MAR. Turn, slave, and fight.
THER. What art thou?

MAR. A bastard son of Priam's.

THER. I am a bastard too; I love bastards: I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel's most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment. Farewell, bastard. MAR. The devil take thee, coward! [Exeunt.

(*) First folio, arme.

SCENE IX.-Another part of the Plains.

Enter HECTOR.

HECT. Most putrified core, so fair without, Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!

[Puts off his helmet and hangs his shield behind him. (3)

Enter ACHILLES and Myrmidons. ACHIL. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set; How ugly night comes breathing at his heels:

Even with the vail and darking of the sun,
To close the day up, Hector's life is done.
HECT. I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.
ACHIL. Strike, fellows, strike! this is the man
I seek.
[HECTOR falls.
So, Ilion, fall thou next!* now, Troy, sink down!
Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.-
On, Myrmidons; and cry you all amain,
Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain!

[A retreat sounded. Hark! a retire‡ upon our Grecian part.

SCENE X.-Another part of the Plains. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and others, marching. Shouts without.

AGAM. Hark! hark! what shout is that?
NEST. Peace, drums!

[Without.] Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain! Achilles !

Dro. The bruit is, Hector's slain, and by Achilles.

AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be; Great Hector was a man as good as he.

AGAM. March patiently along :-let one be sent To pray Achilles see us at our tent.— If in his death the gods have us befriended, Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended. [Exeunt, marching.

SCENE XI.-Another part of the Plains.

Enter ÆNEAS and Trojans.

ENE. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field:

Never go home; here starve we out the night.

Enter TROILUS.

TROIL. Hector is slain. ALL. Hector-The gods forbid ! TROIL. He's dead; and at the murderer's horse's tail, [field.In beastly sort, dragged through the shameful Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed! Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy! I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy, And linger not our sure destructions on!

ENE. My lord, you do discomfort all the host. TROIL. You understand me not that tell me so: I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death; But dare all imminence that gods and men

(*) First folio, bed.

And, stickler-like, the armies separates.] "A stickler was one who stood by to part the combatants, when victory could be determined without bloodshed."-MALONE. They were so called,

Address their dangers in. Hector is gone!
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him, that will a screech-owl aye be call'd,
Go in to Troy, and say there-Hector's dead:
There is a word will Priam turn to stone;
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold* statues of the youth; and, in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself. But, march, away:
Hector is dead; there is no more to say.
Stay yet.-You vile abominable tents,
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,

I'll through and through you!—and thou greatsiz'd coward!

No space of earth shall sunder our two hates; I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still, That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts.Strike a free march to Troy !-with comfort go: Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe. [Exeunt ENEAS and Trojans.

PAN. A goodly med'cine for my aching bones! -O, world! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O, traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so loved,† and the performance so loathed? what verse for it? what instance for it ?-Let me see :—

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, Till he hath lost his honey and his sting: And being once subdu'd in armed tail, Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.— Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths.

As many as be here of Pandar's hall,
Your eyes half out weep out at Pandar's fall:
Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be
made:

It should be now, but that my fear is this,—
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss:
Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases;
And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

(*) First folio, Coole.

[Exit.

(†) First folio, desir'd.

according to Minsheu, because they carried sticks or staves to interpose between the opponents.

'Heare Troians, and ye well arm'd Greeks, what my strong mind (diffusde

Through all my spirits) commands me speake; Saturnius hath not usde

His promist favour for our truce, but (studying both our ils)
Will never ceas se till Mars, by you, his ravenous stomacke fils,
With ruin'd Troy; or we consume, your mightie Sea borne fleet.
Amongst you all, whose breast includes, the most impulsive mind,
Let him stand forth as combattant, by all the rest designde.
Before whom thus I call high Jove, to witnesse of our strife;
If he, with home-thrust iron can reach, th' exposure of my life,
(Spoiling my armes) let him at will, convey them to his tent;
But let my body be returnd; that Troys two-sext descent
May waste it in the funerall Pile; if I can slaughter him,
(Apollo honoring me so much) Ile spoile his conquerd lim,
And beare his armes to Ilion, where in Apollos shrine
lle hang them, as my trophies due: his body Ile resigne
To be disposed by his friends, in flamie funerals,
And honourd with erected tombe, where Hellespontus fals
Into Egæum; and doth reach, even to your navail rode;
That when our beings, in the earth, shall hide their period;
Survivers, sailing the blacke sca, may thus his name renew:
This is his monument, whose bloud, long since, illustrate Hector
slew.

This shall posteritie report, and my fame never die."

(4) SCENE III.-Blockish Ajar.] From the subjoined description of the Ajaxes as portrayed by Lydgate, it would appear that Shakespeare, for dramatic effect, had purposely confounded Ajax Telamonius with Ajax Oileus:

"Oileus Ayax was right corpulent,

To be well cladde he set al his entent
In rych aray he was ful curyous,
Although he were of body corsyous.
Of armes great with shoulders square and brode;
It was of him almost a horse lode.
High of stature, and boys tous in a pres,
And of his speche rude and rechles.
Ful many worde in ydel hym asterte,
And but a coward was he of his herte.
"An other Ayax Thelamonyous
There was also dyscrete and vertuous,
Wonder fayre and semely to beholde,
Whose heyr was black and vpward ay gan folde,
In compas wise rounde as any sphere,
And of musyke was there non his pere.
Having a voyce full of melodye,
Right well entuned as by Hermonye.
And was inventife for to counterfete,
Instrumentes aswell smal as grete,

In sundry wise longying to musyke.
And for all this yet had he good practicke
In armes eke, and was a noble knyght,
No man more orped nor hardyer for to fight.
Nor desyrous for to have vyctorye,
Devoyde of pompe, hatyng all vaynglorye,
All ydle laude spent and blowe in vayne."

"The auncient Historie and onely trewe and syncere Cronicle of the warres betwixt the Grecians and the Troyans," &c. fol. 1555. Book II. chap. 15.

(1) SCENE I.-THERSITES.] Hideous in person, impious and gross in speech, cowardly and vindictive by disposition, this remarkable character, by sheer intellectual vigour, seems to tower high above all the mere corporeal grace and strength by which he is surrounded; and the portrait is essentially Shakespeare's own creation, for the Thersites of Homer, on which we may suppose it founded, is nothing better than a vulgar, waspish railer, without a spark of wit or of intelligence to redeem his moral and physical obliquity :—

"All sate, and audience gave; Thersites onely would speake all. A most disorderd store Of words, he foolishly powrd out; of which his mind held more Than it could manage; any thing, with which he could procure Laughter, he never could containe. He should have yet been

sure

To touch no kings. T'oppose their states, becomes not jesters parts.

But he, the filthiest fellow was, of all that had deserts

In Troyes brave siege: he was squint-eyd, and lame of either foote:

So crooke backt, that he had no breast; sharp-headed, where did shoote

(Here and there sperst) thin mossie haire. He most of all envide
Ulysses and acides, whom still his splene would chide;
Nor could the sacred king himselfe, avoide his saucie vaine,
Against whom, since he knew the Greekes, did vehement hates

sustaine

(Being angrie for Achilles wrong) he cride out; railing thus: Atrides! why complainst thou now? what wouldst thou more of us?

Thy tents are full of brasse, and dames; the choice of all are thine:

With whom, we must present thee first, when any townes resigne To our invasion. Wantst thou then (besides all this) more gold From Troyes knights, to redeeme their sonnes? whom, to be dearely sold,

I, or some other Greeke, must take? or wouldst thou yet againe, Force from some other Lord his prise; to sooth the lusts that raigne

In thy encroching appetite? it fits no Prince to be

A Prince of ill, and governe us; or leade our progenie

By rape to ruine. O base Greekes, deserving infamie,
And ils eternall: Greekish girls, not Greekes, ye are; Come flie
Home with our ships; leave this man here, to perish with his
preys,

And trie if we helpt him, or not he wrong'd a man that weys
Farre more then he himselfe in worth: he forc't from Thetis

sonne

And keepes his prise still: nor think I, that mightie man hath

wonne

The stile of wrathfull worthily; he's soft, he's too remisse,
Or else Atrides, his had bene, thy last of injuries.'

Thus he the peoples Pastor chid; but straight stood up to him
Divine Ulysses; who with lookes, exceeding grave and grim,
This bitter checke gave: Ceasse, vaine foole, to vent thy railing
vaine

On kings thus, though it serve thee well; nor think thou canst restraine,

With that thy railing facultie, their wils in least degree,
For not a worse, of all this hoast, came with our king then thee
To Troys great siege.""-The Iliads of Homer, &c. Done according
to the Greeke, by Geo. Chapman, &c. Book II.

(2) SCENE II.-Enter CASSANDRA, raving.] Of this circumstance, we find no hint either in Chapman's Homer or in Chaucer; it was probably taken, as Steevens conjectured, from a passage in Lydgate's "Auncient Historie," &c. 1555

"This was the noise and the pyteous crye
Of Cassandra that so dredefully

She gan to make aboute in every strete
Through ye towne," &c.

(3) SCENE III.-The death-tokens of it.] "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.""-REID.