. this failing Pandar, Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.] So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "This punk is one of Cupid's carriers; Clap on more fails," &c. MALONE. 8 How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield?] Shakspeare, it appears from various lines in this play, pronounced Troilus improperly as a dissyllable; as every mere English reader does at this day. So also, in his Rape of Lucrece: " Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds." MALONE. 9-forts,] i. e. fits, suits, is congruous. So, in King Henry V: "It forts well with thy fierceness." STEEVENS. |