Hect. What vice is that? good Troilus, chide me for it. Troi. When many times the captive Grecians fall, Ev'n in the fan and wind of your fair fword, You bid them rife, and live. Heat. O, 'tis fair play. Troi. Fool's play, by Heaven, Hector. Troi. For love of all the Gods, Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers; Trot. Hector, thus 'tis in wars. Hett. Troilus, I would not have you fight to day. Not fate; obedience, nor the hand of Mars, Their eyes o'er-galled with recourfe of tears; Enter Priam and Caffandra. Caf. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast : He is thy crutch; now if thou lofe thy Stay, Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee, Fall all together. Priam. Hedor, come, go back: Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had vifions; my felf Am, like a prophet, fuddenly enrapt To tell thee, that this day is ominous : Helt. Eneas is a-field, And I do ftand engag'd to many Greeks, This morning to them. Priam. But thou fhalt not go. Het. Hect. I must not break my faith: .⠀ You know me dutiful, therefore, dear Sir, Helt. Andromache, I am offended with you." I [Exit Androm. Troi. This foolish, dreaming, fuperftitious girl Makes all these bodements. Caf. O farewel, dear Hector : Look, how thou dieft; look, how thy eyes turn pale! Caf. Farewel: yet, Soft: Hector, I take my leave; Thou do'ft thy felf and all our Troy deceive.. [Exit. Het. You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim: Go in and cheer the town, we'll forth and fight; Do deeds worth praife, and tell you them at night. Priam. Farewel: the Gods with fafety ftand about thee ! ·₤Alarum. Troi. They're at it, hark: proud Diomede, believe, I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve. Enter Pandarus. Pand. Do you hear, my lord? do you hear? Pand. Here's a letter come from yond poor girl." Troi. Let me read. Pand. A whorfon ptifick, a whorfon rafcally ptifick fo troubles me; and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing and what another, that I fhall leave you one o' thefe days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and fuch an ach in my bones, that unless a man were curft, I cannot tell what to think on't. What fays fhe, there? Troi. Words, words, meer words; no matter from the heart: Th' effect doth operate another way. [Tearing the letter. Go, wind to wind; there turn and change together: My love with words and errors ftill she feeds; But edifies another with her deeds. Pand. Why, but hear you Troi. Hence, brothel-lacquey! ignominy and shame (48) Pursue thy life, and live ay with thy name! [Exeunt. SCENE changes to the Field between Troy and Ther. [Alarum.] Ni the Camp. Enter Therfites. OW they are clapper-clawing one another, I'll go look on: that diffembling abominable varlet, Diomede, has got that fame fcurvy, doating, foolish young knave's fleeve of Troy, there, in his helm: I would fain fee them meet; that, that fame young Trojan afs, that loves the whore there, might fend that Greekih whore-mafterly villain, with the fleeve, back to the dif fembling luxurious drab, of a fleeveless Errant. O'th' other fide, (49) the policy of those crafty fneering raf (48) Hence, brothel, lacquey!] In this, and the Repetition of it, towards the Clofe of the Play, Troilus is made abfurdly to call Pandarus bawdy-houfe; for Brothel fignifies nothing else that I know of: but he meant to call him an Attendant on a Bawdy-house, a Meffenger of obscene Errands: a Sense which I have retriev'd, only by clapping an Hyphen betwixt the two Words. (49) O'th other Side, the Policy of thofe crafty fwearing Rafcals, &c.] But in what Sense are Neftor and Ulyffes accus'd of being fwearing Rafcals? What, or to Whom, did they fwear? I am pofitive, I have reftor'd the true Reading. They had collogued with Ajax, and trim'd him up with infincere Praises, only in Order to have ftir'd Achilles's Emulation. In this, they were true Sneerers; betraying the first, to gain their Ends on the latter by that Artifice. cals, that ftale old moufe-eaten dry cheese Nestor, and that fame dog-fox Ulyffes, is not prov'd worth a blackberry. They fet me up in policy that mungri cur Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles. And now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to day: whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarifm, and policy grows into an ill opi nion. Soft Enter Diomede and Troilus. here comes fleeve, and t'other. Troi. Fly not; for should'st thou take the river Styx, I would swim after. Dio. Thou doft mifcall Retire: I do not fly; but advantageous care Withdrew me from the odds of multitude; Have at thee! [They go off, fighting. Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian: now for thy whore, Trojan: now the fleeve, now the fleeve, now the fleeve ! Enter Hector. Heat. What art thou, Greek! art thou for Hector's match? Art thou of blood and honour? Ther. No, no: I am a rafcal; a fcurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue. Hect. I do believe thee live. [Exit. Ther. God o' mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think, they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle yet, in a fort, letchery eats it felf: I'll feek them. Enter Diomede and Servant. [Exit. Dio. Go, go, my fervant, take thou Troilus' horfe, Fellow, commend my service to her beauty: VOL. VII. H Ser. Ser. I go, my lord. Enter Agamemnon, Aga. Renew, renew the fierce Polydamas And ftands Coloffus-wife, waving his beam To reinforcement, or we perish all. Enter Neftor. Neft. Go bear Patroclus' body to Achilles, And bid the fnail-pac'd Ajax arm for fhame, There are a thousand Hectors in the field: (50) The dreadful Sagittary Now Appals our Numbers.] Mr. Pope will have it that by Sagittary is meant Teucer, because of his Skill in Archery. Were we to take this Interpretation for granted, we might expect that upon this Line in Othello, Lead to the Sagittary the raised Search, Mr. Pope fhould tell us, this meant to the Sign of Teucer's Head: tho, indeed, it means only that Sign, which the Poet, in his Comedy of Errors, calls by an equivalent Name the Centaur. Befides, when Teucer is not once mention'd by Name throughout the whole Play, would Shakespeare decypher him by fo dark and precarious a Defcription? I dare be pofitive, he had no Thought of that Archer here. To confefs the Truth, this Paffage contains a Piece of private Hiftory, which, perhaps, Mr. Pope never met with, unless he confulted the old Chronicle containing the three Deftructions of Troy, printed by Caxton in 1471, and Wynken de Werde in 1503 from which Book our Poet has borrow'd more Circumstances of this Play, than from Lollius or Chaucer. I fhall transcribe a Short Quotation from thence, which will fully explain Shakespeare's Meaning in this Paffage. Beyonde the Royalme of "Amafonne came an auncyent Kynge, wyfe and dyfcreete, named "Epyftrophus, and brought a M. knyghtes, and a mervayllouse Befte "that was call'd Sagittarye, that behynde the myddes was an horse, "and to fore a Man: This Befte was heery lyke an horfe, and had "his Eyen rede as a Cole, and fhotte well with a bowe: This Beste 66 "made |