SCENE XI. Another Part of the Field. Enter ENEAS, and Trojans. Ene. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field: Never go home; here starve we out the night.4 Enter TROILUS. Tro. Hector is slain. Hector? The gods forbid! Ene. My lord, you do discomfort all the host. 4 Never go home; &c.] This line is in the quarto given to Troilus. Johnson. 5 - smile at Troy!] Thus the ancient copies; but it would better agree with the rest of Troilus's wish, were we to read, with a former editor: smite at Troy! I say, at once! Steevens. There can be no doubt but we should read-smite at, instead of smile.-The following words, "I say, at once," make that unquestionable. To call upon the heavens to frown, and on the Gods to smile, at the self-same moment, would be too absurd even for that violent agitation of mind with which Troilus is supposed to be actuated. M. Mason. Smite was introduced into the text by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and adopted by Dr. Warburton. I believe the old reading is the true one. Mr. Upton thinks that Shakspeare had the Psalmist in view. "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord shall have them in derision." Ps. ii, 4. "The Lord shall laugh him to scorn; for he hath seen that his day is coming." Ps. xxxvii, 13. In the passage before us, (he adds) "the heavens are the ministers of the Gods to execute their vengeance, and they are bid to frown on; but the Gods themselves smile at Troy; they hold Troy in derision, for its day is coming." Malone. Let him, that will a screech-owl aye be call'd, I'll through and through you!-And thou, great-siz'd coward! No space of earth shall sunder our two hates; [Exeunt ENE. and Trojans. 6 Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,] I adopt the conjecture of a deceased friend, who would read-welland, i. e. weeping Niobes. The Saxon termination of the participle in and, for ing, is common in our old poets, and often corrupted at the press. So, in Spenser: "His glitterand armour shined far away." Where the common editions have-glitter and. Whalley. 7 Cold-] The old copy-Coole. Steevens. 8 pight] i. e. pitched, fixed. The obsolete preterite and participle passive of to pitch. So, Spenser: 9 "Then brought she me into this desert vast, "And by my wretched lover's side me pight." Steevens. with comfort go: Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.] This couplet affords a full and natural close to the play; and though I once thought differently, I must now declare my firm belief that Shakspeare designed it should end here, and that what follows is either a subsequent and injudicious restoration from the elder drama, mentioned in p. 5, or the nonsense of some wretched buffoon, who represented Pandarus. When the hero of the scene was not only alive, but on the stage, our author would scarce have trusted the conclusion of his piece to a subordinate character, whom he had uniformly held up to detestation. It is still less probable that he should have wound up his story with a stupid outrage to decency, and a deliberate insult on his audience.-But in several other parts of this drama I cannot persuade myself that I have been reading Shakspeare. As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS. Pan. But hear you, hear you! Tro. Hence, broker lackey!1 ignomy and shame2 Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! [Exit TRO. Pan. A goodly med'cine for my aching bones!-0 wo d! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a' work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so loved, and the performance so loathed? what verse for it? what instance for it?-Let me see: Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall: As evident an interpolation is pointed out at the end of Twelfth Night. See Vol. III, p. 306. Steevens. 1 Hence, broker lackey!] Thus the quarto and folio. For broker the editor of the second folio substituted brother, which, in the third, was changed to brothel. Broker, in our author's time, signified a bawd of either sex. So, in King John: This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word," &c. See Vol. VII, p. 332, n. 8. Malone. 2 ignomy and shame-] Ignomy was used, in our author's -time for ignominy. Malone. 3 4 loved,] Quarto; desir'd, folio. Johnson. set this in your painted cloths.] i. e. the painted canvas with which your rooms are hung. See Vol. VIII, p. 330, n. 5. Steevens. 5 Some galled goose of Winchester-] The public stews were anciently under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. Pope. Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases; Mr. Pope's explanation may be supported by the following passage in one of the old plays, of which my negligence has lost the title: "Collier! how came the goose to be put upon you? "I'll tell thee: The term lying at Winchester in Henry the Third's days, and many French women coming out of the Isle of Wight thither, &c. there were many punks in the town," &c. A particular symptom in the lues venerea was called a Winchester goose. So, in Chapman's comedy of Monsieur D'Olive, 1606: the famous school of England call'd Winchester, famous I mean for the goose," &c. 66 Again, Ben Jonson, in his poem called An Execration on Vulcan : 66 this a sparkle of that fire let loose, "That was lock'd up in the Winchestrian goose, "When Venus there maintain'd her mystery." In an ancient satire, called Cocke Lorelles Bote, bl. 1. printed by Wynkyn de Worde, no date, is the following list of the different residences of harlots: "There came such a wynd fro Winchester, "That blewe these women over the ryver, "Some at saynt Kateryns stroke agrounde, "And many in Holborne were founde, "Some at sainte Gyles I trowe: "Also in Ave Maria Aly, and at Westmenster; "And some in Shoredyche drewe theder, "With grete lamentacyon; "And by cause they have lost that fayre place, "They wyll bylde at Colman hedge in space," &c. Hence the old proverbial simile-"As common as Coleman Hedge:" now Coleman Street. Steevens. As the public stews were under the controul of the Bishop of Winchester, a strumpet was called a Winchester goose, and a galled Winchester goose may mean, either a strumpet that had the venereal disease, or one that felt herself hurt by what Pandarus had said. It is probable that the word was purposely used to express both these senses. It does not appear to me, from the passage cited by Steevens, that any symptom of the venereal disease wat called a Winchester goose. M. Mason. Cole, in his Latin Dict. 1669, renders a Winchester goose by pu dendagra. Malone. There are more hard bombastical phrases in the serious part of this play, than, I believe, can be picked out of any other six plays of Shakspeare. Take the following specimens: Tortive,persistive, protractive,-importless,-insisture,-deracinate,-divi dable. And in the next Act: Past-proportion,-unrespective,-pray pugnation, self-assumption,-self-admission, — assubjugate,-kingdom'd, &c. Tyrwhitt. 6 I'll sweat,] i. e. adopt the regimen then used for curing what Pistol calls "the malady of France." Thus, says the Bawd, in Measure for Measure:-" what with the sweat, &c. I am customshrunk." See note on Timon of Athens, Act IV, sc. iii. Steevens. 7 This play is more correctly written than most of Shakspeare's compositions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed. As the story abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with exactness. His vicious characters dis gust, but cannot corrupt, for both Cressid and Pandarus are detested and contemned. The comick characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously fill. ed and powerfully impressed. Shakspeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his version of Homer. Johnson. The first seven Books of Chapman's Homer were published in the year 1596, and again in 1598. They were dedicated as follows: To the most honoured now living instance of the Achilleian virtues eternized by divine Homere, the Earle of Essexe, Earl Marshall, &c. The whole twenty-four Books of the Iliad appeared in 1611. An anonymous interlude, called THERSYTES his Humours and Conceits, had been published in 1598. Puttenham also, in his Arte of English Poesie, 1589, p. 35, makes mention of "Thersites the glorious Noddie" &c. Steevens. The interlude of Thersites was, I believe, published long be fore 1598 That date was one of the numerous forgeries of Chetwood the promter, as well as the addition to the title of the piece "Thersites his Humours and Conceits;" for no such words are found in the catalogue published in 1671, by Kirkman, who appears to have seen it. Malone. P. 167. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potatoe finger tickles these together.] Luxuria was the appropriate term used by the school divines, to express the sin of incontinence, which accordingly is called luxury, in all our old English writers. In the Summe Theologie Compendium of Thomas Aquinas, P. 2, II, Quæst. CLIV, is de Luxuriæ Partibus, which the author distributes under the heads of Simplex Fornicatio Adulterium, Incestus, Stuprum, Raptus, &c. and Chaucer, in his Parson's Tale, descanting on the seven deadly sins, treats of this under the title De Luxuria. Hence, in King Lear, our author uses the word in this peculiar sense: |