Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Then though my heart's content firm love doth

bear,

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

The Grecian Camp. Before Agamemnon's Tent.

Trumpets. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and Others.

AGAM. Princes,

What grief hath fet the jaundice on your
The ample propofition, that hope makes
In all defigns begun on earth below,

cheeks?

Fails in the promis'd largenefs: checks and dif

afters

Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd;
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the found pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us,
That we come short of our suppose so far,

Then though-] The quarto reads-Then; the folio and the modern editions read improperly, that. JOHNSON.

7 my heart's content --] Content, for capacity.

WARBURTON. On confidering the context, it appears to me that we ought to read, " my heart's confent," not content. M. MASON.

my heart's content-] Perhaps means, my heart's fatisfaction or joy: my well pleased heart. So, in our author's Dedication of his Venus and Adonis to Lord Southampton: "I leave it to your honourable furvey, and your honour to your heart's content." This is the reading of the quarto. The folio has-contents.

MALONE. My heart's content, I believe, fignifies the acquiefcence of my heart. STEEVENS.

That, after seven years' fiege, yet Troy walls stand }
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought

That gav't furmifed fhape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works;
And think them fhames, which are, indeed, nought

elfe

But the protractive trials of great Jove,

To find perfiftive conftancy in men?

The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love: for then, the bold and coward,
The wife and fool, the artift and unread,

The hard and soft, feem all affin'd and kin:
But, in the wind and tempeft of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mafs, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.

NEST. With due obfervance of thy godlike feat,'

8affin'd-] i. e. joined by affinity. The fame adjective occurs in Othello:

"If partially affin'd, or leagu'd in office." STEEVENS. 9-broad-] So, the quarto; the folio reads-loud. JOHNSON. 2 With due obfervance of thy godlike feat,] Goodly [the reading of the folio] is an epithet that carries no very great compliment with it; and Neftor feems here to be paying deference to Agamemnon's ftate and pre-eminence. The old books [the quartos] have it,-to thy godly feat: godlike, as I have reformed the text, seems to me the epithet defigned; and is very conformable to what Æneas afterwards fays of Agamemnon:

"Which is that god in office, guiding men?" So godlike feat is here, state supreme above all other commanders.

THEOBALD.

This emendation Theobald might have found in the quarto, which has the godlike feat. JOHNSON.

thy godlike feat,] The throne in which thou fitteft, "like a defcended god." MALONE.

Great Agamemnon, Neftor fhall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: The fea being smooth,
How many fhallow bauble boats dare fail

Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk?5

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis," and, anon, behold

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains

cut,

Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perfeus' horfe: Where's then the faucy boat,

3

Neftor fhall apply

Thy lateft words.] Neftor applies the words to another instance. JOHNSON, Perhaps Neftor means, that he will attend particularly to, and confider, Agamemnon's latest words. So, in an ancient interlude, entitled, The Nice Wanton, 1560:

"O ye children, let your time be well spent;
"Applye your learning, and your elders obey."

See alfo Vol. VI. p. 412, n. 7. MALONE.

[ocr errors]

- patient breaft,] The quarto not fo well-ancient breast.

JOHNSON.

5 With thofe of nobler bulk?] Statius has the fame thought, though more diffufively expreffed:

"Sic ubi magna novum Phario de littore puppis
"Solvit iter, jamque innumeros utrinque rudentes
Lataque veliferi porrexit brachia mali,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Invafitque vias; it eodem angufta phafelus

Equore, et immenfi partem fibi vendicat auftri."

Mr. Pope has imitated the paffage. STEEVENS,

6 But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis,] So, in Lord Cromwell, 1602: "When I have feen Boreas begin to play the ruffian with us, then would I down on my knees, MALONE.

7 Bounding between the two moift elements,

Like Perfeus' horfe:] Mercury, according to the fable, presented Perfeus with talaria, but we no where hear of his horfe. The only flying horfe of antiquity was Pegafus; and he was the pro perty, not of Perfeus, but Bellerophon. But our poet followed a more modern fabulift, the author of The Deftruction of Troy, a

Whose weak untimber'd fides but even now
Co-rival'd greatnefs? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toaft for Neptune. Even fo

Doth valour's fhow, and valour's worth, divide
In ftorms of fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize,
Than by the tiger: but when the fplitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under fhade, Why, then, the thing of courage,*

book which furnished him with fome other circumftances of this play. Of the horse alluded to in the text he found in that book the following account:

"Of the blood that iffued out [from Medufa's head] there engendered Pegafus, or the flying horfe. By the flying horse that was engendered of the blood iffued from her head, is understood, that of her riches iffuing of that realme he [Perfeus] founded and made abip named Pegafe,-and this ship was likened unto an horfe flying," &c. Again:" By this fashion Perfeus conquered the head of Medufa, and did make Pegase, the most swift ship that was in all the world." In another place the fame writer affures us, that this fhip, which he always calls Perfeus' flying horse, "flew on the fea like unto a bird." Deft. of Troy, 4to. 1617, p. 155—164. MALONE.

The foregoing note is a very curious one; and yet our author perhaps would not have contented himself with merely comparing one fhip to another. Unalicgorized Pegafus might be fairly styled Perfeus' horfe, because the heroism of Perfeus had given him existence. STEEVENS.

8 by the brize,] The brize is the gad or horfe-fly. So, in Monfieur Thomas, 1639:

[ocr errors]

Have ye got the brize there?

"Give me the holy sprinkle."

Again, in Vittoria Corombona, or the White Devil, 1612: "I will put brize in his tail, fet him a gadding presently." See note on Antony and Cleopatra, A&t III. fc. viii.

STEEVENS.

9 And flies fled under fhade,] i. e. And flies are fled under fhade. I have obferved fimilar omiffions in the works of many of our author's contemporaries. MALONE.

[ocr errors]

2 the thing of courage,] It is faid of the tiger, that in ftorms and high winds he rages and roars moft furiously.

HANMER.

As rous'd with rage, with rage doth fympathize, And with an accent tun'd in felf-fame key, Returns to chiding fortune.'

ULYSS.

Agamemnon,

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, foul and only spirit,
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up,-hear what Ulyffes fpeaks.
Befides the applause and approbation
The which,-moft mighty for thy place and fway,-
[To AGAMEMNON.
And thou most reverend for thy ftretch'd-out life,-
[TO NESTOR.
I give to both your speeches,-which were fuch,
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again,
As venerable Neftor, hatch'd in filver,

Should with a bond of air (strong as the axletree+
On which heaven rides,) knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienc'd tongue,'-yet let it please both,--

3 Returns to chiding fortune.] For returns, Hanmer reads replies, unneceffarily, the fenfe being the fame. The folio and quarto have retires, corruptly. JOHNSON.

So, in King Richard II:

"Northumberland, fay-thus the king returns ;

STEEVENS.

The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. Chiding is noify, clamorous. So, in K. Henry VIII:

"As doth a rock against the chiding flood.”

See Vol. XI. p. 120, n. 6. MALONE.

See alfo Vol. V. p. 128, n. 6. STEEVENS.

-axletree-] This word was anciently contracted into a diffyllable. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca:

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

"Melts under their hot wheels, and from their ax'trees Huge claps of thunder plough the ground before them." STEEVENS.

[ocr errors]

-Speeches,—which were fuch,

As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece

« FöregåendeFortsätt »