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Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates ;'
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;

The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolv'd, and loos'd;
And with another knot, five-finger-tied,'

The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy reliques
Of her o'er-eaten faith,' are bound to Diomed.
Ulyss. May worthy Troilus be half attach'd
With that which here his passion doth express?

Tro. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
In characters as red as Mars his heart

Inflam'd with Venus: never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.

Hark, Greek ;-As much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed:

That sleeve is mine, that he'll bear on his helm ;
Were it a casque compos'd by Vulcan's skill,
My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout,
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constring'd in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
In his descent, than shall my promted sword
Falling on Diomed.

Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy.

Tro. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false ! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,

And they'll seem glorious.

Ulyss. O, contain yourself;

Your passion draws ears hither.

Enter ENEAS.

Ene. I have been seeking you this hour, 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 thanks.

[Exeunt TROLIUS, ENEAS, and ULYSSES. Ther. 'Would, I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode.

[2] A knot tied by giving her hand to Diomed.

JOHNSON.

[3] Vows which she has already swallowed once over. We still say of a faithless

man, that he has "eaten his words."

JOHNSON.

Patroclus will give me any thing for the intelligence of this whore the parrot will do no 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

SCENE III. '

Troy. Before PRIAM's Palace. Enter HECTOR and ANDRO

MACHE.

And. When was my lord so much ungently temper'd, To stop his ears against admonishment?

Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.

Hect. You train me to offend you; get you in :

By all the everlasting gods, I'll go.

And. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day. Hect. No more, I say.

Enter CASSANDRA.

Cas. Where is my brother Hector?

And. Here, sister; arm'd, and bloody in intent: Consort with me in loud and dear petition,

Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream'd

Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night

Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
Cas. O, it is true.

Hect. Ho! bid my trumpet sound!

Cas. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother. Hect. Begone, I say; the gods have heard me swear. Cas. 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

TYRWHITT

i. e. To use violent thefts, because we would give much. [5] The mad prophetess speaks here with all the coolness of a skilful casuis "The essence of a lawful vow is a lawful purpose, and the vow of which the end is wrong must not be regarded as cogent."

[6] Dear-valuable. JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

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, youth, I am to-day i'the vein of chivalry:

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'll 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."

Hect. What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it. Tro. When many times the captive Grecians fall, Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,

You bid them rise, and live.

Hect. O, 'tis fair play.

Tro. Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.

Hect. How now? how now ?

Tro. For the love of all the gods,

Let's leave this 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. Fie, savage, fie!

Tro. Hector, then 'tis wars

Hect. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.
Tro. Who should withhold me ?

Not 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.

[7] The traditions and stories of the darker ages abounded with examples of the lion's generosity. Upon the supposition that these acts of clemency were true, Troilus reasons not improperly, that to spare against reason, by mere instinct of pity, beJOHNSON. came rather a generous beast than a wise man.

[8] Shakespeare seems not to have studied the Homeric character of Hector, whose disposition was by no means inclined to clemency, as we may learn from Ap dromache's speech in the 24th Iliad:

For thy stern father never spar'd a foe."

"Thy father boy, bore never into fight

Pope.

A milky mind,"

Cowper.

STEEVENS.

WARBURTON

VOL. V.

43

[9] Tears that continue to course one another down the fece.

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. Æneas 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.

You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
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 ANDRO. 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 anticks, one another meet,
And all cry--Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector!
Tro. Away!-Away!-

Cas. Farewell.-Yet, soft :-Hector, I take
Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.

my

leave: [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 PRI. and HECT. Alarums

Tro. They are at it; hark! Proud Diomed, believe, I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.'

As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side
PANDARUS.

Pan. Do you hear, my lord? do you hear?
Tro. What now?

Pan. Here's a letter from yon' poor girl.

Tro. Let me read.

Pan. A whoreson ptisick, a whoreson rascally ptisick 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 from the [Tearing the letter.

heart;

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.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt severally.

Between Troy and the Grecian Camp. Alarums: Excur sions. Enter THERSITES.

Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same 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

[1] In the folios, and one of the quartos, this scene is continued by the following dialogue between Pandarus and Troilus, which the poet certainly meant to have been inserted at the end of the play, where the three concluding lines of it are repeated in the copies already mentioned. There can be no doubt but that the players shuffled the parts backward and forward, ad libitum ; for the poet would hardly have given us an unnecessary repetition of the same words, nor have dismissed Pandarus twice in the same manuer. STEEVENS.

The three lines alluded to, which are found in the folio at the end of this scene, as well as near the conclusion of the play, are these ⚫

"Pand. Why but hear you-----

Tro. Hence, broker lacquey! ignomy and shame
Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!"

But in the original copy in quarto there is no repetition (except of the words--But hear you); no absurdity or impropriety. In that copy the following dialogue between Troilus and Pandarus is found in its present place, precisely as it is here given; but the three lines above quoted do not constitute any part of the scene

MALONE.

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