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The cignet's down is harfh, 4 and spirit of fenfe
Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'ft me,
As true thou tell'ft me, when I fay, I love her;
But faying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay'ft, in every gash that love hath given me,
The knife that made it.

Pan. I fpeak no more than truth.

Troi. Thou doft not speak fo much.

Pan. Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as fhe is if fhe be fair, 'tis the better for her; an fhe be not, 5 fhe has the mends in her own hands.

Troi. Good Pandarus! how now, Pandarus? Pan. I have had my labour for my travel; ill thought on of her, and ill thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. Trci. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

Pan. Because fhe is kin to me, therefore fhe's not fo fair as Helen: an fhe were not kin to me, fhe would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an fhe were a blacka-moor; 'tis all one to me.

Troi. Say I, fhe is not fair?

and SPIRIT of fenfe

Hard as the palm of ploughman!] In comparison with Crefid's hand, fays he, the spirit of fenfe, the utmoft degree, the most exquifite power of fenfibility, which implies a foft hand, fince the fenfe of touching, as Scaliger fays in his Exercitations, refides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and infenfible palm of the ploughman. WARBURTON reads, SPITE of Jenje:

HANMER,

to th' Spirit of fenfe.

It is not proper to make a lover profefs to praise his mistress in fpite of Jenje; for though he often does it in fpite of the fenfe of others, his own fenfes are fubdued to his defires. JOHNSON.

-fhe has the mends-] She may mend her complexion by the affiilance of cofmeticks. JoHNSON.

I believe it rather means-She may make the best of a bad bargain. STEEVENS.

Pan.

She's a

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. fool to stay behind her father. Let her to the Greeks; and fo I'll tell her the next time I fee her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter.

Troi. Pandarus

Pan. Not I. ·

Troi. Sweet Pandarus.

Pan. Pray you, fpeak no more to me. all as I found it, and there's an end.

I will leave [Exit Pandarus. [Sound alarm.

Troi. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude

founds!

Fools on both fides!-Helen muft needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;

It is too ftarv'd a fubject for my fword.

But Pandarus-O gods! how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Creffid, but by l'andar;
And he's as teachy to be woo'd to woo,
As fhe is stubborn chafte against all fuit.
Tell me, Apollo, by thy Daphne's love,
What Creffid is, what Pandar, and what we :
Her bed is India; there fhe lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium, and where fhe refides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant; and this failing Pandar,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

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Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not a field?

Troi. Because not there. This woman's anfwer forts, For womanifh it is to be from thence.

What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?

Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.

Troi. By whom, Æneas?

Ene. Troilus, by Menelaus.

Troi. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a fear to fcorn;

Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.

[Alarm.

Ene.

Ane. Hark, what good sport is out of town today!

Troi. Better at home, if would I might, were may--But to the sport abroad :-Are you bound thither? Ene. In all fwift hafte.

Troi. Come, go we then together.

SCENE II.

A STREET.

[Exeunt.

Enter Creffida, and Alexander her fervant.

Cre. Who were those went by?

Serv. Queen Hecuba and Helen.
Cre. And whither go they?

Serv. Up to the eastern tower,

Whofe height commands as subject all the vale,
To fee the fight. Hector, whofe patience
Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd:

Hector, whose patience

Is, as A VIRTUE, fix'd,] Patience fure was a virtue, and therefore cannot, in propriety of expreffion, be faid to be like We fhould read,

one.

Is as THE VIRTUE fix'd,

i. e. his patience is as fixed as the goddess Patience itself. S we find Troilus a little before faying:

Patience herself, what goddess ere fhe be,

Doth leffer blench at fufferance than I do.

It is remarkable that Dryden, when he alter'd this play, and found this falfe reading, altered it with judgment to,

whole patience

Is fix'd like that of heaven.

Which he would not have done had he feen the right reading here given, where his thought is so expreffed. WARBURTON.

I think the prefent text may ftand.

much better and nobler

Hector's patience was as

a virtue, not variable and accidental, but fixed and conftant. If I would alter it, it fhould be thus:

-Hector, whofe patience

Is ALL a virtue fix'd,

All, in old English, is the intenfive or enforcing particle.

JOHNSON.

He

He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
2 Before the fun rofe, he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it forefaw
In Hector's wrath.

Cre. What was his caufe of anger ?

2 Before the fun rofe, he was barnefs'd light,] Does the poet mean (fays Mr. Theobald) that Hector had put on light armour? mean! what elfe could he mean? He goes to fight on foot; and was not that the armour for his purpofe? So Fairfax in Taffo's Jerufalem:

The other princes put on barnefs LIGHT "As footmen ufe

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Yet, as if this had been the higheft abfurdity, he goes on, Or does he mean that Hector was Jprightly in his arms even before fun-rife? or is a conundrum aimed at, in fun rofe and barneft light? Was any thing like it? But to get out of this perplexity, he tells us, that a very flight alteration makes all these conftructions unnecessary, and fo changes it to harness-dight. Yet indeed the very flightest alteration will at any time let the poet's fenfe through the critic's fingers: and the Oxford Editor very contentedly takes up with what is left behind, and reads harnessdight too, in order, as Mr. Theobald well expresses it, to make all conftruction unnecessary. WARBURTON.

How does it appear that Hector was to fight on foot rather to-day than on any other day? It is to be remembered, that the ancient heroes never fought on horfeback; nor does their manner of fighting in chariots feem to require lefs activity than · on foot. JOHNSON.

It is true that the heroes of Homer never fought on horseback; yet fuch of them as make a fecond appearance in the Eneid, appear to have had cavalry among them, as well as their antagonists the Rutulians. Little can be inferred from the manner in which Afcanius and the young nobility of Troy are introduced at the conclufion of the funeral games, as Virgil very probably, at the expence of an anachronifm, meant to pay a compliment to the military exercifes inftituted by Julius Cæfar, and improved by Auguftus. It appears from feveral paffages in this play, that Hector fights on horfeback; and it hould be remembered, that Shakespeare was indebted for many of his materials to a book which pronounces both the prophet Efdras and Pythagoras to have been baftard children of king Priamus. STEEVENS

Serv. The noife goes thus: there is among the
Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.

Cre. Good; and what of him?

Serv. They fay, he is a very man 3 per fe, and ftands alone.

Cre. So do all men, unless they are drunk, fick, or have no legs.

Serv. This man, lady, hath robb'd many beafts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, flow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath fo crowded humours, 4 that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly fauced with difcretion: there is no man hath a virtue, that he has not a glimpfe of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries fome ftain of it. He is melancholy without caufe, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing; but every thing fo out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no ufe; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no fight.

Cre. But how fhould this man, that makes me fmile, make Hector angry?

Serv. They fay, he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battle, and ftruck him down; the difdain and shame whereof hath ever fince kept Hector fafting and waking.

Enter Pandarus.

Cre. Who comes here?

Serv. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Cre. Hector's a gallant man.

Serv. As may be in the world, lady.

3 per fe, So in Chaucer's Teftament of Creffeide:

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Of faire Creffeide the floure and a per je "Of Troie and Greece." STEEVENS.

To be cruffed into folly, is to be confujid and mingled with felly, fo as that they make one mafs together. JOHNSON.

Pan.

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