Weigh you the worth and honour of a king
So great as our dread fatlier in a {cale
Of common ounces? will you with counters sum
The past proportion of his infinite?
And buckle in a waist inost fathomless,
With spans and inches lo diminutive
As fears and reasons ? Fy, for gowly lame !

Hel. No marvel though you bite to sharp at reafons, You are so empty of them. Should not our father Bear the great liay of his affairs with reasons; Because your speech hath none, that tells bin so ? Troi. You are for dreams and flumbers, brother

priest, You fur your gloves with reasons. Here are your

reasons. You know, an enemy intends you harın; You know, a sword imploy'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 let The very wings of reason to his heels, And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove, Or like a star disorbid !-Nay, if we talk of reason, 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 lustyhood deject.

Hett. Brother, the is not worth what the doth con The holding.

Troi. What is aught, but as 'tis valued ?

Heit. But value dwells not in particular will;
It holds its estimate and dignity
As well wherein 'uis precious of itself,
As in the prizer : 'ris mad idolatry,
To make ihe service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is inclinable
To what infectiously itself affe&s,
Without some image of th' affected merit

• That is, without some appearance of a merit on which to found the affcction, Revijal.

Troi. I take to-day a wife, and

niy

election Is led on in the conduct of my will; My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous flores Of will and judgment; how may I avoid, Although my will distaste what is elected, The wife I chuse ? there can be no evasion To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour. We turn not back the fiks upon the merchant, When we have foil'd them; por th’remainder viands We do not throw in unrespective lieve, Because we now are full. It was thought meer, Paris should do fome vengeance on the Greeks; Your breaih of full consent bellied his fails; The feas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce, And did bim 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

frefhness Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale the morning, Why keep we ber? the Grecians keep our aunt. Is The worth keeping ? why, she is a pearl, Whose price hath lanch'd above a thousand ships, And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants. If you'll avouch, 'twas wisdom Paris went, (As you muit needs, for you all cry'd, go, go); If you'll confess, he brought home noble prize, (As you must needs, for you all clap'd your hands, And cry’d, Inestimable !); why do you now The illue of your proper wisdoms raie, And do a deed that fortune never did *, Beggar that estimation which you priz'd Richer than fea and land ? O theft most base! That we have stoln what we do fear to keep!

* If I understand this passage, the meaning is “Why do you, by censuring the determination of your own wisdoms, degrade Helen, whom fortune has not yet deprived of her value, or against whom, as the wife of Paris, fortune has not in this war so declared, as to make us value her less.” This is very harll, and much Otrained. Johanfon

But thieves, unworthy of a thiwg so stolen,
Who in their country did them

that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!

Caj. within.] Gry, Trojans, cry!
Pri. What noise, what shriek is this?
Troi. 'Tis our mad sister, I do know ker voice.
Caf. within. ] Cry, Trojans !
Hect. It is Caflandra.

S CE N E IV.
Enter Cassandra, with her hair about her ears.

Caf: Cry, Trojans, cry; lend me ten thousand eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

Hett. Peace, sister, peace.

Caf. Virgins and boys, mid-agę and wrinkled
Soft infancy, that nothing can but cry, [eldersy
Add to my clamour ! let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come :
Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears.
Troy muil not be, nor goodly Ilion itand :
Our fire-brand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe;
Cry, cry, Troy burns, or else let Peleu go. [Exit.

Helt. Now, youthful Treilus, do not these high
Of divination in our liter, work

[strains
Some touches of remorse? Or is vour blood
So madly hot, that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad luccels in a bad caule;
Can qualify the fame?

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,
Becaule Gallandra's mad; her brain-sick raptures
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

+ Distajte, corrupt; change to a worse taste. Johnson.
VOL. IX.

Y

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 lo 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 proteft,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties,
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris fnould ne'er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.

Pri. Paris, you ipeak
Like one beloited on your sweet delights:
You have the honey till, but these the gall;
So to be valiant, is no praife at all.

Par Sir, I propofe not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have tlie foil of her fair rape
Wip'd off, by honourably keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack'd Queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and Shame to me,
Now to deliver her pofTetlion up.
On terms of base compulsion ? can it be,
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in your generous bofoms?
There's not the meanest spirit on our party,
Without a heart to dare, or sword to draw,
When Helen is defended : none fo noble,
Vi hole life were ill bestow'd, or death unfam'd,
When Helen is the subject. Then, I say,
Well may we fight for her, whom we know welf
The world's large spaces cannot parallel, f

Hect. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well And on the cause and question now in hand Have gloz'd; but luperficially, not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thouglit Urfit to liear moral philosophy.' The reasons you alledge, do more conduce.

To the hot passion of distemper'd blood,

Than to make up a free determination 'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice Of any true decision. Nature craves All dues be render'd to their owners ; now, What nearer debt in all humanity, Than wife is to the husband ? If this law Of nature be corrupted through affection, And that great minds, of partial indulgence To their benummed * wills, resist the fame, There is a law in each well-order'd nation, To curb those raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory: If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king, As it is known The is, there moral laws Of nature, and of nations, speak aloud To have her back return'd. Thus to persist In doing wrong, extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion

Is this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless, ! My sprightly brethren, I propend to you

In resolution to keep Helen still ;
For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance
Upon our joint and several dignities.
Troi. Why, there you touch'd the life of our

design:
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not with a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy He&or,
She is a theme of honour and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame, in time to come, canonize us :
For I presume brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promis'd glory,
As (miles upon the forehead of this action,
For the wide world's revenue.

• That is, inflexible, immoveable, no longer obedis Coi to superior direction. Johnson.

Ya.