HECT. Brother, fhe is not worth what fhe doth

coft

The holding.

TRO.

What is aught, but as 'tis valued? HECT. But value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry,
To make the fervice greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive?
To what infectiously itself affects,

Without fome image of the affected merit."
TRO. I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;"
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous fhores
Of will and judgement: How may I avoid,

"Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating die!

Refpect and reafon wait on wrinkled age!Sad pause and deep regard befeem the fage." Again, in Timon of Athens:

and never learn'd

"The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd

"The fugar'd game before thee." MALONE.

And the will dotes, that is attributive-] So the quarto. The folio reads-inclinable, which Mr. Pope fays" is better."

MALONE.

I think the first reading better; the will dotes that attributes or gives the qualities which it affects; that first causes excellence, and then admires it. JOHNSON.

8 Without fome image of the affected merit.] We fhould read:

-the affected's merit.

i. e. without fome mark of merit in the thing affected.

WARBURTON.

The prefent reading is right. The will affects an object for fome fuppofed merit, which Hector fays is cenfurable, unless the merit fo affected be really there. JOHNSON.

9 in the conduct of my will;] i, e. under the guidance of my will. MALONE.

Although my will diftafte what it elected,
The wife I chofe? there can be no evasion

To blench from this, and to ftand firm by honour:
We turn not back the filks upon the merchant,
When we have foil'd them; nor the remainder
viands

We do not throw in unrefpective fieve,'

Because we now are full. It was thought meet, Paris fhould do fome vengeance on the Greeks: Your breath with full confent belly'd his fails; The feas and winds (old wranglers) took a truce, And did him fervice: he touch'd the ports defir'd; And, for an old aunt,' whom the Greeks held captive,

He brought a Grecian queen, whofe youth and freshness

9

2

3

blench-] See p. 220, n. 6. STEEVENS.
foil'd them;] So reads the quarto. The folio:
fpoil'd them. JOHNSON.

unrespective sieve,] That is, unto a common voider. Sieve is in the quarto. The folio reads:

unrefpective fame;

for which the fecond folio and modern editions have filently printed: -unrespective place. JOHNSON.

I am yet to learn, that fieve was ever ufed as fynonymous to voider. The correction in the fecond folio, may therefore be juftifiable. STEEVENS.

4 Your breath with full confent-1 Your breaths all blowing together; your unanimous approbation. See Vol. IX. p. 211, n. 2. Thus the quarto. The folio reads-of full confent. MALONE.

And, for an old aunt,] Priam's fifter, Hefione, whom Hercules, being enraged at Priam's breach of faith, gave to Telamon, who by her had Ajax. MALONE.

This circumftance alfo is found in Lydgate, Book II. where Priam fays:

"My fyfter eke, called Exiona

"Out of this regyon ye have ladde away" &c.

STEEVENS.

Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale the morning."
Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt:
Is the worth keeping? why, fhe is a pearl,
Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,
And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.
If you'll avouch, 'twas wifdom Paris went,
(As you must needs, for you all cry'd-Go, go,)
If you'll confefs, he brought home noble prize,
(As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands,
And cry'd-Ineftimable !) why do you now
The iffue of your proper wifdoms rate;
And do a deed that fortune never did,"
Beggar the estimation which you priz'd
Richer than fea and land? O theft most base;
That we have stolen what we do fear to keep!
But, thieves, unworthy of a thing fo ftolen,
That in their country did them that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!

8

CAS. [Within.] Cry, Trojans, cry!

6 makes pale the morning.] So the quarto. The folio and modern editors,

makes tale the morning. JOHNSON.

And do a deed that fortune never did,] If I understand this paffage, the meaning is: "Why do you, by cenfuring the determination of your own wifdoms, degrade Helen, whom fortune has not yet deprived of her value, or againft whom, as the wife of Paris, fortune has not in this war fo declared, as to make us value her lefs?" This is very harfh, and much strained.

JOHNSON. The meaning, I believe, is: "Act with more inconftancy and caprice than ever did fortune." HENLEY.

Fortune was never fo unjuft and mutable as to rate a thing on one day above all price, and on the next to fet no estimation whatfoever upon it. You are now going to do what fortune never did. Such, I think, is the meaning. MALONE.

But, thieves,] Sir T. Hanmer reads-Bafe thieves—.

That did in the next line means-that which did. MALONE.

PRI.

What noife? what fhriek is this?

TRO. 'Tis our mad fifter, I do know her voice. CAS. [Within.] Cry, Trojans!

HECT. It is Caffandra.

Enter CASSANDRA, raving.

CAS. Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,

And I will fill them with prophetick tears.

HECT. Peace, fifter, peace.

CAS. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled elders,'

Soft infancy, that nothing can'ft but cry,
Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears!

9 Enter Caffandra, raving.] This circumftance alfo is from the third book of Lydgate's Auncient Hiftorie &c. 1555:

"This was the noife and the pyteous crye

"Of Caffandra that fo dredefully

"She gan to make aboute in euery ftrete

66

Through ye towne" &c. STEEVENS.

— wrinkled elders,] So the quarto. Folio-wrinkled old.

MALONE.

Elders, the erroneous reading of the quarto, would feem to have been properly corrected in the copy whence the first folio was printed; but it is a rule with printers, whenever they meet with a trange word in a manufcript, to give the nearest word to it they are acquainted with; a liberty which has been not very sparingly exercifed in all the old editions of our author's plays. There cannot be a question that he wrote:

mid-age and wrinkled eld.

So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor:

"The fuperftitious idle-headed eld."

Again, in Meafure for Measure:

"Doth beg the alms of palfied eld." RITSON.

4

3

Troy muft not be, nor goodly Ilion ftand; '
Our fire-brand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen, and a woe:
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or elfe let Helen go.

[Exit. HECT. Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high

ftrains

Of divination in our fifter work

Some touches of remorfe? or is your blood
So madly hot, that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad fuccefs in a bad cause,
Can qualify the fame?

TRO.

Why, brother Hector, We may not think the juftnefs of each act Such and no other than event doth form it; Nor once deject the courage of our minds, Because Caffandra's mad; her brain-fick raptures Cannot distaste' the goodness of a quarrel, Which hath our feveral honours all engag'd To make it gracious. For my private part, I am no more touch'd than all Priam's fons:

3 Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion ftand;] See p. 225, n. 6, and p. 231, n. 9. This line unavoidably reminds us of another in

the fecond book of the Eneid:

66

Trojaque nunc ftares, Priamique arx alta maneres.”

STEEVENS.

4 Our firebrand brother,] Hecuba, when pregnant with Paris, dreamed the fhould be delivered of a burning torch:

et face prægnans

Ciffeis regina Parin creat.

Eneid X. 705. STEEVENS.

5

diftafle-] Corrupt; change to a worse state.

JOHNSON.

6 To make it gracious.] i. e. to fet it off; to fhow it to advantage. So, in Marfton's Malcontent, 1604:

66

he is moft exquifite &c.

in fleeking of fkinnes, blufhing of cheeks &c. that ever made an ould lady gracious by torch-light." STEEVENS.