At Priam's royal table do I fit ; And when fair Creffid comes into my thoughts, So, traitor when he comes!When is fhe traitor!-when thence ?7 PAN. Well, the looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else. TRO. I was about to tell thee,-When my heart, But forrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, PAN. An her hair were not fomewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to,) there were no more comparison between the women,-But, for my part, she is my kinfwoman; I would not, as they term it, praife her, But I would fomebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your fifter Caffandra's wit; but if he but blench, "I know my course Again, in The Pilgrim, by Beaumont and Fletcher: men that will not totter, "Nor blench much at a bullet." STEEVENS. Both ༡ -when he comes !—When is he thence?] the old copies read-then he comes, when he is thence. Mr. Rowe corrected the former error, and Mr. Pope the latter. 8 MALONE. —a ftorm,)] Old copies-a Scorn. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. See King Lear, A&t III. fc.i. STEEVENS. 9 "He in wrinkle of a fmile :] So, in Twelfth-Night: doth Smile his face into more lines than the new map with the augmentation of the Indies." MALONE. Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." STEEVENS. TRO. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,- They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice; I Handleft in thy difcourfe, O, that her hand, &c.] Handleft is here used metaphorically, with an allufion, at the fame time, to its literal meaning; and the jingle between hand and handleft is perfectly in our author's manner. The beauty of a female hand feems to have made a strong impreffion on his mind. Antony cannot endure that the hand of Cleopatra fhould be touched: 66 -To let a fellow that will take rewards, Again, in Romeo and Juliet: 66 they may feize "On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand." In The Winter's Tale, Florizel, with equal warmth, and not lefs poetically, defcants on the hand of his mistress: 66 I take thy hand; this hand "As foft as dove's down, and as white as it; "Or Ethiopian's tooth; or the fann'd snow "That's bolted by the northern blafts twice o'er." This paffage has, I think, been wrong pointed in the late editions: Pour'ft in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait; her voice We have the fame play of words in Titus Andronicus : "Left we remember ftill, that we have none!" We may be certain therefore that thofe lines were part of the additions which our poet made to that play. MALOne. If the derivation of the verb to handle were always prefent to those who employed it, I know not well how Chapman could vindicate the following paffage in his verfion of the 23d Iliad, In whofe comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach; To whose soft seizure The cygnet's down is harfh, and spirit of fenfe Hard as the palm of ploughman ! This thou tell'st me, 2 As true thou tell'st me, when I say-I love her; Thou lay'ft in every gash that love hath given me where the most eloquent of the Greeks (old Neftor) reminds Antilochus that his horfes The intentionally quaint phrafe-" tafte your legs," introduced in Twelfth-Night, is not more ridiculous than to talk of horseshandling their feet." Though our author has many and very confiderable obligations to Mr. Malone, I cannot regard his foregoing fuppofition as one of them; for in what does it confift? In making Shakfpeare anfwerable for two of the worst lines in a degraded play, merely because they exhibit a jingle fimilar to that in the speech before us. STEEVENS. 2 and fpirit of fenfe Hard as the palm of ploughman!] In comparison with Creffida's hand, fays he, the Spirit of fenfe, the utmost degree, the most exquifite power of fenfibility, which implies a foft hand, fince the fenfe of touching, as Scaliger fays in his Exercitations, refides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and insensible palm of the ploughman. Warburton reads: fpite of fenfe. Hanmer : -to th' fpirit of fenfe. It is not proper to make a lover profefs to praife his mistress in fpite of fenfe; for though he often does it in spite of the fenfe of others, his own fenfes are subdued to his defires. JOHNSON. Spirit of fenfe is a phrase that occurs again in the third Act of this play : "That moft pure Spirit of fenfe, behold itself." Mr. M. Mason (from whom I have borrowed this parallel) recommends Hanmer's emendation as a necessary one. STEEVENS. PAN. I fpeak no more than truth. TRO. Thou doft not speak so much. PAN. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as fhe is if the be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, fhe has the mends in her own hands.3 TRO. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? PAN. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but finall thanks for my labour. TRO. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? PAN. Because fhe is kin to me, therefore, fhe's not fo fair as Helen: an fhe were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an fhe were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. TRO. Say I, fhe is not fair? PAN. I do not care whether you do or no. She's 3 She has the mends-] She may mend her complexion by the affiftance of cofmeticks. JOHNSON. I believe it rather means-She may make the best of a bad bargain. This is a proverbial faying. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: "I shall stay here and have my head broke, and then I have the mends in my own hands." Again, in S. Goffon's School of Abuse, 1579: " turne him with his back full of ftripes, and his hands loden with his own amendes." Again, in The Wild Goofe Chafe, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The mends are in mine own hands, or the furgeon's." Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 605: - and if men will be jealous in fuch cafes, the mends is in their owne hands, they muft thank themselves." STEEVENS. a fool to ftay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and fo I'll tell her the next time I fee her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. TRO. Pandarus,— PAN. Not I. TRO. Sweet Pandarus, PAN. Pray you, fpeak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PANDARUS. An Alarum. TRO. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude founds! Fools on both fides! Helen muft needs be fair, It is too ftarv'd a fubject for my fword. to flay behind her father;] Calchas, according to Shakspeare's authority, The Deftruction of Troy, was "a great learned bishop of Troy," who was fent by Priain to confult the oracle of Delphi concerning the event of the war which was threatened by Agamemnon. As foon as he had made "his oblations and demaunds for them of Troy, Apollo (fays the book) aunfwered unto him, faying; Calchas, Calchas, beware that thou returne not back again to Troy; but goe thou with Achylles, unto the Greekes, and depart never from them, for the Greekes fhall have victorie of the Troyans by the agreement of the Gods." Hift. of the Deftruction of Troy, tranflated by Caxton, 5th edit. 4to. 1617. This prudent bijhop followed the advice of the Oracle, and immediately joined the Greeks. MALONE. |