'Tis like a chime a mending; with terms unsquar'd', That's done ; -as near as the extremest ends Of parallels: as like as Vulcan and his wife Yet good Achilles still cries, Excellent! And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age 2 unsquar'd,] i. e. unadapted to their subject, as stones are unfitted to the purposes of architecture, while they are yet unsquar'd. as near as the extremest ends 3 Of parallels:] The parallels to which the allusion seems to be made, are the parallels on a map. As like as east to west. still bears his head In such a rein,] That is, holds up his head as haughtily. We say of a girl, she bridles. As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him; (A slave, whose gall coins slanders like a mint',) To weaken and discredit our exposure, Ulyss. They tax our policy, and call it cowardice; But that of hand: the still and mental parts,— They call this-bed-work, mappery, closet-war: Nest. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Agam. 7 [Trumpet sounds. What trumpet? look, Menelaus. 5 whose gall coins slanders like a mint,] i. e. as fast as a mint coins money. • How rank soever rounded in with danger.] A rank weed is a high weed. 7 by measure —] i. e. "by means of their observant toil." 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. 8 Ene. Fair leave, and large security. How may Ene. Ay; I ask, that I might waken reverence, The youthful Phoebus: How? Which is that god in office, guiding men? 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: 8 A stranger to those most imperial looks-] 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. So, 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." Shakspeare might have adopted this error from the wooden cuts to ancient books, or from the illuminators of manuscripts, who never seem to have entertained the least idea of habits, manners, or customs more ancient than their own. There are books in the British Museum of the age of King Henry VI.; and in these the heroes of ancient Greece are represented in the very dresses worn at the time when the books received their decorations. they have galls, &c.] This is not very intelligible, Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips! That breath fame blows +; that praise, sole pure, transcends. Agam. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Æneas? Agam. 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, Agam. Speak frankly 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, [Trumpet sounds. but perhaps the speaker meant to say, that, when they have the accord of Jove on their side, nothing is so courageous as the Trojans. +"follows "-MALONE, and so in Steevens' last edition, but, I suspect, erroneously. C. 1 long-continued truce-] 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. Here we have another proof of Shakspeare's falling into inconsistencies, by sometimes adhering to, and sometimes deserting, his original. Is rusty grown; he bade me take a trumpet, That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril; Than ever Greek did compass in his arms; Agam. This shall be told our lovers, lord Æneas; Nest. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver, And in my vantbrace' put this wither'd brawn; 2 more than in confession,] Confession for profession. 3 And in my vantbrace-] An armour for the arm, avantbras. VOL. VI. U |