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TROILUS

AND

CRESSIDA.

VOL. IX.

A

I

IN Troy there lies the fcene. From ifles of Greece
The princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Athens fent their ships,
Fraught with the minifters and inftruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ranfack Troy: within whofe ftrong immures,
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,

With wanton Paris fleeps; and That's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;

And the deep-drawing barks do there difgorge
Their warlike fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains,
The fresh, and yet unbruised, Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions. Priam's fix-gated city,
(Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Chetas, Troian,
And Antenoridas) with mafy staples,

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The princes orgillous,] Orgillous, i. e. proud, difdainful.. Orgueilleux, Fr. STEEVENS.

Priam's fix-gated city,

(Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenonidus) with mofy staples,

And correfponfive and fulfilling bolts,

Stir up the fons of Troy.] This has been a moft miferably mangled paffage through all the editions; corrupted at once into falfe concord and falfe reafoning. Priam's fixgated city firre up the fons of Troy?—Here's a verb plural. governed of a nominative fingular. But that is cafily remedied. The next queftion to be asked is, In what fenfe a city, having. fix ftrong gates, and thofe well barred and bolted, can be faid to fir up its inhabitants? unless they may be fuppofed to derive fome fpirit from the ftrength of their fortifications. But this could not be the poet's thought. He muft mean, I take it, that the Greeks had pitched their tents upon the plains before Troy; and that the Trojans were fecurely barricaded within the walls and gates of their city. This fenfe my correction

A 2

reftores.

And correfponfive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperrs up the fons of Troy.

Now expectation, tickling skittish Spirits
On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard:- And hither am I come
A prologue armi'd; but not in confidence

reftores. To perre, or par, from the old Teutonic word (SPEREN) fignifies, to fut up, defend by bars, &c.

THEOBALD.

"Therto his cyre | compaffed enuyrowne
"Hadde gates VI to entre into the towne:
"The firfte of all and ftrengeft eke with all,
"Largeft alfo and mofte pryncypall,
"Of myghty byldyng | alone pereless,
"Was by the kynge called | Dardanydes ;
"And in ftorye | lyke as it is founde,
"Tymbria was named the feconde;
"And the thyrde | called Helyas,

"The fourthe gate hyghte alfo Cetheas;
"The fyfthe Trojana, the fyxth Anthonydes,

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Stronge and myghty | both in werre and pes."

Lond. empr. by R. Pynfon, 1513, Fol. b. ii. ch. 11, The Troye Boke was fomewhat modernized, and reduced into regular ftanzas, about the beginning of the laft century, under the name of, The Life and Death of Hector who fought a Hundred mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians; wherein there were flaine on both Sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thoufand, Fourfcore and Sixe Men.Fol. no date. This work Dr. Fuller, and several other criticks, have crroneously quoted as the original; and obferve in confequence, that if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined standard for purer language: fo that one might mistake him for a modern "" writer." FARMER.

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On other occafions, in the courfe of this play, I fhall infert my quotations from the Troye Boke modernized, as being the moft intelligible of the two. STEEVENS.

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A prologue arm'd;-] I come here to fpeak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the author's or actor's abilities, but merely in a character fuited to the fubje&t, in a drefs of war, before a warlike play. JOHNSCH.

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