At Priam's royal table do I sit; And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,So, traitor!-when she comes!When is she thence?" PAN. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else. TRO. I was about to tell thee,-When my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain; Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have (as when the sun doth light a storm,)" Bury'd this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:" But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. PAN. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to,) there were no more comparison between the women,-But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her,—But I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but— 66 if he but blench, "I know my course Again, in The Pilgrim, by Beaumont and Fletcher: 7 66 -men that will not totter, "Nor blench much at a bullet." STEEVENS. when she comes!· When is she thence?] Both the old copies read-then she comes, when she is thence. Mr. Rowe corrected the former error, and Mr. Pope the latter. 8 MALONE. —a storm,)] Old copies-a scorn. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 9 See King Lear, Act III. sc. i. STEEVENS. in wrinkle of a smile:] So, in Twelfth-Night: "He doth smile his face into more lines than the new map with the augmentation of the Indies." MALONE. Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." STEEVENS. TRO. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus, When I do tell thee, There my hopes lie drown'd, They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice; 1 Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand, &c.] Handlest is here used metaphorically, with an allusion, at the same time, to its literal meaning; and the jingle between hand and handlest is perfectly in our author's manner. The beauty of a female hand seems to have made a strong impression on his mind. Antony cannot endure that the hand of Cleopatra should be touched: 66 -To let a fellow that will take rewards, "And say, God quit you, be familiar with My playfellow, your hand,-this kingly seal, "And plighter of high hearts." Again, in Romeo and Juliet: 66 -they may seize "On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand.” In The Winter's Tale, Florizel, with equal warmth, and not less poetically, descants on the hand of his mistress: 66 -I take thy hand; this hand "As soft as dove's down, and as white as it ; "Or Ethiopian's tooth; or the fann'd snow "That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o’er.” This passage has, I think, been wrong pointed in the late edi tions: Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait; her voice We have the same play of words in Titus Andronicus : "Lest we remember still, that we have none!" We may be certain therefore that those lines were part of the additions which our poet made to that play. Malone. If the derivation of the verb to handle were always present to those who employed it, I know not well how Chapman could vindicate the following passage in his version of the 23d Iliad, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach; To whose soft seizure The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman ! This thou tell'st me, As true thou tell'st me, when I say-I love her; But, saying, thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it. where the most eloquent of the Greeks (old-Nestor) reminds Antilochus that his horses their slow feet handle not.” The intentionally quaint phrase "taste your legs," introduced in Twelfth Night, is not more ridiculous than to talk of horseshandling their feet." 66 Though our author has many and very considerable obligations to Mr. Malone, I cannot regard his foregoing supposition as one of them; for in what does it consist? In making Shakspeare answerable for two of the worst lines in a degraded play, merely because they exhibit a jingle similar to that in the speech before us. STEEVENS. and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman!] In comparison with Cressida's hand, says he, the spirit of sense, the utmost degree, the most exquisite power of sensibility, which implies a soft hand, since the sense of touching, as Scaliger says in his Exercitations, resides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and insensible palm of the ploughman. Warburton reads: Hanmer: spite of sense. -to th' spirit of sense. It is not proper to make a lover profess to praise his mistress in spite of sense; for though he often does it in spite of the sense of others, his own senses are subdued to his desires. JOHNSON. Spirit of sense is a phrase that occurs again in the third Act of this play: 66 -nor doth the eye itself, "That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself." Mr. M. Mason (from whom I have borrowed this parallel) recommends Hanmer's emendation as a necessary one. STEEVENS. PAN. I speak no more than truth. TRO. Thou dost not speak so much. PAN. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.3 TRO. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? PAN. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. TRO. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? PAN. Because she is kin to me, therefore, she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. 3 TRO. Say I, she is not fair? PAN. I do not care whether you do or no. She's she has the mends-] She may mend her complexion by the assistance of cosmeticks. JOHNSON. I believe it rather means- -She may make the best of a bad bargain. This is a proverbial saying. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: "I shall stay here and have my head broke, and then I have the mends in my own hands." Again, in S. Gosson's School of Abuse, 1579: “ -turne him with his back full of stripes, and his hands loden with his own amendes." Again, in The Wild Goose Chase, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The mends are in mine own hands, or the surgeon's." Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 605: -and if men will be jealous in such cases, the mends is in their owne hands, they must thank themselves." STEEVENS. a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. TRO. Pandarus,— PAN. Not I. TRO. Sweet Pandarus, PAN. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PANDARUS. An Alarum. TRO. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, It is too starv'd a subject for my sword. to stay behind her father;] Calchas, according to Shakspeare's authority, The Destruction of Troy, was "a great learned bishop of Troy," who was sent by Priam to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning the event of the war which was threatened by Agamemnon. As soon as he had made "his oblations and demaunds for them of Troy, Apollo (says the book) aunswered unto him, saying; Calchas, Calchas, beware that thou returne not back again to Troy; but goe thou with Achylles, unto the Greekes, and depart never from them, for the Greekes shall have victorie of the Troyans by the agreement of the Gods." Hist. of the Destruction of Troy, translated by Caxton, 5th edit. 4to. 1617. This prudent bishop followed the advice of the Oracle, and immediately joined the Greeks. MALONE. |