AJAX. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is.

AGAM. Your mind's the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud, eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise o.

AJAX. I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads".

NEST. And yet he loves himself: Is it not strange?

Re-enter ULYSSES.

[Aside.

ULYSS. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.
AGAM. What's his excuse?

ULYSS.
But carries on the stream of his dispose,
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.

He doth rely on none;

AGAM. Why will he not, upon our fair request, Untent his person, and share the air with us? ULYSS. Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,

He makes important: Possess'd he is with geat

ness;

And speaks not to himself, but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath: imagin'd worth
Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse,
That, 'twixt his mental and his active parts,
Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,

6

whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.] So, in Coriolanus:

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power, unto itself most commendable,

"Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair

"To extol what it hath done." MALOne.

7 -the engendering of toads.] Whoever wishes to comprehend the whole force of this allusion, may consult the late Dr. Goldsmith's History of the Earth, and Animated Nature, vol. vii. p. 92, 93. STEEVENS.

And batters down himself *: What should I say ?
He is so plaguy proud, that the death tokens of it1
Cry No recovery.

AGAM.
Let Ajax go to him.-
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent:
'Tis said, he holds you well; and will be led,
At your request, a little from himself.

ULYSS. O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles : Shall the proud lord,
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam 2;
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts,-save such as do revolve

*So quarto; first folio, 'gainst itself.

KINGDOM'D Achilles in commotion rages,] So, in Julius

Cæsar:

"The genius and the mortal instruments
"Are then in council; and the state of man,
"Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

"The nature of an insurrection." MALONE.

He is so PLAGUY proud, &c.] I cannot help regarding the vulgar epithet-plaguy, which extends the verse beyond its proper length, as the wretched interpolation of some foolish player.

STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens would expunge from the text the very word which explains what follows, the death tokens found on those infected with the plague. MALONE.

1

the DEATH-TOKENS of it-] Alluding to the decisive spots appearing on those infected by the plague. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian :

STEEVENS.

"Now, like the fearful tokens of the plague, "Are mere fore-runners of their ends." Dr. Hodges, in his Treatise on the Plague, says: "Spots of a dark complexion, usually called tokens, and looked on as the pledges or forewarnings of death, are minute and distinct blasts, which have their original from within, and rise up with a little pyramidal protuberance, the pestilential poison chiefly collected at their bases, tainting the neighbouring parts, and reaching to the surface." REED.

2

with his own SEAM ;] Swine-seam, in the North, is hog'slard. RITSON.

See Sherwood's English and French Dictionary, folio, 1650. MALONE

And ruminate himself,-shall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol more than he ?

No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,

By going to Achilles :

That were to enlard his fat-already pride;
And add more coals to Cancer, when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion *.
This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid;

And say in thunder-Achilles, go to him.

NEST. O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him. [Aside. Dro. And how his silence drinks up this applause!

Aside.

AJAX. If I go to him, with my arm'd fist I'll pash him

Over the face 5.

AGAM.

O, no, you shall not gc. AJAX. An he be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride° :

Let me go to him.

3 That were to enlard, &c.] This is only the well-known proverb-Grease a fat sow, &c. in a more stately dress. STEEVENS. to CANCER, when he burns

4

With entertaining great HYPERION.] Cancer is the Crab, a sign in the zodiack.

The same thought is more clearly expressed by Thomson, whose words, on this occasion, are a sufficient illustration of our author's : "And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze."

STEEVENS.

Over the face.] i. e. strike him with violence. So, in The Virgin Martyr, by Massinger, 1623:

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when the batt'ring ram

"Were fetching his career backward, to pash
"Me with his horns to pieces."

Again, in Churchyard's Challenge, 1596, p. 91: "-the pot which goeth often to the water comes home with a knock, or at length is pashed all to pieces." REED.

PHEEZE his pride:] To pheeze is to comb or curry.

JOHNSON.

ULYSS. Not for the worth that hangs upon our

AJAX.

I will let his humours * blood 8.

AGAM. He will be the physician, that should be

the patient.

AJAX. An all men

[Aside.

Were o'my mind,

ULYSS

Wit would be out of fashion.

[Aside.

AJAX. He should not bear it so,

He should eat swords first: Shall pride carry it?

*So first folio: quarto, humorous.

Mr. Steevens has explained the word feaze, as Dr. Johnson. does, to mean the untwisting or unravelling a knotted skain of silk or thread. I recollect no authority for this use of it. To feize is to drive away; and the expression-I'll feize his pride, may signify, I'll humble or lower his pride. See vol. v. p. 357, n. 1.

WHALLEY.

To comb or curry, undoubtedly, is the meaning of the word here. Kersey, in his Dictionary, 1708, says that it is a sea-term, and that it signifies, to separate a cable by untwisting the ends; and Dr. Johnson gives a similar account of its original meaning. [See the reference at the end of the foregoing note.] But whatever may have been the origin of the expression, it undoubtedly signified, in our author's time, to beat, knock, strike, or whip. Cole, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, renders it, flagellare, virgis cædere, as he does to feage, of which the modern school-boy term, to fag, is a corruption. MALONE.

7 Not for the worth-] Not for the value of all for which we are fighting. JOHNSON.

8

I will LET HIS HUMOURS BLOOD.] In the year 1600 a collection of Epigrams and Satires was published with this quaint title : "The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-vaine." MALONE. 9 He'll be physician,] Old copies-the physician. STEEVENS.

NEST. An 'twould, you'd carry half.

ULYSS.

[Aside.

He'd have ten shares.

[Aside.

AJAX. I'll knead him, I will make him supple :

NEST. He's not yet thorough warm: force him with praises 1:

1

Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.

[Aside. ULYSS. My lord, you feed too much on this dis

like.

[TO AGAMEMNON. NEST. O noble general, do not do so.

DIO. You must prepare to fight without Achilles. ULYSS. Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm.

Here is a man-But 'tis before his face;

I will be silent.

NEST.

Wherefore should you so?

He is not emulous 2, as Achilles is.

ULYSS. Know the whole world, he is as valiant.

I'll knead him, &c.] Old copy:

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Ajax. He'd have ten shares. I'll knead him, I'll make him supple, he's not yet thorough warm.

force him with praises :" &c.

"Nest. The latter part of Ajax's speech is certainly got out of place, and ought to be assigned to Nestor, as I have ventured to transpose it. Ajax is feeding on his vanity, and boasting what he will do to Achilles; he'll pash him o'er the face, he'll make him eat swords, he'll knead him, he'll supple him," &c. Nestor and Ulysses slily labour to keep him up in this vein; and to this end Nestor craftily hints that Ajax is not warm yet, but must be crammed with more flattery. THEOBALD.

66

Nestor was of the same opinion with Dr. Johnson, who, speaking of a metaphysical Scotch writer, said, that he thought there was as much charity in helping a man down hill as up hill, if his tendency be downwards." See Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, third edit. p. 245. MALONE.

66

-force him" i. e. stuff him. Farcir, Fr. So, again, in this play : "-malice forced with wit." STEEVENS.

2 He is not EMULOUS,]

Emulous is here used, in an ill sense,

for envious. See p. 299, n. 7. MALONE.

Emulous, in this instance, and perhaps in some others, may well enough be supposed to signify-jealous of higher authority.

STEEVENS.