Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

PREFACE to the quarto edition of this play, 1609.

A never writer, to an ever reader. Newes.

Eternall reader, you have heere a new play, never stal'd with the stage, never clapper-claw'd with the palmes of the vulger, and yet passing full of the palme comicall; for it is a birth of your braine, that never under-tooke any thing commicall, vainely: and were but the vaine names of commedies changde for the titles of commodities, or of playes for pleas; you should fee all those grand cenfors, that now stile them such vanities, flock to them for the maine grace of their gravities: especially this authors commedies, that are so fram'd to the life, that they serve for the most common commentaries of all the actions of our lives, shewing fuch a dexteritie and power of witte, that the most displeased with playes, are pleasd with his commedies. And all fuch dull and heavy witted worldlings, as were never capable of the witte of a commedie, comming by report of them to his representations, have found that witte there, that they never found in them-selves, and have parted better-witted then they came: feeling an edge of witte set upon them, more than ever they dreamd they had braine to grind it on. So much and such savored falt of witte is in his commedies, that they seeme (for their height of pleasure) to be borne in that fea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there is none more witty than this: and had I time I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not, (for so much as will make you think your testerne well bestowd) but for fo much worth, as even poore I know to be stuft in it. It deserves such a labour, as well as the best commedy in Terence or Plautus. And beleeve this, that when hee is gone, and his commedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and fet up a new English inquifition. Take this for a warning, and at the perill of your pleasures losse, and judgements, refuse not, nor like this the lesse, for not being fullied with the smoaky breath of the multitude; but thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you. Since by the grand possessors wills I believe you should have prayd for them rather then beene prayd. And fo I leave all fuch to bee prayd for (for the states of their wits healths) that will not praise it. Vale.

PRO

PROLOGUE.

IN Troy, there lies the scene. From ifles of Greece
The princes' orgillous, their high blood chaf 4,

Have to the port of Athens fent their ships
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
To ransack Troy; within whose strong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,

With wanton Paris sleeps; And that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage: Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's fix-gated city
(Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Troyan,
And Antenoridas) with massy staples,

:

And

* The princes orgillous, -) Orgillous, i. e. proud, disdainful. Orgueilleux, Fr. This word is used in the ancient romance of Richard Cueur de Lyon:

" His atyre was orgulous." STEEVENS.

*Priam's fix-gated city,
(Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenonidus) with massie staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Stirre up the fons of Troye.

This has been a most miserably mangled passage through all the editions; corrupted at once into false concord and false reasoning. Priam's fix-gated city ftirre up the fons of Troy?-Here's a verb plural governed of a nominative fingular. But that is easily remedied. The next question to be asked is, In what sense a city, having fix strong gates, and those well barred and bolted, can be faid 10 ftir up its inhabitants? unless they may be supposed to derive some spirit from the strength of their fortifications. But this could not be the poet's thought. He must mean, I take it, that the Greeks had pitched their tents upon the plains before Troy; and that the Trojans were securely barricaded within the walls and gates of

Bz

their

And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts3,
Sperrs up the fons of Troy.-

Now

their city. This sense my correction restores. To Sperre, or Spar, from the old Teutonic word Speren, fignifies to shut up, defend by bars, &c. THEOBALD..

So, in Spenser's Faery Queen, b. 5. c. 10:

[ocr errors]

"The other that was entred, labour'd falt
"To Sperre the gate, &c."

Again, in the romance of the Squhr of lowe Degre:
Sperde with manie a dyvers pynne."

And in the Visions of P. Plowman it is faid that a blind man unsparryd his eine."

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. II. chap. 12: "When chased home into his holdes, there sparred up in gates." Again, in the 2nd Part of Bale's Actes of Eng. Votaryes: "The dore thereof oft tymes opened and speared agayne." STEEVENS.

"Therto his cyte | compassed enuyrowne-
"Hadde gates VI to entre into the towne:
"The firste of all and strengest eke with all,

"

[ocr errors]

"Largest also | and moste pryncypall, "Of myghty byldyng | alone perelefs, "Was by the kinge called | Dardanydes; "And in storye | lyke as it is founde, "Tymbria | was named the seconde; "And the thyrde | called Helyas, "The fourthe gate | hyghte also Cetheas; "The fyfthe Trojana, | the syxth Anthonydes, Stronge and myghty | both in werre and pes.” Lond. empr. by R. Pynfon, 1513, Fol. b. ii. ch. 11. The Troye Boke was fomewhat modernized, and reduced into regular stanzas, about the beginning of the last century, under the name of, The Life and Death of Hector who fought a Hundred mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians; wherein there were flaine on both Sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thousand, Fourscore and Sixe Men. -Fol. no date. This work Dr. Fuller, and feveral other critics, have erroneoufly quoted as the original; and observe in consequence, that "if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined standard for purer language: so that one might mistake him for a modern writer." FARMER.

On other occafions, in the course of this play, I shall infert quotations from the Troye Boke modernized, as being the most intelligible of the two. STEEVENS.

3-fulfilling bolts,] To fulfill in this place means to fill till

there

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard:-And hither am I come
* A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but fuited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
'Ginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

there be no room for more. In this sense it is now obsolete. So, in Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, lib. V. fol. 114:

"A luftie maide, a fobre, a meke,

"Fulfilled of all curtofie."

Again :

"

Fulfilled of all unkindship." STEEVENS. To be " fulfilled with grace and benediction" is still the language of our Litany. BLACKSTONE.

A prologue arm'd, -) I come here to speak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the author's or actor's abilities, but merely in a character suited to the fubject, in a dress of war, before a warlike play.

JOHNSON.

s the vaunt) i, e. the avant, what went before. STEEVENS.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Helen, wife to Menelaus.

Andromache, wife to Hector.

Cassandra, daughter to Priam, a prophetess.

Cressida, daughter to Calchas.

Alexander, Cressida's fervant.

Boy, page to Troilus.

Servant to Diomed.

Trojan-and Greek Soldiers, with other attendants.

SCENE, Troy, and the Grecian Camp before it.

« AnteriorContinuar »