Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
Your breath with full consent1 bellied his sails;
The seas and winds (old wranglers) took a truce,
And did him service: he touch'd the ports desir'd;
And, for an old aunt,2 whom the Greeks held captive,
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and fresh-

ness

Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale the morning.3
Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt:
Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl,
Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,
And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.

If you 'll avouch, 'twas wisdom Paris went,
(As you must needs, for you all cry'd-Go, go,)
If you 'll confess, he brought home noble prize,
(As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands,
And cry'd-Inestimable!) why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate;
And do a deed that fortune never did,
Beggar the estimation which you priz'd

1 Your breath with full consent-] Your breaths all blowing together; your unanimous approbation. See Vol. IX, p. 159, n. 6. Thus the quarto. The folio reads—of full consent. Malone.

2 And, for an old aunt,] Priam's sister, Hesione, whom Hercules, being enraged at Priam's breach of faith, gave to Telamon, who by her had Ajax. Malone.

This circumstance is also found in Lydgate, Book II, where Priam says:

3

"My syster eke, called Exiona

"Out of this regyon ye have ladde away" &c. Steevens.

– makes pale the morning.] So the quarto. The folio and modern editors

makes stale the morning. Johnson.

4 And do a deed that fortune never did,] If I understand this pas sage, 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 harsh, and much strained. Johnson. The meaning, I believe, is: " Act with more inconstancy and caprice than ever did fortune." Henley.

Fortune was never so unjust and mutable as to rate a thing on one day above all price, and on the next to set no estimation whatsoever upon it. You are now going to do what fortune never did Such, I think, is the meaning. Malone.

Richer than sea and land? O theft most base;
That we have stolen what we do fear to keep!
But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stolen,
That in their country did them that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!

Cas. [within] Cry, Trojans, cry!

Pri.

What noise? what shriek is this?

Tro. 'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.
Cas. [within] Cry, Trojans!

Hect. It is Cassandra.

Enter CASSANDRA, raving.6

Cas. Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes, And I will fill them with prophetick tears.

Hect. Peace, sister, peace.

Cas. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled elders,7 Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry, Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes A moiety of that mass of moan to come. Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears! Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;

5

8

But, thieves,] Sir T. Hanmer reads-Base thieves,

Johnson.

That did, in the next line, means-that which did. Malone.

6 Enter Cassandra, raving.] This circumstance also is from the third Book of Lydgate's Auncient Historie, &c. 1555:

7

"This was the noise and the pyteous crye

"Of Cassandra that so dredefully

"She gan to make aboute in euery strete
66 Through y towne" &c. Steevens.

·wrinkled elders,] So the quarto. Folio-wrinkled old.

Malone.

Elders, the erroneous reading of the quarto, would seem to have been properly corrected in the copy whence the first folio was printed; but it is a rule with printers, whenever they meet with a strange word in a manuscript, to give the nearest word to it they are acquainted with; a liberty which has been not very sparingly exercised in all the old editions of our author's plays. There cannot be a question that he wrote:

mid-age and wrinkled eld.

So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

"The superstitious idle-headed eld.”

Again, in Measure for Measure:

"Doth beg the alms of palsied eld."

Ritson.

? Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;] See p. 18, n. 4, and

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 Troilus, do not these high strains

Of divination in our sister work

Some touches of remorse? or is your blood
So madly hot, that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,

Can qualify the same?

Tro.
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,
Because Cassandra 's mad; her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste1 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
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain!

Par. Else might the world convince of levity3
As well my undertakings, as your counsels:
But I attest the gods, your full consent
Gave wings to my propension, and cut off

p. 23, n. 8. This line unavoidably reminds us of another in the second book of the Æneid:

"Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres."

Steevens.

9 Our fire-brand brother,] Hecuba, when pregnant with Paris, dreamed she should be delivered of a burning torch:

1

66 -et face prægnans

"Cisseis regina Parin creat." Æneid X, 705. Steevens.

distaste] Corrupt; change to a worse state. Johnson. 2 To make it gracious.] i. e. to set it off; to show it to advantage. So, in Marston's Malcontent, 1604: "he is most exquisite, &c. in sleeking of skinnes, blushing of cheeks, &c. that ever made an ould lady gracious by torch-light." Steevens.

3 convince of levity-] This word, which our author fre quently employs in the obsolete sense of-to overpower, subdue, seems, in the present instance, to signify-convict, or subject to the charge of levity. Steevens.

4

- your full consent] Your unanimous approbation. See p. 68, n. 1. Malone.

All fears attending on so 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 protest,
Were I alone to"pass"the difficulties,
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.

poise

Pri.
Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights:
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant, is no praise at all.

Par. Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rapes
Wip'd off, in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up,

On terms of base compulsion? Can it be,
That so degenerate a strain as this,

Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
There's not the meanest spirit on our party,
Without a heart to dare, or sword to draw,
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble,
Whose life were ill bestow'd, or death unfam'd,
Where Helen is the subject: then, I say,
Well may we fight for her, whom, we know well,
The world's large spaces cannot parallel.

Hect. Paris, and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand

Have gloz'd,—but superficially; not much

5 her fair rape-] Rape, in our author's time, commonly signified the carrying away of a female. Malone.

It has always borne that, as one of its significations; raptus Helena (without any idea of personal violence) being constantly rendered the rape of Helen. Steevens.

6 Have gloz'd,] So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, Book III, viii, 14: could well his glozing speeches frame."

To gloze, in this instance, means to insinuate; but, in Shak speare, to comment. So, in King Henry V:

"Which Salique land the French unjustly glaze

"To be the realm of France." Steevens.

Unlike young men, whom Aristotle' thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy:

The reasons, you allege, 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 benumbed wills, 1 resist the same;
There is a law2 in each well-order'd nation,
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.

7

· Aristotle —] Let it be remembered, as often as Shakspeare's anachronisms occur, that errors in computing time were very frequent in those ancient romances which seem to have formed the greater part of his library. I may add, that even classick authors are not exempt from such mistakes. In the fifth Book of Statius's Thebaid, Amphiaraus talks of the fates of Nestor and Priam, neither of whom died till long after him. If on this occasion, somewhat should be attributed to his augural profession, yet if he could so freely mention, nay, even quote as examples to the whole army, things that would not happen till the next age, they must all have been prophets as well as himself, or they could not have understood him.

Hector's mention of Aristotle, however, (during our ancient propensity to quote the authorities of the learned on every occasion) is not more absurd than the following circumstances in The Dialoges of Creatures Moralysed, bl. 1. no date, (a book which Shakspeare might have seen) where we find God Almighty quoting Cato. See Dial IV. I may add, on this subject, that during an altercation between Noah and his Wife, in one of the Chester Whitsun Playes, the Lady swears by-Christ and Saint John. Steevens.

8 more deaf than adders -] See Vol. X, p. 197, n. 3.

Steevens.

M. Mason.

- of partial indulgence —] i. e. through partial indulgence. 1- benumbed wills,] That is, inflexible, immoveable, no longer obedient to superior direction. Johnson.

2 There is a law-] What the law does in every nation between individuals, justice ought to do between nations. Johnson.