Achil. Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary; Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

Ther. Even so ?a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; 'a were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

Achil. What, with me too, Thersites ?

Ther. There's Ulysses, and old Nestor,-whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes, -yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up the wars.

Achil. What, what?

Ther. Yes, good sooth; To, Achilles! to, Ajax! to! Ajax. I shall cut out your tongue.

Ther. 'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou, afterwards.

Patr. No more words, Thersites; peace.

Ther. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall I ?9

Achil. There's for you, Patroclus.

Ther. I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools.

Patr. A good riddance.

[Exit,

Achil. Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed thro' all our host:

That Hector, by the first hour of the sun,

Will, with a trumpet, 'twixt our tents and Troy,
To-morrow morning call some knight to arms,
That hath a stomach; and such a one, that dare
Maintain—I know not what; 'tis trash: Farewell.
Ajax. Farewell. Who shall answer him?
Achil. I know not, it is put to lottery; otherwise.
Ile knew his man.

Ajax. O, meaning you :-I'll go learn more of it. [Exe.
SCENE II.

Troy. A Room in PRIAM's Palace. Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS.

Pri. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks; Deliver Helen, and all damage else―

As honour, loss of time, travel, expence,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd

[9] Brach--a dog. STEEVENS.It certainly means a bitch, and not a dog, which renders the expression more abusive and offensive.

M. MASON.

In hot digestion of this cormorant war,

Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to't?

Hect. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I, As far as toucheth my particular, yet,

Dread Priam,

'There is no lady of more softer bowels,

More spungy to suck in the sense of fear,

More ready to cry out-Who knows what follows?
Than Hector is: The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd

The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul 'mongst many thousand dismes,
Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours;
If we have lost so many tenths of ours,
To guard a thing not ours; not worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten;
What merit's in that reason, which denies
The yielding of her up?

Tro. Fye, fye, my brother!

Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,
So great as our dread father, in a scale

Of common ounces? will you with counters sum
The past-proportion of his infinite?

And buckle-in a waist most fathomless,

With spans and inches so diminutive

As fears and reasons? fye, for godly shame!

Hel. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons, You are so empty of them. Should not our father Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,

Because your speech hath none, that tells him so ?

Tro. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest, You for your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons: You know, an enemy intends you harm ; You know, a sword employ'd is perilous, And reason flies the object of all harm : Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds A Grecian and his sword, if he do set The very wings of reason to his heels; And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,

Or like a star dis-orb'd ?—Nay, if we talk of reason,

[2] That greatness to which no measure bears any proportion. JOHNSON.

3

VOL. IX.

B 2

Let's shut our gates, and sleep: Manhood and honour Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts With this cramm'd reason : reason and respect

Make livers pale, and lustihood deject.

Hect. Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost

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 service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected merit.3

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 shores
Of will and judgment: How may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? there can be no evasion
To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour :
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,

When we have soil'd them; nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve,*

Because we now are full. It was thought meet,
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
Your breath with full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds (old wranglers) took a truce,
And did him service he touch'd the ports desir'd;

:

And, for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive,"
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale the morning.

Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt :
Is she worth keeping? why, she 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 wisdom Paris went,

(As you must needs, for you all cry'd—Go, go,)

[3] The will affects an object for some supposed merit, which Hector says is censurable, unless the merit so affected be really there. JOHNSON.

[4] That is, into a common voider.

JOHNSON.

[5] Priam's sister, Hesione, whom Hercules, being enraged at Priam's breach of faith, gave to Telamon, who by her had Ajax. MALONE.

If you'll confess, he brought home noble prize,
(As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands,
And cry'd-Inestimable !) why do you now

The issue of your proper wisdoms rate;
And do a deed that fortune never did,
Beggar the estimation which you priz'd
Richer than sea and land? O theft most base;
That we have stolen what we do fear to keep!
But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stolen,
That in their country did them that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!
Cas. [Within.] Cry, Trojans, cry!

Pri. What noise? what shriek is this?

Tro. 'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.
Cas. [Within.] Cry, Trojans !

Hect. It is Cassandra.

Enter CASSANDRA, raving.

Cas. Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes, And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

Hect. Peace, sister, peace.

Cas. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled elders,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst 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!
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our fire-brand brother," Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen, and a woe:
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

6

[Exit.

Hect. Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains

Of divination in our sister work

Some touches of remorse? or is your blood

So madly hot, that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?

Troi. Why, brother Hector,

We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it ;
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
Because Cassandra's mad; her brain-sick raptures

[6] So the quarto. Folio-wrinkled old.

MALONE.--- There cannot be a

question that he wrote: -----mid-age and wrinkled eld. RITSON. [7] Hecuba, when pregnant with Paris, dreamed she should be delivered of a burning torch:

et face prægnans

Cisseis regina Parin creat."

Eneid X. 705,

STEEVENS.

8

Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel,
Which hath our several honours all engag'd
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons :
And Jove forbid, there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain !

Par. Else might the world convince of levity
As well my undertakings, as your counsels:
But I attest the gods, your full consent
Gave wings to my propension, and cut off
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms?
What propugnation is in one man's valour,
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties,
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.

Pri. Paris, you speak

Like one besotted on your sweet delights:
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant, is no praise at all.

Par. Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wip'd off, in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up,

On terms of base compulsion? Can it be,
That so degenerate a strain as this,

Should once set footing in your generous bosoms ?
There's not the meanest spirit on our party,
Without a heart to dare, or sword to draw,
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble,
Whose life were ill bestow'd, or death unfam'd,
Where Helen is the subject: then, I

say,

Well may we fight for her, whom, we know well,
The world's large spaces cannot parallel.

Hect. Paris, and Troilus, you have both said well ; And on the cause and question now in hand

[8] Distaste--corrupt; change to a worse state.

JOHNSON.