TRO. O, that I thought it could be in a woman, (As, if it can, I will presume in you,) To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love"; That doth renew swifter than blood decays?! 1 Might be affronted with the match 1 and weight Marston, in the Dutch Courtezan, 1605, has the same thought, and the line is printed as a quotation : "But raging lust my fate all strong doth move; "The gods themselves cannot be wise, and love." Cressida's argument is certainly inconsequential: "But you are wise, or else you are not in love; for no one who is in love can be wise." I do not, however, believe there is any corruption, as our author sometimes entangles himself in inextricable difficulties of this kind. One of the commentators has endeavoured to extort sense from the words as they stand, and thinks there is no difficulty. In these cases, the surest way to prove the inaccuracy, is, to omit the word that embarrasses the sentence. Thus, if, for a moment, we read: "Or else you love; for to be wise, and love, the inference is clear, by the omission of the word not: which is not a word of so little importance that a sentence shall have just the same meaning whether a negative is contained in it or taken from it. But for all inaccuracies of this kind our poet himself is undoubtedly answerable.-Sir T. Hanmer, to obtain some sense, arbitrarily reads: "A sign you love not." MALONE. 8 To feed for AYE her LAMP, &c.] Troilus alludes to the perpetual lamps which were supposed to illuminate sepulchres : lasting flames, that burn 66 "To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn." See my note on Pericles, Act III. Sc. I. STEEVENS. 9 swifter than BLOOD decays!] Blood, in Shakspeare, frequently means desire, appetite. MALONE. In the present instance, the word blood has its common signification. So, in Much Ado About Nothing: I "Time hath not yet so dry'd this blood-.' STEEVENS. Might be AFFRONTED with the match-] I wish " my in O virtuous fight, Of such a winnow'd purity in love; 3 tegrity might be met and matched with such equality and force of pure unmingled love." JOHNSON. So, in Hamlet : 66 that he, as 'twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia." STEEVENS. 2 And simpler than the infancy of truth,] This is fine; and means, Ere truth, to defend itself against deceit in the commerce of the world, had, out of necessity, learned worldly policy." WARBURTON. compare,] i. e. comparison. So Milton, Paradise Lost, Beyond compare the son of God was seen-." STEEVENS. 4 True swains in love shall, in the world to come, The metre, as well as the sense, of the last verse, will be improved, I think, by reading: "Want similes of truth, tir'd with iteration-.” So, a little lower in the same speech: "Yet after all comparisons of truth." TYRWHITT. This is a very probable conjecture, Truth at present has no verb to which it can relate. MALONE. 5 As true as STEEL,] As true as steel is an ancient proverbial simile. I find it in Lydgate's Troy Book, where he speaks of Troilus, 1. ii. c. xvi. : "Thereto in love trewe as any stele." Virgil, Æneid vii. 640, applies a similar epithet to a sword: -fidoque accingitur ense." i. e. a weapon in the metal of which he could confide: a trusty As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as earth to the center, blade. It should be observed, however, that Geo. Gascoigne, in his Steele Glass, 1576, bestows the same character on his Mir rour: 66 Again : 66 this poore glass which is of trustie steele." that steele both trusty was and true." STEEVENS. Mirrors formerly being made of steel, I once thought the meaning might be," as true as the mirror, which faithfully exhibits every image that is presented before it." But I now think with Mr. Steevens, that "As true as steel was merely a proverbial expression, without any such allusion. A passage in an old piece entitled The Pleasures of Poetry, no date, but printed in the time of Queen Elizabeth, will admit either interpretation: "Behold in her the lively glasse, "The pattern, true as steel." MALONE. 6 as plantage To the moon,] Alluding to the common opinion of the influence the moon has over what is planted or sown, which was therefore done in the increase: Rite Latona puerum canentes, Rite crescentem face noctilucam, Prosperam frugum. Hor. Lib. iv. Od. vi. WARBURTON. Plantage is not, I believe, a general term, but the herb which we now call plantain, in Latin, plantago, which was, I suppose, imagined to be under the peculiar influence of the moon. JOHNSON. Shakspeare speaks of plantain by its common appellation in Romeo and Juliet; and yet, in Sapho and Phao, 1591, Mandrake is called Mandrage : "Sow next thy vines mandrage." From a book entitled The Profitable Art of Gardening, &c. by Tho. Hill, Londoner, the third edition, printed in 1579, I learn, that neither sowing, planting, nor grafting, were ever undertaken without a scrupulous attention to the increase or waning of the -Dryden does not appear to have understood the passage, and has therefore altered it thus: moon. "As true as flowing tides are to the moon." STEEVENS. This may be fully illustrated by a quotation from Scott's Discoverie of Witchcraft: "The poore husbandman perceiveth that the increase of the moone maketh plants frutefull: so as in the full moone they are in the best strength; decaieing in the wane; and in the conjunction do utterlie wither and vade." FARMER. 7 An iron to adamant,] So, in Greene's Tu Quoque, 1614: "As true to thee as steel to adamant.” MALONE. Yet, after all comparisons of truth, As truth's authentick author to be cited, As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse, CRES. Prophet may you be ! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy, And mighty states characterless are grated From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood! when they have said-as false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son; Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, As false as Cressid 2. 8 AS TRUTH'S AUTHENTICK AUTHOR to be cited,] Troilus shall crown the verse, as a man "to be cited as the authentick author of truth; as one whose protestations were true to a proverb. JOHNSON. 9 -CROWN up the verse,] i. e. conclude it. Finis coronat opus. So, in Chapman's version of the second Iliad : "We flie, not putting on the crowne of our so long-held warre." STEEVENS. 1 And BLIND OBLIVION SWALLOW'd cities up,] So, in King Richard III. quarto, 1598 : And almost shoulder'd in this swallowing gulph "Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion." MALONE. 2 Tro. when their rhymes,— Want similes As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse Cres. Yea, let them say As false as Cressid.] This antithesis of praise and censure appears to have found an imitator in Edmund Smith, the author of Phædra and Hippolytus: "Theseus. "And when aspiring bards, in daring strains, PAN. Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the witness.-Here I hold your hand; here, my cousin's. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world's end after my name, call them all— Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all 3 3 "Shall raise some matron to the heavenly powers, 66 They'll say, she's great, she's true, she's chaste as Phædra. "Phædra. And when th' avenging muse with pointed rage, "Would sink some impious woman down to hell, 66 They'll say, she's false, she's base, she's foul as Phædra." CONSTANT men] Though Sir T. Hanmer's emendation [inconstant] be plausible, I believe Shakspeare wrote-constant. He seems to have been less attentive to make Pandar talk consequentially, than to account for the ideas actually annexed to the three names. Now it is certain that, in his time, a Troilus was as clear an expression for a constant lover, as a Cressida and a Pandar were for a jilt and a pimp. TYRWHITT. I entirely agree with Mr. Tyrwhitt, and am happy to have his opinion in support of the reading of the old copy, from which, in my apprehension, we ought not to deviate, except in cases of extreme necessity. Of the assertion in the latter part of his note, relative to the constancy of Troilus, various proofs are furnished by our old poets. So, in A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, &c. 4to. 1578: "But if thou me forsake, "As Cressid that forgot Again, ibid.: 66 As Troilus' truth shall be my shield, "So Cressid's crafte shall kepe the field, "For to resound thy shame." Mr. M. Mason objects, that constant cannot be the true reading, because Pandarus has already supposed that they should both prove false to each other, and it would therefore be absurd for him to say that Troilus should be quoted as an example of constancy. But to this the answer is, that Shakspeare himself knew what the event of the story was, and who the person was that did prove false; that many expressions in his plays have VOL. VIII. Ꮓ |