Before the belching whale'; then is he yonder, And there the strawy Greeks 2, ripe for his edge, Fall down before him, like the mower's swath3: Here, there, and every where, he leaves, and takes ; Dexterity so obeying appetite, Act I. Sc. I. This is proved decisively by the original reading of the quarto, scaling, which was either changed by the poet himself to scaled, (with the same sense,) or by the editor of the folio. If the latter was the case, it is probable that not being sufficiently acquainted with our author's manner, who frequently uses the active for the passive participle, he supposed that the epithet was merely descriptive of some quality in the thing described. The passage quoted above from Drayton does not militate against this interpretation. There the added epithet silver shows that the word scaled is used in its common sense; as the context here (to say nothing of the evidence arising from the reading of the oldest copy) ascertains it to have been employed with the less usual signification already stated. "The cod from the banks of Newfoundland (says a late writer) pursues the whiting, which flies before it even to the southern shores of Spain. The cachalot, a species of whale, is said, in the same manner, to pursue a shoal of herrings, and to swallow hundreds in a mouthful." Knox's Hystory of Fish, 8vo. 1787. The throat of the cachalot (the species of whale alluded to by Shakspeare) is so large, that, according to Goldsmith, he could with ease swallow an ox. MALONE. Sculls and shoals have not only one and the same meaning, but are actually, or at least originally, one and the same word. A scull of herrings (and it is to those fish that the speaker alludes) so termed on the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, is elsewhere called a shoal. RITSON. 1. the BELCHING whale ;] So, in Pericles: 66 the belching whale, "And humming water, must o'erwhelm thy corse.” Homer also compares Achilles to a dolphin driving other fishes before him, Iliad xxi. v. 22: 2 -the STRAWY Greeks,] In the folio it is-the straying Greeks. JOHNSON. 3 the mower's sWATH:] Swath is the quantity of grass cut down by a single stroke of the mower's scythe. So, Tusser: 66 66 With tossing and raking, and setting on cocks, Grass, lately in swathes, is meat for an ox." STEEVENS. VOL. VIII. 2 F That what he will, he does; and does so much, Enter ULYSses. ULYSS. O, courage, courage, princes! great Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance: That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend, Engaging and redeeming of himself, With such a careless force, and forceless care, Enter AJAX. AJAX. Troilus! thou coward Troilus ! DIO. [Exit. Ay, there, there. NEST. So, so, we draw together *. ACHIL. Enter ACHIlles. Where is this Hector? Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face; 4 — WE DRAW TOGETHER.] This remark seems to be made by Nestor in consequence of the return of Ajax to the field, he having lately refused to co-operate or draw together with the Greeks, though at present he is roused from his sullen fit by the loss of a friend. So, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson: ""Tis the swaggering coach-horse Anaides, that draws with him there." STEEVENS. s-boy-QUELLER,] i. e. murderer of a boy. So, in King Henry IV. Part II. Act II. Sc. I.: " -a man-queller and a woman-queller." STEEVENS. Know what it is to meet Achilles angry. Hector! where's Hector? I will none but Hector. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. Another Part of the Field. Enter AJAX. AJAX. Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head! Enter DIOMedes. Dro. Troilus, I say! where's Troilus? AJAX. Dro. I would correct him. What would'st thou ? AJAX. Were I the general, thou should'st have my office, Ere that correction :-Troilus, I say! what, Troilus! Enter TROILUS. TRO. O traitor Diomed!-turn thy false face, thou traitor, And pay thy life thou ow'st me for my horse! Dro. Ha! art thou there? 6. AJAX. I'll fight with him alone: stand, Diomed. Dro. He is my prize, I will not look upon o. TRO. Come both, you cogging Greeks 7; have at you both. [Exeunt, fighting. 6 I will not LOOK UPON.] That is, (as we should now speak,) I will not be a looker-on. So, in King Henry VI. Part III. Act II. Sc. III. : 66 Why stand we here "Wailing our losses, "And look upon, as if the tragedy "Were play'd in jest by counterfeited actors?" These lines were written by Shakspeare. 7 MALONE... -you COGGING Greeks ;] This epithet has no particular Enter HECTOR. HECT. Yea, Troilus ? O, well fought, my youngest brother! Enter ACHIlles. ACHIL. Now do I see thee: Ha!-Have at thee, Hector. HECT. Pause, if thou wilt. ACHIL. I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan. Be happy, that my arms are out of use: My rest and negligence befriend thee now, But thou anon shalt hear of me again; Till when, go seek thy fortune. HECT. [Exit. Fare thee well: I would have been much more a fresher man, Re-enter TROILUS. TRO. Ajax hath ta'en Æneas; Shall it be? No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven, He shall not carry him ; I'll be ta'en too, 9 propriety in this place, but the author had heard of Græcia mendax. JOHNSON. Surely the epithet had propriety, in respect of Diomedes at least, who had defrauded him of his mistress. Troilus bestows it on both, unius ob culpam. A fraudulent man, as I am told, is still called, in the North, a gainful Greek. Cicero bears witness to this character of the ancient Greeks: "Testimoniorum religionem et fidem nunquam ista natio coluit." 66 Again: Græcorum ingenia ad fallendum parata sunt." STEEVENS. 8 by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,] So, in King John: 66 by the light that shines above our heads." STEEVENS. 9 carry him ;] i. e. prevail over him. So, in All's Well that Ends Well: 66 The count he wooes your daughter, "Resolves to carry her -." STEEVENS. Or bring him off:-Fate, hear me what I say! Enter one in sumptuous Armour. [Exit. HECT. Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark : No? wilt thou not ?-I like thy armour well2; 2 * First folio, thou end. I like thy armour well;] This circumstance is taken from Lydgate's poem, p. 196: 66 -Guido in his historie doth shew "By worthy Hector's fall, who coveting "To have the sumptuous armour of that king, &c. "The body up, and on his horse it bare, "To have the spoil thereof such haste he made "To pull the armour off at his desire, "And by that means his breast clean open lay," &c. This furnished Shakspeare with the hint for the following line : "I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek." STEEVENS. I quote from the original, 1555: 66 in this while a Grekish king he mette, "Were it of hap or of adventure, "The which in sothe on his cote armoure "So that his brest disarmed was and bare." MALONE. |