Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen.

TRO. Amen.

CRES. Amen.

PAN. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed, which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death away.

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here, Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this geer!

[Exeunt.

dropped from him, in consequence of that knowledge, that are improper in the mouth of the speaker; and that, in his licentious mode of writing, the words, "if ever you prove false to one another," may mean, not, if you both prove false, but, "if it should happen that any falsehood or breach of faith should disunite you, who are now thus attached to each other." This might and did happen, by one of the parties proving false, and breaking her engagement.

The modern editions read-if ever you prove false to one another; but the reading of the text is that of the quarto and folio, and was the phraseology of Shakspeare's age. MALONE.

It is clearly the intention of the poet that this imprecation should be such a one as was verified by the event, as it is in part to this very day. But neither was Troilus ever used to denote an inconstant lover, nor, if we believe the story, did he ever deserve the character, as both the others did in truth deserve that shame here imprecated upon them. Besides, Pandarus seems to adjust his imprecation to those of the other two preceding, just as they dropped from their lips; as false as Cressid, and, consequently, as true (or as constant) as Troilus. HEATH.

4 and a bed,] These words are not in the old copy, but what follows shows that they were inadvertently omitted.

MALONE.

This deficiency was supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer. He reads, however, " a chamber with a bed; which bed, because" &c.

STEEVENS.

SCENE III.

The Grecian Camp.

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, Nestor, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

CAL. Now, princes, for the service I have done

you,

5

The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind 3,
That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove
I have abandon'd Troy", left my possession,

5

6

Appear it to your MIND,] Sir Thomas Hanmer, very properly in my opinion, reduces this line to measure, by reading: Appear it to you-." STEEVENS.

66

6 through the sight I bear in things, to Jove, &c.] This passage, in all the modern editions, is silently depraved, and printed thus:

66

through the sight I bear in things to come,-" The word is so printed that nothing but the sense can determine whether it be love or Jove. I believe that the editors read it as love, and therefore made the alteration to obtain some meaning. JOHNSON.

I do not perceive why love, the clear and evident reading of both the quartos and folios, should be passed over without some attempt to explain it. In my opinion it may signify-“ No longer assisting Troy with my advice, I have left it to the dominion of love, to the consequences of the amour of Paris and Helen." STEEVENS.

7 That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove

I have abandon'd Troy, &c.] This reasoning perplexes Mr. Theobald: 66 'He foresaw his country was undone; he ran over to the Greeks; and this he makes a merit of (says the editor). I own (continues he) the motives of his oratory seem to be somewhat perverse and unnatural. Nor do I know how to reconcile it, unless our poet purposely intended to make Calchas act the part of a true priest, and so from motives of self-interest insinuate the merit of service." The editor did not know how to reconcile this. Nor I neither. For I do not know what he means by "the motives of his oratory," or, "from motives of self-interest to insinuate merit." But if he would insinuate, that it was the poet's

Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,

design to make his priest self-interested, and to represent to the Greeks that what he did for his own preservation, was done for their service, he is mistaken. Shakspeare thought of nothing so silly, as it would be to draw his priest a knave, in order to make him talk like a fool. Though that be the fate which generally attends their abusers. But Shakspeare was no such; and consequently wanted not this cover for dulness. The perverseness is all the editor's own, who interprets,

66

-through the sight I have in things to come,'

"I have abandon'd Troy,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

to signify, "by my power of prescience finding my country must be ruined, I have therefore abandoned it to seek refuge with you; whereas the true sense is, "Be it known unto you, that on account of a gift or faculty I have of seeing things to come, which faculty I suppose would be esteemed by you as acceptable and useful, I have abandoned Troy my native country." That he could not mean what the editor supposes, appears from these considerations: First, if he had represented himself as running from a falling city, he could never have said:

"I have expos'd myself,

"From certain and possess'd conveniencies,
"To doubtful fortunes

Secondly, the absolute knowledge of the fall of Troy was a secret hid from the inferior gods themselves; as appears from the poetical history of that war. It depended on many contigencies, whose existence they did not foresee. All that they knew was, that if such and such things happened, Troy would fall. And this secret they communicated to Cassandra only, but along with it, the fate not to be believed. Several others knew each a several part of the secret; one, that Troy could not be taken unless Achilles went to the war; another, that it could not fall while it had the palladium; and so on. But the secret, that it was absolutely to fall, was known to none. The sense here given will admit of no dispute among those who know how acceptable a seer was amongst the Greeks. So that this Calchas, like a true priest, if it needs must be so, went where he could exercise his profession with most advantage. For it being much less common amongst the Greeks than the Asiaticks, there would be a greater demand for it. WARBURTON.

I am afraid, that after all the learned commentator's efforts to clear the argument of Calchas, it will still appear liable to objection; nor do I discover more to be urged in his defence, than that though his skill in divination determined him to leave Troy, yet that he joined himself to Agamemnon and his army by un

To doubtful fortunes; séquest ring from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,

constrained good-will; and though he came as a fugitive escaping from destruction, yet his services after his reception, being voluntary and important, deserved reward. This argument is not regularly and distinctly deduced, but this is, I think, the best explication that it will yet admit. JOHNSON.

In p. 234, n. 4, an account has been given of the motives which induced Calchas to abandon Troy. The services to which he alludes, a short quotation from Lydgate will sufficiently explain. Auncient Hist. &c. 1555:

"He entred into the oratorye,—

"And besily gan to knele and praye,
"And his things devoutly for to saye,
"And to the god crye and call full stronge;
"And for Apollo would not tho prolonge,

66

Sodaynly his answere gan attame,

"And sayd Calchas twies by his name;
"Be right well 'ware thou ne tourne agayne
"To Troy towne, for that were but in vayne,
"For finally lerne this thynge of me,
"In shorte tyme it shall destroyed be:
"This is in sooth, whych may not be denied.
"Wherefore I will that thou be alyed
"With the Greekes, and with Achilles go
"To them anone; my will is, it be so :-
"For thou to them shall be necessary,
"In counseling and in giving rede,

"And be right helping to their good spede."

Mr. Theobald thinks it strange that Calchas should claim any merit for having joined the Greeks after he had said that he knew his country was undone; but there is no inconsistency: he had left, from whatever cause, what was dear to him, his country, friends, children, &c. and, having joined and served the Greeks, was entitled to protection and reward.

On the phrase " As new into the world," (for so the old copy reads,) I must observe, that it appears from a great number of passages in our old writers, the word into was formerly often used in the sense of unto, as it evidently is here. In proof of this assertion the following passages may be adduced:

"It was a pretty part in the old church-playes when the nimble Vice would skip up nimbly like a jackanapes into the devil's necke, and ride the devil a course." Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, 4to. 1602.

Again, in a letter written by J. Paston, July 8, 1468; Paston

Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, and become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit,

Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.

AGAM. What would'st thou of us, Trojan ? make

demand.

66

Letters, vol. ii. p. 5: and they that have justed with him into this day, have been as richly beseen," &c.

Again, in Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenelworth, 1575: " what time it pleased her to ryde forth into the chase, to hunt the hart of fors; which found, anon," &c.

Chase, indeed, may mean here, the place in which the Queen hunted; but I believe it is employed in the more ordinary sense. Again, in Daniel's Civil Warres, b. iv. st. 72, edit. 1602 : "She doth conspire to have him made away,"Thrust thereinto not only with her pride, "But by her father's counsell and consent." Again, in our author's All's Well that Ends Well: I'll stay at home,

66

"And pray God's blessing into thy attempt." MAlone. The folio reads

[blocks in formation]

which appears to me to have no meaning, unless we adopt the explanation of Mr. Steevens, which would make sense of it. The present reading, though supported by Johnson and Malone, is little better than nonsense, and there is this objection to it, that it was Juno, not Jove, that persecuted the Trojans. Jove wished them well; and though we may abandon a man to his enemies, we cannot, with propriety, say, that we abandon him to his friends. Let me add, that the speech of Calchas would have been incomplete, if he had said that he abandoned Troy, from the sight he bore of things, without explaining it by adding the words-to come. I should, therefore, adhere to that reading, which I consider as one of those happy amendments which do not require any authority to support them.

The merit of Calchas did not merely consist in his having come over to the Greeks; he also revealed to them the fate of Troy, which depended on their conveying away the palladium, and the horses of Rhesus, before they should drink of the river Xanthus. M. MASON.

« ZurückWeiter »