Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy's soul lies (13) in the doing: Love got so sweet as when desire did sue: Therefore this maxim out of love I teach, Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech :(14) Then, though my heart's content firm love doth bear, [Exeunt. SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON's tent. Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, Agam. Princes, What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? In all designs begun on earth below. Fails in the promis'd largeness: checks and disasters As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, That we come short of our suppose so far, That, after seven years' siege, yet Troy walls stand; That gave't surmisèd shape. Why, then, you princes, (13) lies] Mason would read "dies." (14) Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:] Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes "Achiev'd men still command," &c. : but if the text requires alteration (of which I have yet to be convinced), Mr. Harness's reading, "Achiev'd men us command," &c., is far preferable.-See Walker's Crit. Exam., &c., vol. ii. p. 313, where this passage is quoted without any suspicion of its being corrupt; and the editor's note ibid. Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our wrecks,(15) To find persistive constancy in men? The fineness of which metal is not found In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin: Nest. With due observance of thy godlike seat, Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of nobler bulk! But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat, And flies fled (16) under shade, why, then the thing of courage, (15) wrecks,] So Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.-The old eds. have "workes ;" which Walker (Crit. Exam., &c., vol. iii. p. 192) pronounces to be "palpably wrong." (16) fled "Perhaps flee," says Walker (Crit. Exam., &c., vol. ii. p. 68); which Capell gives. As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize, Ulyss. Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, In whom the tempers and the minds of all The which-[to Agamemnon] most mighty for thy place and sway,― [To Nestor] And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life I give to both your speeches,-which were such As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece Agam. Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect When rank Thersites opes his mastiff (20) jaws, We shall hear music, wit, and oracle. (19) (17) Retorts] So I conjectured in my Few Notes, &c., p. 107; and so too Mr. Grant White.-The quarto has "Retires;" the folio, "Retyres." -Pope printed "Returns ; " Hanmer, "Replies," which is the reading of Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.-Mr. Staunton gives "Re-chides." (18) Though] The old eds. have "Thou."-Corrected by Hanmer. (19) and be't of less expect, &c.] Here "expect" is explained to mean expectation. I have no doubt that the line is corrupted.-Pope gave "we less expect," &c.; Capell, “And we less expect," &c.; and Mr. W. N. Lettsom conjectures, "we no less expect," &c., i.e. "we are as sure of a bad speech from you as of a good one from Thersites. Ulysses makes a similarly inverted or ironical comparison below, p. 25; " as near as the extremest ends This speech is not in the quarto. (20) mastiff] The folio has "Masticke."-This speech is not in the quarto. Ulyss. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, The specialty of rule hath been neglected: What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, And posts, like the commandment of a king, What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny, The unity and married calm of states Hanmer (21) Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.] omitted the first "Hollow;" Steevens proposes to omit the second. (22) When that the general is not like the hive, &c.] "The meaning is, -When the general is not to the army like the hive to the bees, the repository of the stock of every individual, that to which each particular resorts with whatever he has collected for the good of the whole, chat honey is expected? what hope of advantage? The sense is clear, the expression is confused." JOHNSON.-Warburton reads "When that the general not likes the hive," &c. ; Heath proposes "When that the general's not the life of th' hive," &c.; and Capell prints "When that the general is not lik'd o' the hive," &c. (23) other;] Mr. Singer (Shakespeare Vindicated, &c., p. 192) reads "ether" in opposition to which reading Mr. Grant White observes, "It is not Sol's place in the ether, but his supremacy 'amidst the other' heavenly bodies, which Ulysses wishes to impress upon his hearers." Shakespeare's Scholar, &c., p. 354 Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shak'd, Then(24) enterprise is sick! How could communities, And the rude son should strike his father dead: And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, And this neglection of degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose (24) Then] So Hanmer.-The old eds. have "The." (25) primogenity] So the quarto ("primogenitie").—The folio has "primogenitiue.” "[The first 'universal'] wrong, surely." Walker's Crit. Exam., &c., vol. i. p. 307. |