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Thy spacious and dilated parts: Here's Nestor,——
Instructed by the antiquary times,

He must, he is, he cannot but be wise ;-
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days

As green as Ajax', and your brain so temper'd,
You should not have the eminence of him,

But be as Ajax.

Ajax.

Shall I call you father?

Nest. Ay, my good son.7
Dio.

Be rul'd by him, lord Ajax.

Ulyss. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles Keeps thicket. Please it our great general

To call together all his state of war;

Fresh kings are come to Troy: To-morrow,

We must with all our main of power stand fast:
And here's a lord,—come knights from east to west,
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.

Agam. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep:

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. [Exeunt.

rivulet dividing one place from another. So, in King Lear, Act III, sc. vi:

"Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me."

See note on this passage. Steevens.

* A rivulet is called a burn in Scotland at the present day.

7 Ajax. Shall I call you father?

Am Ea

Nest. Ay, my good son] In the folio and in the modern editions Ajax desires to give the title of father to Ulysses; in the quarto, more naturally, to Nestor. Johnson.

Shakspeare had a custom prevalent about his own time in his thoughts. Ben Jonson had many who called themselves his sons.

Mr. Vaillant adds, that Cotton dedicated his Treatise on Fishing to his father Walton; and that Ashmole, in his Diary, observes"April 3. Mr. William Backhouse, of Swallowfield, in com. Berks, caused me to call him father thenceforward." Steevens. 8 Fresh kings are come to Troy: &c.] We might complete this imperfect verse by reading:

Fresh king's are come to succour Troy: &c.

So, Spenser:

9

"To succour the weak state of sad afflicted Troy."

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·draw deep.] So, in the Prologue to this play:

the deep-drawing barks." Steevens.

Steevens

ACT III.....SCENE I.

Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace.

Enter PANDARUS and a Servant.

Pan. Friend! you! pray you, a word: Do not you fol. low the young lord Paris?

Serv. Ay, sir, when he goes before me.

Pan. You do depend upon him, I mean?
Serv. Sir, I do depend upon the lord.

Pan. You do depend upon a noble gentleman; I must needs praise him.

Serv. The lord be praised!

Pan. You know me, do you not?

Serv. 'Faith, sir, superficially.

Pan. Friend, know me better; I am the lord Pandarus.
Serv. I hope, I shall know your honour better.1
Pan. I do desire it.

Serv. You are in the state of grace. [Musick within. Pan. Grace! not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles:-What musick is this?

Serv. I do but partly know, sir; it is musick in parts.. Pan. Know you the musicians?

Serv. Wholly, sir.

Pan. Who play they to?

Serv. To the hearers, sir.

Pan. At whose pleasure, friend?

Serv. At mine, sir, and theirs that love musick.

Pan. Command, I mean, friend.

Serv. Who shall I command, sir?

Pan. Friend, we understand not one another; I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning: At whose request do these men play?

Serv. That's to 't, indeed, sir: Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who is there in person; with

1 I hope, I shall know your honour better.] The servant means to quibble. He hopes that Pandarus will become a better man than he is at present. In his next speech he chooses to understand Pandarus as if he had said he wished to grow better, and hence the servant affirms that he is in the state of grace The second of these speeches has been pointed, in the late editions, as if he had asked, of what rank Pandarus was. Malone.

him, the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul,2

Pan. Who,my cousin Cressida?

Serv. No, sir, Helen; Could you not find out that by her attributes?

Pan. It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the prince Troilus: I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seeths.

Serv. Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase,3* indeed!

Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended.

Pan. Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen! fair thoughts be your fair pillow!

Helen. Dear lord, you are full of fair words.

Pan. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen.Fair prince, here is good broken musick.

Par. You have broke it, cousin: and, by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance:-Neil, he is full of har

mony.

Pan. Truly, lady, no.

Helen. O, sir,

Pan. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.
Par. Well said, my lord! well, you say so in fits.4

2

love's invisible soul,] may mean, the soul of love invisible every where else. Johnson.

3 Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase,] The quibbling speaker seems to mean that sodden is a phrase fit only for the stews. Thus, says the Bawd in Pericles: "The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden."

Steevens.

*Seethed, is sodden; seeth, is sod, boil, stew; seething, state of ebullition, &c. the meaning, and the quibble, are obvious; nor does the context, any more than the expression, afford the least glimpse of indecency. Am. Ed.

in fits.] i. e. now and then, by fits; or perhaps a quibble is intended. A fit was a part or division of a song, sometimes a strain in musick, and sometimes a measure in dancing. The reader will find it sufficiently illustrated in the two former senses by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of ancient English Poetry:

Pan. I have business to my lord, dear queen :-My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?

Helen. Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we'll hear you sing, certainly.

Pan. Well, sweet queen, you are pleasant with me.— But (marry) thus, my lord,-My dear lord, and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus

Helen. My lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord,

Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to:-commends himself most affectionately to you.

Helen. You shall not bob us out of our melody; If you do, our melancholy upon your head!

Pan. Sweet queen, sweet queen; that's a sweet queen, i' faith.

Helen. And to make a sweet lady sad, is a sour of fence.

Pan. Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no. —And, my lord, he desires you,5 that, if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

Helen. My lord Pandarus,

Pan. What says my sweet queen?-my very very sweet queen?

Par. What exploit 's in hand? where sups he to-night? Helen. Nay, but my lord,

Pan. What says my sweet queen?-My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where he sups.

in the third of these significations it occurs in All for Money, a tragedy, by T. Lupton, 1578:

"Satan. Upon these chearful words I needs must dance a fitte." Steevens.

5 And my lord he deserves you,] Here I think the speech of Pandarus should begin, and the rest of it should be added to that of Helen, but I have followed the copies. Johnson.

Mr. Rowe had disposed these speeches in this manner. Hanmer annexes the words, " And to make a sweet lady" &c. to the preceding speech of Pandarus, and in the rest follows Rowe.

Malone.

6 You must not know where he sups.] These words are in the quarto given to Helen, and the editor of the folio did not perceive the error. In like manner, in Act II, sc. i, p. 59, four speeches belonging to different persons are all in the quarto assigned to Ajax, "Cobloaf! He would pun thee," &c. and in the last scene of the same Act, words that evidently belong to Nestor are given to Ajax, [see p. 84, n. 9,] both in the quarto and folio. I have

Par. I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.

not therefore hesitated to add the words, "You must not know where he sups," to the speech of Pandarus. Mr. Steevens proposes to assign the next speech, "I'll lay my life," &c. to Helen instead of Paris. This arrangement appeared to me so plausible, that I once regulated the text accordingly. But it is observable that through the whole of the dialogue Helen steadily perseveres in soliciting Pandarus to sing: "My lord Pandarus,"--" Nay, but my lord,"-&c. I do not therefore believe that Shakspeare intended she should join in the present inquiry. Mr. M. Mason's objection also to such an arrangement is very weighty. "Pandarus (he observes) in his next speech but one, clearly addresses Paris, and in that speech he calls Cressida his disposer." In what sense, however, Paris can call Cressida his disposer, I am altogether ignorant. Mr. M. Mason supposes that " Paris means to call Cres sida his governor or director, as it appears, from what Helen says afterwards, that they had been good friends."

Perhaps Shakspeare wrote-despiser. What Pandarus says afterwards, that "Paris and Cressida are twain," supports this conjecture.

I do not believe that deposer (a reading suggested below) was our author's word; for Cressida had not deposed Helen in the affections of Troilus. A speech in a former scene, in which Pandarus says, Helen loves Troilus more than Paris, (which is insisted on by an anonymous Remarker) [Mr. Ritson] proves nothing. Had he said that Troilus once loved Helen better than Cressida, and afterwards preferred Cressida to her, the observation might deserve some attention.

The words,-I'll lay my life-are omitted in the folio. The words,-You must not know where he sups,-I find Sir Thomas Hanmer had assigned to Pandarus. Malone.

I believe, with Sir Thomas Hanmer, that-You must not know where he sups, should be added to the speech of Pandarus; and that the following one of Paris should be given to Helen. That Cressida wanted to separate Paris from Helen, or that the beauty of Cressida had any power over Paris, are circumstances not evident from the play. The one is the opinion of Dr. Warburton, the other a conjecture of Mr. Heath's. By giving, however, this line,-I'll lay my life with my disposer Cressida, to Helen, and by changing the word disposer into deposer, some meaning may be obtained. She addresses herself, suppose, to Pandarus, and, by her deposer, means-she who thinks her beauty (or whose beauty you suppose) to be superior to mine But the passage in question (as Arthur says of himself in King John) is "not worth the coil that is made for it."

The word-disposer, however, occurs in The Epistle Dedicatorie to Chapman's Homer:

"Nor let her poore disposer (learning) lie

"Still bed-rid." Steevens.

The dialogue should perhaps be regulated thus:

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