HECT. I pray you, let us see you in the field; We have had pelting wars, since you refus’d The Grecians' cause. ACHIL. Dost thou entreat me, Hector? To-morrow, do I meet thee, fell as death; To-night, all friends. HECT. Thy hand upon that match. AGAM. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent; There in the full convive 7 we: afterwards, 6 * First folio, on heaven nor on earth. PELTING wars,] i. e. petty, inconsiderable ones. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: 7 "Have every pelting river made so proud," &c. STEEVENS. convive] To convive is to feast. This word is not peculiar to Shakspeare. I find it several times used in The Hystory of Helyas Knight of the Swanne, bl. 1. no date. STEEVENS. Beat loud the TABOURINES,] For this the quarto and the latter editions have "To taste your bounties." The reading which I have given from the folio seems chosen at the revision, to avoid the repetition of the word bounties. JOHNSON. Tabourines are small drums. The word occurs again in Antony and Cleopatra. STEEVENS. 9 That this great soldier may his welcome know.] So, in Macbeth: “That this great king may kindly say, "Our duties did his welcome pay." STEEVENS. But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view TRO. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much, After we part from Agamemnon's tent, To bring me thither ? ULYSS. You shall command me, sir. As gentle * tell me, of what honour was This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there That wails her absence ? TRO. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars, A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth : But, still, sweet love is food for fortune's tooth. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I. The Grecian Camp. Before ACHILLES' Tent. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS. ACHIL. I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow1 * Quarto, But gentle. I'll heat his BLOOD with Greekish wine to-night, requires us to read Grammar "With Greekish wine to-night I'll heat his blood, Otherwise, Achilles threatens to cool the wine, instead of Hector's blood. STEEVENS. 2 -to the height.] The same phrase occurs in King Henry VIII.: "He's traitor to the height." STEEVENS. ACHIL. Enter THERSITES. * How now, thou core of envy ? Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news? THER. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot-worshippers, here's a letter for thee. ACHIL. From whence, fragment? THER. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy. THER. The surgeon's box*, or the patient's wound. PATR. Well said, Adversity! and what need these tricks ? THER. Pr'ythee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet.. * Quarto, curse. 3 Thou crusty BATCH of nature,] Batch is changed by Theobald to botch, and the change is justified by a pompous note, which discovers that he did not know the word batch. What is more strange, Hanmer has followed him. Batch is any thing baked. JOHNSON. Batch does not signify any thing baked, but all that is baked at one time, without heating the oven afresh. So, Ben Jonson, in his Catiline : 66 Except he were of the same meal and batch." 66 Again, in Decker's If This be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is In It, 1612: The best is, there are but two batches of people moulded in this world." Again, in Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600: "Hast thou made a good batch? I pray thee give me a new loaf.” Again, in Every Man in his Humour: "Is all the rest of this batch?" Thersites had already been called cobloaf. STEEVENs. 4 The surgeon's box,] In this answer Thersites only quibbles upon the word tent. HANMER. 5 Well said, ADVERSITY!] Adversity, I believe, in this instance, signifies contrariety. The reply of Thersites has been studiously adverse to the drift of the question urged by Patroclus. So, in Love's Labour's Lost, the Princess, addressing Boyet, (who had been capriciously employing himself to perplex the dialogue,) says—“avaunt, Perplexity!" STEEVENS. PATR. Male varlet, you rogue! what's that? THER. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o'gravel i'the back, lethargies, cold palsies?, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i'the palm, incurable bone-ach, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries! PATR. Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus ? THER. Do I curse thee ? PATR. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur 9, no. 6 Male varlet,] Sir T. Hanmer reads-Male harlot, plausibly enough, except that it seems too plain to require the explanation which Patroclus demands. JOHNSON. This expression is met with in Decker's Honest Whore: a male varlet, sure, my lord!" FARMER. "'tis The person spoken of in Decker's play is Bellafronte, a harlot, who is introduced in boy's clothes. I have no doubt that the text is right. MALONE. There is nothing either criminal or extraordinary in a male varlet. The word preposterous is well adapted to express the idea of Thersites. The sense therefore requires that we should adopt Hanmer's amendment. M. MASON. Man-mistress is a term of reproach thrown out by Dorax, in Dryden's Don Sebastian, King of Portugal. See, however, Professor Heyne's 17th Excursus on the First Book of the Æneid, 1787, p. 161. STEEVENS. 7-cold palsies,] This catalogue of loathsome maladies ends in the folio at cold palsies. This passage, as it stands, is in the quarto the retrenchment was, in my opinion, judicious. It may be remarked, though it proves nothing, that, of the few alterations made by Milton in the second edition of his wonderful poem, one was, an enlargement of the enumeration of diseases. JOHNSON. you ruinous butt; &c.] Patroclus reproaches Thersites with deformity, with having one part crouded into another. 8 JOHNSON. The same idea occurs in The Second Part of King Henry IV.: "Croud us and crush us to this monstrous form." VOL. VIII. 2 D STEEVENS. THER. NO? why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleive silk', thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies; diminutives of nature3! PATR. Out, gall + ! 4 THER. Finch egg! ACHIL. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite A token from her daughter, my fair love ; An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it: 9 *First folio, sley'd silk. INDISTINGUISHABLE cur,] i. e. thou cur of an undeterminate shape. STEEVENS. 11 thou idle immaterial skein of SLEIVE Silk.] All the terms used by Thersites of Patroclus, are emblematically expressive of flexibility, compliance, and mean officiousness. 2 JOHNSON. Sleive silk is explained in a note on Macbeth, Act II. Sc. II. MALONE. 3 such WATER-FLIES ;] So, Hamlet, speaking of Osrick: -be shown "For poor'st diminutives, for dolts-." STEEVENS. 4 OUT, gall!] Sir T. Hanmer reads-nut-gall, which answers well enough to finch egg; it has already appeared, that our author thought the nut-gall the bitter gall. He is called nut, from the conglobation of his form; but both the copies read-Out, gall! JOHNSON. 5 Finch egg!] Of this reproach I do not know the exact meaning. I suppose he means to call him singing bird, as implying an useless favourite, and yet more, something more worthless, a singing bird in the egg, or generally, a slight thing easily crushed. JOHNSON. A finch's egg is remarkably gaudy; but of such terms of reproach it is difficult to pronounce the true signification. STEEVENS. A token from her daughter, &c.] This is a circumstance taken from the story book of The Three Destructions of Troy. HANMER. |