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ACT III.

Line 34. the soul of love invisible every where else. JOHNSON. 58. -in fits.] i. e. now and then, by fits; or perhaps a quibble is intended. A fit was a part or division of a song, sometimes a strain in musick, and sometimes a measure in dancing. The reader will find it sufficiently illustrated in the two former senses by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry; in the third of these significations it occurs in All for Money, a tragedy, by T. Lupton, 1574:

LOVE's invisible soul,—] May mean

"Satan. Upon these chearful words I needs must dance a fitte.”. STEEVENS.

77. -And, my lord, he desires you,- -] Here I think the speech of Pandarus should begin, and the rest of it should be added to that of Helen; but I have followed the copies. JOHNSON. 89. with my disposer Cressida.] I think disposer should, in these places, be read dispouser; she that would separate Helen from him.

WARBURTON.

I suspect that, You must not know where he sups, should be added to the speech of Pandarus; and that the following one of Paris should be given to Helen. That Cressida wanted to separate Paris from Helen, or that the beauty of Cressida had any power over

Paris, are circumstances not evident from the play. The one is the opinion of Dr. Warburton, the other a conjecture by the author of The Revisal. By giving, however, this line, I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida, to Helen, and by changing the word disposer into deposer, some meaning may be obtained. She addresses herself, I suppose, to Pandarus, and, by her deposer, means--she who thinks her beauty (or, whose beauty you suppose) to be superior to mine.

STEEVENS. I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.] The words, I'll lay my life are not in the folio.

MALONE.

The dialogue should perhaps be regulated thus:

Par. Where sups he to-night?

Helen. Nay, but my lord,

Pan. What says my sweet queen?

Par. My cousin will fall out with you.

[To Helen.

Pan. You must not know where he sups.

[To Paris.

Helen. I'll lay my life with my deposer Cressida. She calls Cressida her deposer, because she had deposed her in the affections of Troilus, whom Pandarus, in a preceding scene, is ready to swear she lov'd more than Paris. REMARKS.

95. Par. I spy.] This is the usual exclamation at a childish game called, Hie, spy, hie. STEEVENS. 105. Falling in, after falling out, &c. i. e. The reconciliation and wanton dalliance of two

lovers after

a quarrel,

a quarrel, may produce a child, and so make three

of two. 109..

TOLLET.

-sweet lord,-] In the quarto sweet lad.

JOHNSON.

121. that it wounds,] i. e. that which it wounds. MUSGRAVE.

124. Yet that which seems the wound to kill,] To kill the wound is no very intelligible expression, nor is the measure preserved. We might read:

These lovers cry,

Oh! oh! they die!

But that which seems to kill,

Doth turn, &c.

So dying love lives still.

Yet as the wound to kill may mean the wound that seems

mortal, I alter nothing.

These lovers cry,-Oh! oh! they die!

Yet that which seems the wound to kill,

Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!

JOHNSON.

So dying love lives still:] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis :

"For I have heard it [love] is a life in death,
"That laughs and weeps, and all but in a breath!”
MALONE.

200. Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring

The eye of majesty.] Rowe seems to have imitated this passage in his Ambitious Stepmother, act i. "Well may th' ignoble herd

"Start, if with heedless steps they unawares

"Tread

"Tread on the lion's walk: a prince's genius
"Awes with superior greatness all beneath him."
STEEVENS.

205. you must be watch'd ere you be made tame,-] Alluding to the manner of taming hawks. So, in the Taming of a Shrew:

66

207.

-to watch her as we watch these kites."

-we'll put you

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STEEVENS.

the files.- -] Alluding to the custom of putting men suspected of cowardice in the middle places.

HANMER.

211. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress.] The allusion is to bowling. What we now call the jack, seems in Shakspere's time to have been termed the mistress. A bowl that kisses the jack, or mistress, is in the most advantageous situation. Rub on is a term at the same game. So, in. No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657:

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"There's three rubs gone; I've a clear way to the mistress."

Again, in Vittoria Corombona, a tragedy, by Webster,

1612:

"Flam. I hope you do not think

"Cam. That noblemen bowl booty; 'faith his

check

"Hath a most excellent bias; it would fain jump with my mistress."

214.

MALONE.

-The faulcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i th' river -] Pandarus means, that he'll match his

niece against her lover for any bett.

The tercel is the

male hawk; by the faulcon we generally understand the female.

I think we should rather read,

-at the tercel,

THEOBALD.

TYRWHITT,

In Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide, 1. iv. 410. is the 1 flowing stanza, from which Shakspere may have caught a glimpse of meaning, though he has not very clearly expressed it. Pandarus is the speaker:

"What? God forbid, alway that eche plesaunce
"In o thing were, and in non othir wight;
"If one can singe, anothir can wel daunce,
"If this be godely, she is glad and light.
"And this is faire, and that can gode aright,

"Eche for his vertue holdin is full dere, "Both heroner and faucon for rivere." Again, in Fenton's Tragicall Discourses, bl. let. 4to. 1567:

66 -how is that possible to make a froward kite a forward hawke to the ryver." P. 159.

STEEVENS.

25%. -our head shall go bare, 'till merit crown it :-] I cannot forbear to observe, that the quarto reads thus: Our head shall go bare, 'till merit louer part no affection, in reversion, &c. Had there been no other copy, how could this have been corrected? The true reading is in the folio. JOHNSON.

255

his addition shall be humble.-] We will

give him no high or pompous titles.

JOHNSON.

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