SCENE IX. Another Part of the Field. Enter HECTOR. HECT. Most putrified core, so fair without, Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death! [Puts off his Helmet, and hangs his Shield behind him. Enter ACHILLES and Myrmidons. ACHIL. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set; How ugly night comes breathing at his heels: Even with the vail and dark'ning of the sun, To close the day up, Hector's life is done. HECT. I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.7 Even with the vail-] The vail is, I think, the sinking of the sun; not veil or cover. JOHNSON. So, in Measure for Measure, "vail your regard upon," signifies,-Let your notice descend upon &c. STEEVENS. "I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.] Hector, in Lydgate's poem, falls by the hand of Achilles; but it is Troilus who, having been inclosed round by the Myrmidons, is killed after his armour had been hewn from his body, which was afterwards drawn through the field at the horse's tail. The Oxford editor, I believe, was misinformed; for in the old story-book of The Three Destructions of Troy, I find likewise the same account given of the death of Troilus. Heywood, in his Rape of Lucrece, 1638, seems to have been indebted to some such work as Sir T. Hanmer mentions : 8 ACHIL. Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek. [HECTOR falls. So, Ilion, fall thou next! now, Troy, sink down; Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.On, Myrmidons; and cry you all amain, Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain. 9 [A Retreat sounded. Hark! a retreat upon our Grecian part. MYR. The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord. ACHIL. The dragon wing of night' o'erspreads the earth, "Had puissant Hector by Achilles' hand "Had been the worthy; but being slain by odds, "As faint Achilles, in the Trojan's death." It is not unpleasant to observe with what vehemence Lydgate, who in the grossest manner has violated all the characters drawn by Homer, takes upon him to reprehend the Grecian poet as the original offender. Thus, in his fourth Book: 8 "Oh thou, Homer, for shame be now red, "And thee amase that holdest thy selfe so wyse, "In thy bokes for his chivalrye, "Above echone that dost hym magnyfye, "That was so sleyghty and so full of fraude, "Why gevest thou hym so hye a prayse and laude?” STEEVENS. * Strike, fellows, strike ;] This particular of Achilles overpowering Hector by numbers, and without armour, is taken from the old story-book. HANMer. 9 On, Myrmidons; and cry you all amain, Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.] 66 σε Ηράμεθα μέγα κύδος επέφνομεν "Εκτορα δίον, Iliad XXII. v. 393, MALOne. 'The dragon wing of night-] See Vol. XIII. p. 309, n. 9. MALONE. And, stickler like, the armies separates. My half-supp'd sword,3 that frankly would have fed, Pleas'd with this dainty bit, thus goes to bed.[Sheaths his Sword. And, stickler-like,] A stickler was one who stood by to part the combatants when victory could be determined without bloodshed. They are often mentioned by Sidney." Anthony (says Sir Thomas North, in his translation of Plutarch,) was himself in person a stickler to part the young men when they had fought enough." They were called sticklers, from carrying sticks or staves in their hands, with which they interposed between the duellists. We now call these sticklers-sidesmen. So, again, in a comedy, called, Fortune by Land and Sea, by Heywood and Rowley: "tis not fit that every apprentice should with his shop-club play between us the stickler." Again, in the tragedy of Faire Mariam, 1613: "And was the stickler 'twixt my heart and him." Again, in Fuimus Troes, 1633: "As sticklers in their nation's enmity." STEEVENs, Minsheu gives the same etymology, in his Dictionary, 1617: "A stickler betweene two, so called as putting a stick or staffe between two fighting or fencing together." MALONE. Sticklers are arbitrators, judges, or, as called in some places, sidesmen. At every wrestling in Cornwall, before the games begin, a certain number of sticklers are chosen, who regulate the proceedings, and determine every dispute. The nature of the English language, as I conceive, does not allow the derivation of stickler from stick, which, as a word, it has not the remotest connection with. Stickler (stic-kle-er) is immediately from the verb stickle, to interfere, to take part with, to busy one's self in any matter. RITSON. 3 My half-supp'd sword, &c.] These four despicable verses, as well as the rhyming fit with which "the blockish Ajax” is afterwards seized, could scarce have fallen from the pen of our author, in his most unlucky moments of composition. STEEVENS. Whatever may have been the remainder of this speech, as it came out of Shakspeare's hands, we may be confident that this bombast stuff made no part of it. Our author's gold was stolen, and the thief's brass left in its place. RITSON. Perhaps this play was hastily altered by Shakspeare from an Come, tie his body to my horse's tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail. [Exeunt. SCENE X. The same. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and Others, marching. Shouts within. AGAM. Hark! hark! what shout is that? NEST. [Within.] Peace, drums. Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain! Achilles! Dio. The bruit is-Hector's slain, and by Achilles. AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be; Great Hector was as good a man as he. To AGAM. March patiently along:-Let one be sent Achilles see us at our tent.pray If in his death the gods have us befriended, Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended. [Exeunt, marching. elder piece, which the reader will find mentioned in p. 223, n. 2. Some of the scenes therefore he might have fertilized, and left others as barren as he found them. STEEVENS. Along the field I will the Trojan trail.] Such almost (changing the name of Troilus for that of Hector) is the argument of Lydgate's 31st chapter, edit. 1555: "How Achilles slewe the worthy Troylus unknyghtly, and after trayled his body through the fyelde tyed to his horse." STEEVENS. SCENE XI. Another Part of the Field. Enter NEAS and Trojans. ENE. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field: Never go home; here starve we out the night.5 Enter TROILUS. TRO. Hector is slain. ALL. Hector?-The gods forbid! TRO. He's dead; and at the murderer's horse's tail, In beastly sort, dragg'd through the shameful field.Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed! Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy! Never go home; &c.] This line is in the quarto given to Troilus. JOHNSON. smile at Troy!] Thus the ancient copies; but it would better agree with the rest of Troilus's wish, were we to read, with a former editor: -smite at Troy! I say, at once! STEEVENS. There can be no doubt but we should read-smite at, instead of-smile. The following words, "I say, at once," make that unquestionable. To call upon the heavens to frown, and on the Gods to smile, at the self-same moment, would be too absurd even for that violent agitation of mind with which Troilus is supposed to be actuated. M. MASON. Smite was introduced into the text by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and adopted by Dr. Warburton. I believe the old reading is the true one. Mr. Upton thinks that Shakspeare had the Psalmist in view: "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn; the |