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Hect. What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it.

And they'll seem glorious.
Ulys.
O, contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.
Enter ENEAS.

Ene. I have been seeking you this nour, my lord:
Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy ;
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
Tro. Have with you, prince:-My courteous lord,
adieu :-

Farewell, revolted fair!--and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
Ulyss. I'll bring you to the gates.
Tro. Accept distracted thaak.

[Exeunt TROILUS, ENEAS, and ULYSSES. Ther. 'Would, I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me any thing for the intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not do more for an almond, than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion: A burning devil take them. [Exit.

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Hect.

Ho! bid my trumpet sound!

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Tro.

For the love of all the gods, Let's leave the hermit pity with our mother; And when we have our armours buckled on, The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords; Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth. Hect. Fye, savage, fye!

Tro. Hector, then 'tis wars. Hect. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day Tro. Who should withhold me? Nor fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire ; Not Priamus, and Hecuba on knees, Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears; Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn, Oppos'd to hinder me, should stop my way, But by my ruin.

Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM.

Cas. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast: He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay, Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee, Fall all together.

Pri.

Come, Hector, come, go back: Thy wife hath dream'd; thy mother hath had visions; Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt, To tell thee that this day is ominous : Therefore, come back.

Hect.

Eneas is a-field; And I do stand engag'd to many Greeks, Even in the faith of valour, to appear This morning to them. Pri. But thou shalt not go. Hect. I must not break my faith.

Cas. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet bro-You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,

ther.

Hect. Begone, I say: the gods have heard me swear.
Cus. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

And. O! be persuaded: Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just it is as lawful,
For we would give much, to use violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity.

Cas. It is the purpose, that makes strong the vow:
But vows to every purpose must not hold:
Unarm, sweet Hector.

Hect.

Hold you still, I say;
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.-
Enter TROILUS.

How now, young man? mean'st thou to fight to-day?
And. Cassandra, call my father to persuade.
[Exit CASSANDRA.
Hect. No, 'faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness,
I am to-day i' the vein of chivalry: [youth,
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I'il stand to-day, for thee, and me, and Troy.

Tro. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you, Which better fits a lion, than a man.

Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice,
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.
Cas. O Priam, yield not to him.

And.
Do not, dear father.
Hect. Andromache, I am offended with you:
Upon the love you bear me, get you

in.

[Exit ANDROMACHE. Tro. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements.

Cas. O farewell, dear Hector. Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale! Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents! Hark, how Troy roars! how Hecuba cries out! How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth ! Behold, destruction, frenzy, and amazement, Like witless antics, one another meet, And all cry-Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector! Tro. Away!-Away!

Cas. Farewell.-Yet, soft.-Hector, I take iny leave:

Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive

[Exit.

Hect. You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim: Go in, and cheer the town, we'll forth, and fight; Do deeds worth praise, and tell you them at night. Pri Farewell: the gods with safety stand about thee! [Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alaruns. Tro. They are at it; hark! Proud Diomed, believe. I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.

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Tro. What now?

Pan. Here's a letter from yon' poor girl.
Tro. Let me read.

Pan. A whoreson ptisic, a whoreson rascally ptisic so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl; and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o' these days: And I have a rheum in mine eyes too; and such an ache in my bones, that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what to think on't. -What says she there?

Tro. Words, words, mere words, no matter froin the heart; [Tearing the letter. The effect doth operate another way.— Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.— My love with words and errors still she feeds; But edifies another with her deeds. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE IV. Between Troy and the Grecian Camp.

Alarums: Excursions. Enter THERSITES. Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that saine scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his helm: I would fain see them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling luxurious drab, on a sleeveless errand. O' the other side, The policy of those crafty swearing rascals,—that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor; and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, -is not proved worth a blackberry:-They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles: and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. Soft! here come sleeve, and t' other.

Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following.

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Agam. Renew, renew! the fierce Polydamus
Hath beat down Menon bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner;

And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam
Upon the pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius: Polixenes is slain;
Amphimacus, and Thoas, deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta'en, or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruis'd: the dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers; haste we, Diomed,
To reintorcement, or we perish all.

Enter NESTOR.

Nest. Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles ;
And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.-
There is a thousand Hectors in the field:
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
And there lacks work; anon, he's there afoot,
And there they fly, or die, like scaled sculls
Before the belching whale; then he is yonder,
And there the strawy G.eeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him, like the mower's swath:
Here, there, and every where, he leaves, and takes,
Dexterity so obeying appetite,

That what he will, he does; and does so much,
That proof is call'd impossibility.

Enter ULYSSES.

Ulyss. O courage, courage, princes! great Achilies
Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance;
Patroclus' wounds have rous'd his drowsy blood,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come u
Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend, [him
And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd, and at it,
Roaring for Troilus; who hath done to-day
Mad and fantastic execution;
Engaging and redeeming of himself,
With such a careless force, and forceless care,

Tro Fly not; for, shouldst thou take the river Styx, As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,

I would swim after.
Dio.

Thou dost miscall retire.

I do not fly; but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude:
Have at thee!

-

Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian! now for thy whore, Trojan !-now the sleeve, now the sleeve! [Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES, fighting. Enter HECTOR.

Hect. What art thou, Greek, art thou for Hector's Art thou of blood, and honour? [match?

Ther. No, no:— I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

[Exit.

Hect. I do believe thee ;-live. Ther. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; But a plague break thy neck, for frighting me. What's become of the wenching rogues? I think, they have swallowed one another: I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'll [Erit. seek them.

SCENE V.-The same.

Enter DIOMEDES and a Servant.

Dio. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;
Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid:
Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;

Bade him win all.

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Ther. What art thou?

Mar. A bastard son of Priam's.

Ther. I am a bastard too: I love bastards: I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in every thing illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel's most ominous to us. If the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment: Farewell, bastard.

Mar. The devil take thee, coward! [Exeunt.

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. 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.

[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 And, stickler-like, the armies separate. [earth, My half-supp'd sword, that frankly would have fed, Pleas'd with this dainty bit, thus goes to bed.[Sheathes his sword. Come, tie his body to my horse's tail: Along the field I will the Trojan trail. [Exeunt.

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SCENE XI.--Another Part of the Field.

Enter ENEAS and Trojans.

Ene. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field: Never go home; here starve we out the night. 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!
I say, at once, let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on!

Ene. My lord, you do discomfort all the host.
Tro. You understand me not, that tell me so :
I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death;
But dare all imminence, that gods and men,
Address their dangers in. Hector is gone
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him, that will a screech-owl aye be call'd,
Go in to Troy, and say there-Hector's dead

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There is a word will Priam turn to stone:
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself. But, march, away:
Hector is dead; there is no more to say.
Stay yet;-You vile abominable tents,
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,

[coward!
I'll through and through you! And thou, great-siz'd
No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;
I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thoughts.-
Strike a free march to Troy!-with comfort go:
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

[Exeunt ÆNEAS and Trojans.

As TROIUS is going out, enter, from the other side,

PANDARUS.

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Pan. A goodly med'cine for my aching bones!— O world! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a'work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so loved, and the performance so loathed what verse for it? what instance for it!Let me see :

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, Till he hath lost his honey, and his sting. And being once subdued in armed tail, Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.-Good traders in the flesh, set this'in your painted cloths

As many as be here of pander's hall, Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall: Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans, Brethren, and sisters, of the hold-door trade, Though not for me, yet for your aching bones. Some two months hence my will shall here be made It should be now, but that my fear is this,— Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss : Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases ; And, at that time, bequeath you my diseases. [Erit.

seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously filled and powerfully impressed. Shakspeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his version of Homer.-JOHNSON.

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THERE is no edition of this play previous to that of 1623. The, date of its production rests on miere conjecture. Malone supposes it to have been written in 1610, and Mr. Chalmers in 1601, or :602.

The subject is from Plutarch's Life of Antony, which Shakspeare might have read in North's trans ation. The passage respecting limon is as follows:-" Antonius forsook the citie and companie of his friends, saying, that he would lead l'imon's life, because he had the like wrong offered him that was offered nato fimon; and for the unthankfulness of those he had done good unto, and whom he tooke to be his friendes, he was angry with all men, and would trust no man.'

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There is an old MS. play on the same subject, which was for merly in the possession of Mr. Strutt the engraver, and which, according to Steevens, was written or transcribed in 1600. Though evidently the work of a scholar, it is a most wretched production; but as it contains a faithful steward, and a mock banqueting scene, the critics have imagined that Shakspeare must have seen the MS. before he commenced his own work upon the subject. It is perhaps rather unfair, on such uncertain grounds, to accuse Shakspeare as the plagia rist, and acquit the unknown author.-The circumstance of Timon's becoming possessed of great sums of gold is takea from Lucian.

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It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good.

Mer. 'Tis a good form.

[Looking at the jewel. Jew. And rich: here is a water, look you. Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedicaTo the great lord. [tion Poet. A thing slipp'd idly from me, Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes From whence 'tis nourished: The fire i'the flint Shews not, till it be struck; our gentle flame Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies Each bound it chafes. What have you there? [forth? Pain. A picture, sir.-And when comes your book Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir. Let's see your piece.

Pain.

"Tis a good piece.

Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent. Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

Admirable How this grace Speaks his own standing! what a mental power This eye shoots forth! how big imagination Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture One might interpret.

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life. Here is a touch; Is't good?

Poet.

I'll say of it,
It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over.
Pain. How this lord's follow'd!

Poet. The senators of Athens :-Happy men!
Pain. Look, more!

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visi-
I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man, [tors.
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment: My free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself
In a wide sea of wax: no levell'd malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold;
But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

Pain. How shall I understand you? Poet. I'll unbolt to you. You see how all conditions, how all minds, (As well of glib and slippery creatures, as Of grave and austere quality,) tender down Their services to lord Timon: his large fortune, Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, Subdues and properties to his love and tendance All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer To Apemantus, that few things loves better Than to abhor himself: even he drops down The knee before him, and returns in peace Most rich in Timon's nod.

Pain.

I saw them speak together. Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: The base o' the mount Is rank'd with all deserts, all kinds of natures, That labour on the bosom of this sphere To propagate their states: amongst them all, Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd, One do I personate of lord Timon's frame, Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; Whose present grace to present slaves and servants Translates his rivals.

Pain. "Tis conceiv'd to scope. This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, With one man beckon'd from the rest below, Bowing his head against the steepy mount To climb his happiness, would be well express'd In our condition.

Poet. Nay, sir, but hear me on. All those which were his fellows but of late, (Some better than his value,) on the moment Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear, Make sacred even his stirrop, and through him Drink the free air.

Pain.

Ay, marry, what of these? Poet. When Fortune, in her shift and change of mood, Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants, Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top, Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down, Not one accompanying his declining foot. Pain. 'Tis common:

A thousand moral paintings I can shew,

That shall demonstrate these quick blows of fortune
More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well,
To shew lord Timon, that mean eyes have seen
The foot above the head.

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I am not of that feather, to shake off
My friend when he must need me. I do know him
A gentleman, that well deserves a help,
Which he shall have: I'll pay the debt, and free him.

Ven. Serv. Your lordship ever binds him.

Tim. Commend me to him: I will send his ransome; And, being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me :'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, But to support him after.-Fare you well. Ven. Serv All happiness to your honour! [Exit. Enter an old Athenian.

Old Ath. Lord Timon, hear me speak.

Tim.
Freely, good father.
Old Ath. Thou hast a servant nam'd Lucilius.
Tim. I have so: What of him?

Old Ath. Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.
Tim. Attends he here, or no?-Lucilius !

Enter LUCILIUS.

[ture,

Luc. Here, at your lordship's service. Old Ath. This fellow here, lord Timon, this thy creaBy night frequents my house. I am a man That from my first have been inclin'd to thrift; And my estate deserves an heir more rais'd, Than one which holds a trencher.

Tim. Well; what further? Old Ath. One only daughter have I, no kin else, On whom I may confer what I have got: The maid is fair, o'the youngest for a bride, And I have bred her at my dearest cost, In qualities of the best. This man of thine Attempts her love: I pr'ythee, noble lord, Join with me to forbid him her resort; Myself have spoke in vain. Tim. The man is honest. Old Ath. Therefore he will be, Timon: His honesty rewards him in itself, It must not bear my daughter.

Tim.

Does she love him?

Old Ath. She is young, and apt: Our own precedent passions do ínstruct us What levity's in youth.

Tim. [To LUCILIUS.] Love you the maid?

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