toes, yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up the wars.

Achil, What, what?

Ther. Yes, good sooth; To, Achilles! to, Ajax! to'
Ajax. I shall cut out your tongue.

Ther. 'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou, afterwards.

Patr. No more words, Thersites; peace.

Ther. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall I ?

4

3

Nestor, whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails-][Old copies-their grandsires.] This is one of these edi. tors' wise riddles. What! was Nestor's wit mouldy before his grandsire's toes had any nails? Preposterous nonsense! and yet so easy a change as one poor pronoun for another, sets all right and clear. Theobald.

4

when Achilles' brach bids me,] The folio and quarto read -Achilles brooch. Brooch is an appendant ornament. The mean. ing may be, equivalent to one of Achilles' hangers-on. Johnson. Brach I believe to be the true reading. He calls Patroclus, in contempt, Achilles's dog. So, in Timon of Athens:

"When thou art Timon's dog" &c.

A brooch was a cluster of gems affixed to a pin, and anciently worn in the hats of people of distinction. See the portrait of Sir Christopher Hatton. Steevens.

I believe brache to be the true reading. It certainly means a bitch, and not a dog, which renders the expression more abusive and offensive. Thersites calls Patroclus Achilles' brache, for the same reason that he afterwards calls him his male harlot, and his masculine whore. M. Mason.

I have little doubt of broch being the true reading, as a term of contempt.

The meaning of broche is well ascertained-a spit-a bodkin; which being formerly used in the ladies' dress, was adorned with jewels, and gold and silver ornaments. Hence in old lists of jewels are found brotchets.

I have a very magnificent one, which is figured and described by Pennant, in the second volume of his Tour to Scotland, in 1772, p. 14, in which the spit or bodkin forms but a very small part of the whole. Lort.

Broch was, properly, a trinket with a pin affixed to it, and is consequently used by Shakspeare for an ornament in general. So, in Hamlet:

he is the brooch indeed "And gem of all the nation."

So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

-not the imperious show

"Of the full fortun'd Cæsar, ever shall
"Be brooch'd with me."'

Achil. There's for you, Patroclus.

Ther. I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. [Exit. Patr. A good riddance.

Achil. Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:

That Hector, by the first5 hour of the sun,
Will, with a trumpet, 'twixt our tents and Troy,
To-morrow morning call some knight to arms,
That hath a stomach; and such a one, that dare
Maintain-I know not what; 'tis trash; Farewel.
Ajax. Farewel. Who shall answer him?

Achil. I know not, it is put to lottery; otherwise,
He knew his man.

Ajax. O, meaning you :-I'll go learn more of it.

SCENE II.

Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace.

[Exeunt.

Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and
HELENUS.

Pri. After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks;
Deliver Helen, and all damage else—

As honour, loss of time, travel, expence,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd
In hot digestion of this cormorant war,—

But Thersites could not mean to compliment Patroclus, and therefore this cannot, I think, be the true reading. Brach, which was introduced by Mr. Rowe, might serve well enough, but that it certainly meant a bitch. (See Vol. VI, p. 14, n. 9.] It is possible, however, that Shakspeare might have used the word as synonymous to follower, without any regard to sex.

I have sometimes thought that the word intended might have been Achilles's brock, i. e. that over-weening conceited coxcomb, who attends upon Achilles. Our author has used this term of contempt in Twelfth Night: "Marry, hang thee, brock!" So, in The Fests of George Peele, quarto, 1657: "This self-conceited brock, had George invited," &c. Malone.

A brock, literally, means-a badger. Steevens.

5

the first] So the quarto. Folio-the fifth. Malone.

Shall be struck off:-Hector, what say you to 't?

Hect. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I. As far as toucheth my particular, yet,

Dread Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,

More spungy to suck in the sense of fear,

More ready to cry out-Who knows what follows??
Than Hector is: The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
Since the first sword was drawn about this question.
Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,"
Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
If we have lost so many tenths of ours,
To guard a thing not ours; not worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten;
What merit 's in that reason, which denies
The yielding of her up?

Tro.

Fy, fy, my brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,

So great as our dread father, in a scale

Of common ounces? will you with counters sum
The past-proportion of his infinite??

And buckle-in a waist most fathomless,

With spans and inches so diminutive

As fears and reasons? fy, for godly shame!

Hel. No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,

71

Who knows what follows?] Who knows what ill consequences may follow from pursuing this or that course? Malone many thousand dismes,] Disme, Fr. is the tithe, the tenth. So, in the Prologue to Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1554: "The disme goeth to the battaile."

8

Again, in Holinshed's Reign of King Richard 11:" -so that there was levied, what of the disme, and by the devotion of the people," &c. Steevens.

9 The past-proportion of his infinite?] Thus read both the copies. The meaning is, that greatness to which no measure bears any pro portion. The modern editors silently give:

The vast proportion

1

Johnson.

though you bite so sharp at reasons, &c.] Here is a

You are so empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,
Because your speech hath none, that tells him so?
Tro. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest,
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:
You know, an enemy intends you harm;
You know, a sword employ'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 set
The very wings of reason to his heels;
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,

Or like a star dis-orb'd?2-Nay, if we talk of reason, Let's shut our gates, and sleep: Manhood and honour A Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect

Make livers pale, and lustihood deject.3

Hect. Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost The holding.

Tro.

What is aught, but as 'tis valued?

Hect. But value dwells not in particular will;

It holds his estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself

As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry,

To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive4

wretched quibble between reasons and raisins, which, in Shakspeare's time, were, I believe, pronounced alike. Dogberry, in Much Ado about Nothing, plays upon the same words: " If Justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance." Malone.

The present suspicion of a quibble on the word-reason, is not, in my opinion, sufficiently warranted by the context.

2 And fly like chidden Mercury from Fove,

Steevens.

Or like a star dis-orb'd?] These two lines are misplaced in all the folio editions. Pope.

3

reason and respect

Make livers pale, &c.] Respect is caution, a regard to conse quences. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

"Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating die!

Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age!—

"Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage." Malone. 4 And the will dotes, that is attributive-] So the quarto. The folio reads-inclinable, which Mr. Pope says "is better." Malone.

To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected merit.5
Tro. I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;6
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment: How may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? there can be no evasion

To blench' from this, and to stand firm by honour:
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,

When we have soil'd them; nor the remainder viands We do not throw in unrespective sieve,9

Because we now are full. It was thought meet,

I think the first reading better; the will dotes that attributes or gives the qualities which it affects; that first causes excellence, and then admires it. Johnson.

5 Without some image of the affected merit.] We should read:

the affected's merit.

i. e. without some mark of merit in the thing affected.

Warburton. The present reading is right. The will affects an object for some supposed merit, which Hector says is censurable, unless the merit so affected be really there. Johnson.

6

in the conduct of my will;] i. e under the guidance of my will. Malone.

9

blench-] See p. 14, n. 5. Steevens.

soil'd them;] So reads the quarto. The folio:

spoil'd them. Johnson.

- unrespective sieve,] That is, unto a common voider. Sieve is in the quarto. The folio reads:

unrespective same;

for which the second folio and modern editions have silently printed:

unrespective place. Johnson.

It is well known that sieves and half-sieves are baskets to be met with in every quarter of Covent Garden market; and that, in some families, baskets lined with tin are still employed as voiders. With the former of these senses sieve is used in The Wits, by Sir W. D'Avenant:

-apple-wives

"That wrangle for a sieve."

Dr. Farmer adds, that in several counties of England, the baskets us used for carrying out dirt, &c. are called sieves. The correction, therefore, in the second folio, appears to have been un. necessary. Steevens.