CHAPTER VI. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.- CORIOLANUS.-A DISPUTED PASSAGE. JULIUS CÆSAR.-CRIME AND ALCOHOL. -A VOICE FROM THE PRISON. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. N "Troilus and Cressida," the references to Temperance, although somewhat brief, are nevertheless very suggestive. The Second Scene of Act I. opens with a conversation between Cressida and her servant Alexander, touching the Greek warriors, from which we take the following : Alexander. "There is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector: Cressida. "Good; and what of him?" Alexander. "They say he is a very man per se, And stands alone." Cressida. "So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.' The colloquy is cut short by the arrival of Cressida's uncle, Pandarus, who enters into a vigorous recommendation of the absent Troilus, whom he thinks Helen of Troy loves better than Paris. In proof of this he remarks, "She came to him th' other day into the compassed window; and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin"; whereupon Cressida merrily retorts, "Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total." Then again, in Act III. Scene 3, there is an illustration of a kindred character. Thersites brings to Achilles some intelligence which he calls "a wonder," namely: "Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself." "How so?" Achilles. Thersites. "He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector; and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in saying nothing." "How can that be?" Achilles. Thersites. "Why, he stalks up and down like a peacocka stride and a stand; and ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning." We have already seen that the intoxicating cup is frequently the means employed by Shakspeare's characters to enable them to accomplish wicked ends. "Troilus and Cressida " furnishes another case in point. The first scene of the closing act discovers the Grecian camp, and Achilles before his tent thus confides his plans to Patroclus, his companion in arms : "I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, Which, with my scimitar, I'll cool to-morrow. Patroclus, let us feast him to the height." "Greekish Wine. Famed for its strength and excellence. It was Greek wine that served Ulysses in such good stead in his adventure with the giant Cyclop, Polyphemus, as told in the ninth book of Homer's Odyssey." (Cowden Clarke.) In 66 "" Coriolanus we are introduced to a nonabstainer of a very pronounced type, one Menenius Agrippa, friend to Coriolanus. This worthy, in addressing two tribunes of the people, thus draws his own picture : "I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't: said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinderlike upon too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning: what I think, I utter, and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such weálsmen as you are-I cannot call you Lycurguses-if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it." (Act II. Scene 1.) Collier gives a new reading to this passage, and suggests that it should be, "I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of wine without a drop of allaying Tiber in 't; said to be somewhat imperfect in favouring the thirst complaint," etc. Commenting upon this correction, Knight remarks, that "the alteration of with not to without is needless"; and in Lovelace's beautiful "Verses to Althea," we have : "When flowing cups run swiftly round, "Would either passage be improved by substituting without? In the second part of the sentence, common sense will not set thirst aside, because Mr. Singer has discovered that thirst was sometimes provincially pronounced and spelt first and furst. We believe the expression has nothing to do with the hot wine that Menenius loved. He acknowledges to be jovial; he confesses to the imperfection of listening with favour to him who first complains of a grievance; he is hasty, etc. Complaint is invariably used by Shakspeare in this sense. The secondary meaning of complaint-a malady-is modern." Then again Menenius says, in reply to Brutus' remark, "We know you well enough"- Menenius. "You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience." "Fosset-seller." Fosset (or, more properly, "faucet," from the Latin fauces, the gorge or gullet,) is the pipe or tubular portion of the tap put into barrels to allow of the liquor being drawn off; while the spigot is the peg inserted into the faucet, to prevent the liquor flowing forth except at will. Fosset is here used for the tap, which comprises both spigot and faucet. (Cowden Clarke.) Later on, this same Menenius delivers himself of a speech, which is its own commentary upon the proverbial saying-no credit to us that it is so-"If you would ask a favour, wait until after dinner." Sicinius is rehearsing the unsuccessful interview which had taken place with Coriolanus, when Menenius volunteers the opinion : "He was not taken well: he had not dined: |