not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it is past watching. Pan. You are such another! Enter TROILUS' Boy. Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you. Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him. Pan. Good boy, tell him I come: [Exit Boy. I doubt, he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece. Cres. Adieu, uncle. Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by. Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus, - you are a bawd. [Exit PANDArus. Words, vows, griefs, tears, and love's full sacrifice, He offers in another's enterprize: But more in Troilus thousand fold I see Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be; Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing: That she belov'd knows nought, that knows not this, Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is: That she was never yet, that ever knew Love got so sweet, as when desire did sue: [Exit. 5 Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:] The meaning of this obscure line seems to be-" Men, after possession, become our commanders: before it, they are our suppliants." 6consent. my heart's content-] Content for capacity, or perhaps for SCENE III. The Grecian Camp. Before Agamemnon's Tent. Trumpets. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and Others. Agam. Princes, What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? In all designs begun on earth below, Fails in the promis'd largeness: checks and disasters As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, That we come short of our suppose so far, That gav't surmised shape. Why then, you princes, And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought else But the protractive trials of great Jove, To find persistive constancy in men? In fortune's love: for then, the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft, seem all affin'd' and kin: 7 - affin'd-] i. e. joined by affinity. And what hath mass, or matter, by itself Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat, 8 Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth, Upon her patient breast, making their way But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Like Perseus' horse: Where's then the saucy boat, 9 Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies fled under shade', Why, then, the thing of 2 courage, As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize, And, with an accent tun'd in self-same key, Returns to chiding3 fortune. Agamemnon, - Ulyss. In whom the tempers and the minds of all 8 Nestor shall apply-] Perhaps Nestor means, that he will attend particularly to, and consider, Agamemnon's latest words. by the brize,] The brize is the gad or horse-fly. 9— 1 And flies fled under shade,] i. e. And flies are fled under shade. 2 the thing of courage,] It is said of the tiger, that in storms and high winds he rages and roars most furiously. 3 Returns to chiding —] Chiding is noisy, clamorous. Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks. Besides the applause and approbation The which, most mighty for thy place and sway,[To AGAMEMNON. And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life, — [TO NESTOR. Should with a bond of air (strong as the axletree Agam. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expects That matter needless, of importless burden, Divide thy lips; than we are confident, When rank Thersites opes his mastiff jaws, We shall hear musick, wit, and oracle. To his experienc'd tongue,] Ulysses begins his oration with praising those who had spoken before him, and marks the characteristick excellencies of their different eloquence, strength, and sweetness, which he expresses by the different metals on which he recommends them to be engraven for the instruction of posterity. The speech of Agamemnon is such that it ought to be engraven in brass, and the tablet held up by him on the one side, and Greece on the other, to show the union of their opinion. And Nestor ought to be exhibited in silver, uniting all his audience in one mind by his soft and gentle elocution. Brass is the common emblem of strength, and silver of gentleness. We call a soft voice a silver voice, and a persuasive tongue, a silver tongue. To hatch is a term of art for a particular method of engraving. Hacher, to cut, Fr. JOHNSON. The commentators differ in some respects from this explanation. 5 expect -] Expect for expectation. Ulyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, The specialty of rule hath been neglected: What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center," Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, And posts, like the commandment of a king, What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny? The unity and married calm of states 8 6 The specialty of rule-] The particular rights of supreme authority. 7 When that the general is not like the hive,] The meaning is, When the general is not to the army like the hive to the bees, the repository of the stock of every individual, that to which each particular resorts with whatever he has collected for the good of the whole, what honey is expected? what hope of advantage? The sense is clear, the expression is confused. JOHNSON. 8- the planets, and this center,] By this center, Ulysses means the earth itself, not the center of the earth. According to the system of Ptolemy, the earth is the center round which the planets move. 9 deracinate] i. c. force up by the roots. |