ANTENOR, PERSONS REPRESENTED. Trojan Commanders. CALCHAS, a Trojan Priest, taking part with the HELEN, Wife to Menelaus. Greeks. ANDROMACHE, Wife to Hector. CASSANDRA, Daughter to Priam; a Prophetess. Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants. ULYSSES, PROLOGUE.1 IN Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece With wanton Paris sleeps; And that's the quarrel. And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, ACT Í. Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word-hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts, Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else. Tro. I was about to tell thee,-When my heart, SCENE I. Troy. Before Priam's Palace. Enter As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS. Troilus. CALL here my varlet, I'll unarm again! 1 This prologue is wanting in the quarto editions. Steevens thinks that it is not by Shakspeare; and that perhaps the drama itself is not entirely of his construc. tion. It appears to have escaped Heminge and Condell, the editors of the first folio, until the volume was almost printed off and is thrust in between the tragedies and histories without any enumeration of pages, except on one leaf. There seems to have been a previous play on the same subject by Henry Chettle and Thomas Decker. Entries appear in the accounts of Henslowe of money advanced to them in earnest of Troylles and Cressida, in April and May, 1599. 2 Orgulous, proud, disdainful; orgueilleur, Fr. 3 Freight. 4 Sperr or spar, to close, fasten, or bar up. 5 i. e. the avant, what went before. Thus in Lear :Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts.' What is now called the van of an army was formerly called the vaunt-guard. Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, 6 This word which we have from the old French varlet or vadlet, anciently signified a groom, a servant of the meaner sort. Holinshed, speaking of the battle of Agincourt, says, Diverse were releeved by their varlets and conveied out of the field.' Cotgrave says, In old time it was a more honourable title; for all young gentlemen until they came to be eighteen yeres of age were so tearmed.' He says, the term came into discsteem in the reign of Francis I. till when the gentle men of the king's chamber were called valets de chambre. In one of our old statutes, 1 Henry IV. c. 7, anno 1399, are these words:- Et que nulle vadlet appelle yoman preigne ne use nulle liveree du roi ne de null autre seignour sur peine demprisonement.' 7 i. e. in addition to. This kind of phraseology occurs in Macbeth, Act i. Sc. ii.; see note there. 8 i. e. more weak or foolish. Dryden has taken this speech as it stands in his alteration of this play, except that he has changed skill-less, in the last line, to artless, which, as Johnson observes, is no improvement. 9 To blench is to shrink, start, or fly off. See Hamlet, Act il. Sc 2. But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. Pan. An her hair were not somewhat 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 somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,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 Cressid'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, Handlest in thy discourse ;-Ö, that her hand!' In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach; To whose soft seizure The cygnet down is harsh, and spirit of sense2 Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'st me, As true thou tell'st me, when I say-I love her; But, saying, thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it. Pan. I speak no more than truth. Tro. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she 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 between and between, but small thanks for my labour. Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace rude sounds! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, Alarum. Enter ÆNEAS. Ene. How now, Prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? Tro. Because not there; This woman's answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence. Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt. Ene. Troilus, by Menelaus. Tro. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scora; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alurum. Ene. Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day! Tro. Better at home, if would I might, were may. But, to the sport abroad ;-Are you bound thither? Come, go we then together Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore, she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, sne would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sun- SCENE II. The Same. A Street. Enter CRES day. 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 see 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 Alarum. 1 Handlest is here used metaphorically, with an allusion, at the same time, to its literal meaning. The same play on the words is in Titus Andronicus: O handle not the theme, to talk of hands, Lest we remember still that we have none ! Steevens remarks that the beauty of a female hand seems to have had a strong impression on the poet's mind. Antony cannot endure that the hand of Cleopatra should be touched. 2 Warburton rashly altered this to · spite of sense. Hanmer reads: to th' spirit of sense.' Which is considered right and necessary by Mason. Johnson does not rightly understand the passage, and therefore erroneously explains it. It appears to me to mean The spirit of sense (i. e. sensation,) in touching the cygnet's down, is harsh and hard as the palm of a ploughman, compared to the sensation of softness in pressing Cressid's hand.' 3 She has the mends in her own hands' is a proverbial phrase common in our old writers, which probably signifies It is her own fault; or the remedy lies with herself." 4 Calchas, according to the Old Troy Book, was a great learned bishop of Troy, who was sent by Priam to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning the event of the war which threatened Agamemnon. As soon as he had made his oblations and demands for them of Troy, Apollo answered unto him saying, Calchas, Calchas, beware thou returne not back againe to Troy, but goe thou with Achylles unto the Greekes, and depart never SIDA and ALEXANDER. Cres. Who were those went by? Alex. Queen Hecuba, and Helen, Cres. And whither go they? Alex. Up to the eastern tower, He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer ; In Hector's wrath. from them, for the Greekes shall have vicrrie of the Trojans, by the agreement of the gods.-Hist, of the Destruction of Troy, translated by Carton, ed. 1617. The prudent bishop immediately joined the Greeks. 5 Ilium, properly speaking, is the name of the city; Troy that of the country. But Shakspeare, following the Troy Book, gives that name to Priani's palace, said to have been built upon a high rock. 6 This punk is one of Cupid's earriers ; Merry Wives of Windsor 7 Troilus was pronounced by Shakspeare and his contemporaries as a dissyllable. Pope has once or twice fallen into the same error. 8 i. e. fits, suits, is congruous. So in King Henry V.: It sorts well with thy fierceness.' 9 Husbandry is thrift. Thus in King Henry V.: our bad neighbours make us early stirrers, Which is both healthful and good husbandry, 10 The commentators have all taken light here as referring to armour. Poor Theobald, who seems to have had a suspicion that it did not, fails under the lash of Warburtou for his temerity. Light, however, here has no reference to the mode in which Hector was arin ed, but to the legerity or alacrity with which he armed himself before sunrise. Light and lightly are often used for nimbly, quickly, readily, by our old writers. No expression is more common than light of foot. And Shakspeare has even used light of ear.' 11 And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting,' &c. Midsummer Night's Dream. Cres, What was his cause of anger? A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him, Ajax. Cres. Good; And what of him? Alex. They say he is a very man per se,' And stands alone. Cres. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs. Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant; a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion; there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries some stain of it; he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: He hath the joints of every thing; but every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight. Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry? Alex. They say, he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking. Enter PANDARUS. Cres. Who comes here? Aler, Madam, your uncle Pandarus. Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus." Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of ?-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium? Cres. This morning, uncle. Pan. What were you talking of, when I came? Was Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she? Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up. Cres. So he says here. Pan. Well, I say, Troilus is Troilus. Cres. Then you say as I say; for I am sure, he is not Hector. Pan. No, nor Hector is not Troilus, in some degrees. Cres. "Tis just to each of them; he is himself. 1 i. e. an extraordinary or incomparable person, like the letter A by itself. The usual mode of this old expression is A per se. Thus in Henrysoun's Testament of Cresseid, wrongly attributed by Steevens to Chau cer: 'Of faire Cresseide, the floure and a per se of Troy and Greece.' 2 Their titles, marks of distinction or denominations. The term in this sense is originally forensic. "Whereby he doth receive Particular additions from the bill That writes them all alike.' Macbeth. 3 i. e. confused and mingled with folly. So in Cym. beline: Crush him together, rather than unfold Cres. So he is. Cres. No, but brown. Pan. 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown. Cres. Then, Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief, Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose. Pan. I swear to you, I think, Helen loves him better than Paris. Cres. Then she's a merry Greek,' indeed. Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him the other day into a compassed window,and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin. Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. Pan. Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector. Cres. Is he so young a man, and so old a lifter!" Pan. But, to prove to you that Helen loves him ;-she came, and puts ine her white hand to his cloven chin, Cres. Juno have mercy!-How came it cloven? Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled: I think, his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia. Cres. O, he smiles valiantly. Cres. O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn. Pan. Why, go to, then :-But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus, Cres. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so. Pan. Troilus? why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg. Cres. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell. Pan. I cannot choose but laugh to think how 4 Equivalent to a phrase still in use-Against the grain. The French say a contre poil. 5 See Twelfth Night, Act iv. Sc. 1. 6 A compassed window is a circular bow window. The same epithet is applied to the cape of a woman's gown in the Taming of the Shrew ;-'A small compassed cape. A coved ceiling is yet in some places called a compassed ceiling. 7 Lifter, a term for a thief; from the Gothic hliftus Thus in Holland's Leaguer, 1638:- Broker, or pander,cheater, or lifter. Dryden uses the verb to lift, for to rob. Shop-lifter is still used for one who robs a shop. she tickled his chin ;-Indeed, she has a marvellous | There's a fellow!-Go thy way, Hector;-There's white hand, I must needs confess. a brave man, niece. O brave Hector!-Look, how he looks! there's a countenance: Is't not a brave man? Cres. Without the rack. Pan. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin. Cres. Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer. Pan. But there was such laughing;-Queen Hecuba laughed, that her eyes ran o'er. Cres. With mill-stones.' Pan. And Cassandra laughed. Cres. But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes;-Did her eyes run o'er too? Pan. And Hector laughed. Cres. At what was all this laughing? Pan. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin. Cres. An't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too. Pan. They laughed not so much at the hair, as at his pretty answer. Cres. What was his answer? Pan. Swords? any thing, he cares not: an the devil come to him, it's all one: By God's lid, it does one's heart good:-Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris: look ye yonder, niece; Is't not a gallant man too, is't not?-Why, this is brave now.-Who said, he came hurt home to-day? he's not hurt why, this will do Helen's heart good now. Ha! would I could see Troilus now!-you Pan. Quoth she, Here's but one and fifty hairs on shall see Troilus anon. your chin, and one of them is white. Cres. This is her question. Pan. That's true; make no question of that. One and fifty hairs, quoth he, and one white: That white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons. Jupiter! quoth she, which of these hairs is Paris my husband? The forked one, quoth he; pluck it out, and give it him. But, there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.2 Cres. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by. Pun. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't. Cres. So I do. Pan. I'll be sworn, 'tis true; he will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April. Cres. Who's that? Pan. Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus: "Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece!-Hem!-Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry! Cres. Peace, for shame, peace! Cres. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle against May. [A Retreat sounded. Pan. Mark him; note him ;-O brave Troilus! Pan. Hark, they are coming from the field:-look well upon him, niece; look you, how his Shall we stand up here, and see them, as they pass sword is bloodied, and his helm more hack'd than toward Ilium? good niece, do; sweet niece Cres- Hector's: And how he looks, and how he goes!sida. O admirable youth! he ne'er saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way; had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris ?-Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. Cres. At your pleasure. Pan. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by their names, as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest. Forces pass over the stage. Pan. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i' the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look ; the eagles are gone; crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus, than Agamemnon and all Greece. Cres. There is among the Greeks, Achilles; a better man than Troilus. Pan. Achilles? a drayman, a porter, a very camel. Cres. Well, well. Pan. Well, well?-why, have you any discre tion? have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season Pan. That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; a man? 1 So in King Richard III. :— 'Your eyes drop mill stones, when fools' eyes drop tears.' 2 i. e. passed all expression. Cressida plays on the word as used by Pandarus, by employing it herself in its common acceptation. 3 According to Lydgate,- Copious in words, and one that much time spent To heare him speake, and pretty jests to tell, 'Et moveo Priamum, Priamoque Antenora junctum." 1 To give the nod was a term in the game at cards called Noddy. The word also signifies a silly fellow. Cressid means to call Pandarus a noddy, and says he shall by more nods be made more significantly a fool. Cres. Ay, aminced man: and then to be baked | That, after seven years' siege, yet Troy walls with no date in the pie, for then the man's date. Pan. You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie. Cres. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watchos. Pan. Say one of your watches. Cres. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too; if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it is past watching. Pan. You are such another! Enter TROILUS' Boy. stand; Sith every action that hath gone before, Do you with checks abash'd behold our works; But the protractive trials of great Jove, Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with Puffing at all, winnows the light away; you. Pan. Where? Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him. [Exit Boy. I doubt he be hurt.-Fare ye well, good niece. Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by, Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus. Cres. By the same token-you are a bawd.- Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be ; Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is; [Exit. And what hath mass, or matter, by itself Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat, But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage courage, As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize,10 SCENE III. The Grecian Camp. Before Agam-And, with an accent tun'd in self-same key, emnon's Tent. Trumpets. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and others." Agam. Princes, What grief hath set the jaundice on your checks? Fails in the promis'd iargeness; checks and disas ters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd: Returns to chiding fortune,11 Agamemnon, I give to both your speeches,-which were such, 1 Dales were an ingredient in ancient pastry of al-his witte to something, and to give his minde unto it,' most every kind. The same quibble occurs in All's Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. 1. 2 A metaphor from the art of defence. Falstaff, King Henry IV. Part I. says, 'Thou know'st my old ward; here I lay,' &c. 3 That she, means that woman. The example cited by Malone, from The Nice Wanton. is not to the purpose, the word there is used as we now use to ply. As iu another example from Baret, 'With diligent endeavour to applie their studies.' 8 Pegasus was, strictly speaking. Bellerophon's horse, but Shakspeare followed the old Troy Book, Of the 4 Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech. blood that issued out [from Medusa's head] there engenThe meaning of this obscure line seems to be, Mendered Pegasus or the flying horse. By the flying horse after possession become our commanders; before it they are our suppliants.' that was engendered of the blood issued from her head, is understood that of her riches issuing of that realme My heart's content,' in the next line, probably sig.he [Perseus] founded, and made a ship named Pegase, nifies my will, my desire. 5 Joined by affinity. The same adjective occurs in Othello : 'If partially offin', or leagu'd in office.' 6 The throne in which thou sittest like a descended god. 7 To apply here is used for to bend the mind, or attend particularly to Agamemnon's words. As in the following passage from Baret: To attende or applie and this ship was likened unto an horse flying,' &c In another place we are told that this ship, which the writer always calls Perscus' flying horse, flew on the sca like unto a bird.' Destruction of Troy, 4to. 1617, p. 155–164. 9 The gadfly that stings caule. 10 It is said of the tiger, that in stormy and high winds he rages and roars most furiously. 11 i. e. replies to noisy or clamorous fortune. |