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

Of common ounces? will you with counters fum
The paft proportion of his infinite?

And buckle in a waift moft fathomlefs,
With fpans and inches fo diminutive

As fears and reafons? Fy, for gooly fhame!
Hel. No marvel though you bite fo fharp at reafons,
You are fo empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great fway of his affairs with reasons;
Because your speech hath none, that tells him fo?
Troi. You are for dreams and flumbers, brother

priest,

You fur your gloves with reafons. Here are your reafons.

You know, an enemy intends you harın;
You know, a fword imploy'd is perilous;
And reafon flies the object of all harm.
Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his fword, if he do fet
The very wings of reafon to his heels,
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,

Or like a ftar diforb'd !-Nay, if we talk of reason,
Let's fhut our gates, and sleep: manhood and honour
Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat their
thoughts

With this cramm'd reafon; reafon and refpect
Make livers pale, and luftyhood deject.

Hect. Brother, fhe is not worth what the doth coft The holding.

Troi. What is aught, but as 'tis valued?
Heft. But value dwells not in particular will;

It holds its eftimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself,

As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry,

To make the fervice greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is inclinable
To what infectiously itself affects,

Without fome image of th' affected merit *.

That is, without fome appearance of a merit on which to found the affection. Revijal.

Troi. 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 fhores
Of will and judgment; how may I avoid,
Although my will diftafte what is elected,
The wife I chufe? there can be no evasion
To blench from this, and to ftand firm by honour.
We turn not back the filks upon the merchant,
When we have foil'd them; nor th' remainder viands
We do not throw in unrefpective fieve,

Because we now are full. It was thought meet,
Paris fhould do fome vengeance on the Greeks;
Your breath of full confent bellied his fails;

The feas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,
And did him fervice; he touch'd the ports desir'd, '
And, for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive,
He brought a Grecian Queen, whofe youth and
frefhnefs

Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale the morning.
Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt.
Is the worth keeping? why, fhe 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 wildom Paris went,
(As you must needs, for you all cry'd, go, go);
If you'll confefs, he brought home noble prize,
(As you must needs, for you all clap'd your hands,
And cry'd, Ineftimable !); why do you now
The iflue of your proper wifdoms rate,
And do a deed that fortune never did *,
Beggar that eftimation which you priz'd
Richer than fea and land? O theft most base!
That we have ftol'n what we do fear to keep!

* If I understand this paffage, the meaning is,→→→ "Why do you, by cenfuring the determination of your own wifdoms, 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 fo declared, as to make us value her lefs." This is very harth, and much trained. Johnson.

But thieves, unworthy of a thing fo stol'n,
Who in their country did them that difgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!
Caf. within.] Cry, Trojans, cry!

Pri. What noife, what fhriek is this?

Troi. 'Tis our mad fifter, I do know her voice. Caf. within] Cry, Trojans !

Hect. It is Caffandra.

Enter Caffandra, with her hair about her ears. Caf. Cry, Trojans, cry; lend me ten thousand eyes, And I will fill them with prophetic tears. Het. Peace, fister, peace.

Lelders,

Caf. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled
Soft infancy, that nothing can but cry,
Add to my clamour! let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come:

Cry, Trojans, cry! practife your eyes with tears.
Troy muil not be, nor goodly Ilion ftand:
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. [Exit.
Hect. Now, youthful Treilus, do not these high
Of divination in our fifter, work

[ftrains
Some touches of remorfe? Or is your blood
So madly hot, that no difcourfe of reason,
Nor fear of bad fuccels in a bad caule,
Can qualify the fame?

Troi. Why, brother Hector,

We may not think the juftness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it,
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,

Because Gaflandra's mad; her brain-fick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel,
Which hath our feveral honours all engag'd
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touch'd than all Priam's fons;
And, Jove forbid! there fhould be done amongst us

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

Y

1

Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain.

Par. Elfe might the world convince of levity
As well my undertakings, as your counsels:
But I atteft the gods, your full confent
Gave wings to my propenfion, and cut off
All fears attending on fo dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my fingle arms ?
What propugnation is in one man's valour,
To ftand the pufh 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 fhould ne'er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the purfuit.

Pri. Paris, you speak

Like one beforted on your fweet delights:
You have the honey ftill, but these the gall;
So to be valiant, is no praife at all.

Par Sir, I propofe not merely to myself
The pleasures fuch a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the foil of her fair rape
Wip'd off, by honourably keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack'd Queen,
Difgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her poffeflion up.

On terms of bafe compulfion? can it be,
That fo degenerate a strain as this

Should once fet footing in your generous bofoms?
There's not the meaneft fpirit on our party,
Without a heart to dare, or fword to draw,
When Helen is defended: none fo noble,
Whofe life were ill beftow'd, or death unfam'd,
When Helen is the fubject. Then, I say,
Well may we fight for her, whom we know welf
The world's large fpaces cannot parallel.

Hect. Paris and Troilus, you have both faid well
And on the cause and queftion now in hand
Have gloz'd; but fuperficially, not much
Unlike young men, whom Ariftotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philofophy."

The reafons you alledge, do more conduce

To the hot paffion of diftemper'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 decifion. Nature craves
All dues be render'd to their owners; now,
What nearer debt in all humanity,

Than wife is to the hufband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benummed * wills, refift the fame,
There is a law in each well-order'd nation,
To curb those raging appetites that are
Moft difobedient and refractory,

If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,
As it is known fhe is, these moral laws
Of nature, and of nations, fpeak aloud
To have her back return'd. Thus to perfift
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 fprightly brethren, I propend to you

In refolution to keep Helen ftill;

For 'tis a caufe that hath no mean dependance
Upon our joint and feveral dignities.

Troi. Why, there you touch'd the life of our defign:

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 Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,

A fpur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame, in time to come, canonize us :
For I prefume brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promis'd glory,
As fimiles upon the forehead of this action,
For the wide world's revenue.

* That is, inflexible, immoveable, no longer obedie ent to fuperior direction. Johnfon.

ya.