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 cheeks? Fails in the promis'd largenefs: checks and dif afters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd; 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 } That gav't furmifed fhape. Why then, you princes, 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 hard and soft, feem all affin'd and kin: 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 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, Bounding between the two moist elements, 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; See alfo Vol. VI. p. 412, n. 7. MALONE. - 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 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 Doth valour's fhow, and valour's worth, divide 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: 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. 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, Should with a bond of air (strong as the axletree+ 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: "Melts under their hot wheels, and from their ax'trees Huge claps of thunder plough the ground before them." STEEVENS. -Speeches,—which were fuch, As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece |