Ajax commands the guard to tend on you. Hect. Thanks, and good night, to the Greeks' general. Men. Good night, my lord. Hect. Good night, sweet Menelaus. Ther. Sweet draught: 4 Sweet, quoth 'a! sweet sink, sweet sewer. Achil. Good night, And welcome, both to those that go, or tarry. Agam. Good night. [Exeunt AGAM. and MEN, Achil. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, Keep Hector company an hour or two. Dio. I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector. Hect. Give me your hand. Ulyss. To Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company: Follow his torch, he goes [Aside to TROI. And so good night. Tro. Sweet sir, you honour me. [Exit Dio.; ULYSS. and TROI. following. Achil. Come, come, enter my tent. [Exeunt ACHIL. HECT. AJAX, and NEST. Ther. That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers, than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabler the hound;5 but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him: they say, he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor 3 sweet Menelaus.] Old copy, redundantly,-sweet lord Menelaus. Steevens. 4 Sweet draught:] Draught is the old word for forica. It is used in the vulgar translation of the Bible. Malone. So, in Holinshed, and a thousand other places. Steevens. 5 he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabler the hound; If a hound gives his mouth, and is not upon the scent of the game, he is by sportsmen called a babler or brabler. The proverb says "Brabling curs never want sore ears." Anonymous... prodigious,] i. e. portentous, ominous. So, in King Richard III: Prodigious, and untimely brought to light." Steevens. Calchas' tent: I'll after.-Nothing but lechery! all in continent varlets! SCENE II. [Exit. The same. Before Calchas' Tent. Enter DIOMED. Dio. What are you up here, ho? speak. Cal. [within] Who calls? Dio. Diomed.-Calchas, I think. Where 's your daughter? Cal. [within] She comes to you. Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them THERSITES. Ulyss. Stand where the torch may not discover us. Enter CRESSIDA. Tro. Cressid come forth to him! Dio. How now, my charge? [Whispers. Cres. Now, my sweet guardian!—Hark! a word with you. Tro. Yea, so familiar! Ulyss. She will sing any man at first sight.® Ther. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she 's noted. Dio. Will you remember? Cres. Dio. Remember? yes. Nay, but do then;1 And let your mind be coupled with your words. 71 they say, he keeps a Trojan drab,] This character of Diomed is likewise taken from Lydgate. Steevens. She will sing any man at first sight.] We now say-sing at sight. The meaning is the same. Malone. 9 her cliff;] That is, her key. Clef, French. Johnson. Cliff, i. e. a mark in musick at the beginning of the lines of a song; and is the indication of the pitch, and bespeaks what kind of voice-as base, tenour, or treble, it is proper for. Sir J. Hawkins. 1 Nay, but do then;] I suppose, for the sake of metre, the word -Nay, should be omitted. Yet such is the irregularity or mutilation of this dialogue, that it is not always easy to determine how much of it was meant for prose or verse. Steevens. Ulyss. List! Cres. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly. Ther. Roguery! Dio. Nay, then, Cres. I'll tell you what: Dio. Pho! pho! come, tell a pin: You are forsworn.Cres. In faith, I cannot: What would you have me do? Ther. A juggling trick, to be-secretly open. Dio. What did you swear you would bestow on me? Cres. I pr'ythee, do not hold me to mine oath; Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek. Dio. Good night. Dio. No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no more. Tro. Thy better must. Cres. Hark, one word in your ear. Tro. O plague and madness! Ulyss. You are mov'd, prince; let us depart, I pray you, Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself Ulyss. Now, my good lord, go off: You flow to great destruction;2 come, my lord. Tro. I pr'ythee, stay. 2 You flow to great destruction;] Means, I think, your impe. tuosity is such as must necessarily expose you to imminent danger. Malone. The folio has: You flow to great distraction; The quarto: You flow to great destruction; ——. Johnson. I would adhere to the old reading: You flow to great destruction, or distraction, means the tide of your imagination will hurry you either to noble death from the hand of Diomed, or to the height of madness from the predominance of your own passions. Steevens. Possibly we ought to read destruction, as Ulysses has told Troilus just before: 66 this place is dangerous; "The time right deadly." M. Mason. Ulyss. You have not patience; come. Tro. I pray you, stay; by hell, and all hell's torments, I will not speak a word. Dio. Cres. And so, good night. Doth that grieve thee? By Jove, Why, how now, lord? Guardian!-why, Greek! Dio. Pho, pho! adieu; you palter.3 Cres. In faith, I do not; come hither once again. Ulyss. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go? You will break out. Tro. She strokes his cheek! Come, come. Tro. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word: There is between my will and all offences A guard of patience:-stay a little while. Ther. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles these together!4 Fry, lechery, fry! Dio. But will you then? Cres. In faith, I will, la; never trust me else. Dio. Give me some token for the surety of it. [Exit. Fear me not, my lord ; Ulyss. You have sworn patience. Tro. I will not be myself, nor have cognition Of what I feel; I am all patience. 3 Re-enter CRESSIDA. Ther. Now the pledge; now, now, now! palter.] i. e. shuffle, behave with duplicity. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: “And palter in the shifts of towness." Steevens. 4 How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles these together!] Potatoes were anciently regarded as provocatives. See Mr. Collins's note, which, on account of its length, is given at the end of the play. Steevens. 5 - keep this sleeve.] The custom of wearing a lady's sleeve for a favour, is mentioned in Hall's Chronicle, fol. 12: "- One Tro. O beauty! where's thy faith? Ulyss. My lord, Tro. I will be patient; outwardly I will. Cres, No matter, now I have 't again. ware on his head-piece his lady's sleeve, and another bare on his helme the glove of his deareling." Again, in the second canto of The Barons' Wars, by Drayton : "A lady's sleeve high-spirited Hastings wore.' Again, in the Morte Arthur, p. 3, ch. 119: "When Queen Genever wist that Sir Launcelot beare the red sleeve of the faire maide of Astolat, she was nigh out of her minde for anger." Holinshed, p. 844, says, King Henry VIII "had on his head a ladies sleeve full of diamonds." The circumstance, however, was adopted by Shakspeare from Chaucer. T. and C. l. 5. 1040: "She made him were a pencell of her sleeve." A pencell is a small pennon or streamer. Steevens. In an old play, (in six acts) called Histriomastix, 1610, this incident seems to be burlesqued. Troilus and Cressida are introduced by way of interlude; and Cressida breaks out: "O knight, with valour in thy face, "Therewith to make thine enemies lame." A little old book, The Hundred Hystoryes of Troye, tells us, "Bryseyde whom master Chaucer calleth Cresseyde, was a damosell of great beaute; and yet was more quaynte, mutable, and full of vagaunt condysions." Farmer. This sleeve was given by Troilus to Cressida at their parting, and she gave him a glove in return. M. Mason. What Mr. Steevens has observed on the subject of ladies' sleeves is certainly true; but the sleeve given in the present instance was the sleeve of Troilus. It may be supposed to be an ornamented cuff, such perhaps, as was worn by some of our young nobility at a tilt, in Shakspeare's age. On second consideration, I believe, the sleeve of Troilus, which is here given to Diomed, was such a one as was formerly worn at tournaments. See Spenser's View of Ireland, p. 43, edit. 1633: "Also the deepe smocke sleive, which the Irish women use, they say, was old Spanish, and is used yet in Barbary; and yet that should seeme rather to be an old English fashion, for in armory the fashion of the manche which is given in armes by many, being indeed nothing else but a sleive, is fashioned much like to that sleive." Malone. 6 No matter, now &c.] Old copies, redundantly,—It is no matter, &c. Steevens. |