AGAM.

Speak frankly as the wind;3

It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour:
That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

ENE.

Trumpet, blow loud, Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;And every Greek of mettle, let him know, What Troy means fairly, shall be spoke aloud. [Trumpet sounds. We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince call'd Hector, (Priam is his father,) Who in this dull and long-continued truce* Is rusty grown; he bade me take a trumpet, And to this purpose speak. Kings, princes, lords! If there be one, among the fair'st of Greece, That holds his honour higher than his ease; That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril; That knows his valour, and knows not his fear That loves his mistress more than in confession,

3

5

;

Speak frankly as the wind;] So, Jaques, in As you like it:
I must have liberty

66

"Withal, as large a charter as the wind

"To blow on whom I please ;

-." STEEVens.

long-continued truce-] Of this long truce there has been no notice taken; in this very Act it is said, that Ajax coped Hector yesterday in the battle. JOHNSON.

Here we have another proof of Shakspeare's falling into inconsistencies, by sometimes adhering to, and sometimes deserting, his original: a point, on which some stress has been laid in the Dissertation printed at the end of The Third Part of King Henry VI. See Vol. XIV. p. 255-6.

Of this dull and long-continued truce (which was agreed upon at the desire of the Trojans, for six months,) Shakspeare found an account in the seventh chapter of the third Book of The Destruction of Troy. In the fifteenth chapter of the same book the beautiful daughter of Calchas is first introduced. MALONE. -rusty-] Quarto,-resty. JOHNSON.

5

6

more than in confession,] Confession for profession. WARBURTON.

The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth:1
But what the repining enemy commends,

That breath fame follows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.

AGAM. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Æneas? ENE. Ay, Greek, that is my name.

AGAM.

What's your affair, I pray you?* ENE. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears. AGAM. He hears nought privately, that comes from Troy.

ENE. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him; I bring a trumpet to awake his ear;

To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.

"The god of soldiers

"(With the consent of supreme Jove) inform
"Thy thoughts with nobleness.”

Jove's accord, in the present instance, like the Jove probante of Horace, may be an ablative absolute, as in Pope's version of the 19th Iliad, 190:

"And, Jove attesting, the firm compact made."

'The worthiness of praise distains his worth,

STEEVENS,

If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth:] So, in Coriolanus:

2

1

66

-power unto itself most commendable,

"Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair

"To extol what it hath done." MALONE.

* What's your affair, I pray you?] The words-I pray you, are an apparent interpolation, and consequently destroy the mea

sure.

" Æn. Ay, Greek, that is my name,

66 Agam.

What's your affair?-" These hemistichs, joined together, form a complete verse.

STEEVENS.

AGAM. Speak frankly as the wind;" It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour: That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,

He tells thee so himself.

ENE.

Trumpet, blow loud, Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;And every Greek of mettle, let him know, What Troy means fairly, shall be spoke aloud. [Trumpet sounds. We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince call'd Hector, (Priam is his father,) Who in this dull and long-continued truce* Is rusty grown; he bade me take a trumpet, And to this purpose speak. Kings, princes, lords! If there be one, among the fair'st of Greece, That holds his honour higher than his ease; That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril; That knows his valour, and knows not his fear; That loves his mistress more than in confession,"

3

Speak frankly as the wind;] So, Jaques, in As you like it:
66 I must have liberty

"Withal, as large a charter as the wind
"To blow on whom I please ;-

.." STEEVEns.

-long-continued truce-] Of this long truce there has been no notice taken; in this very Act it is said, that Ajax coped Hector yesterday in the battle. JOHNSON.

Here we have another proof of Shakspeare's falling into inconsistencies, by sometimes adhering to, and sometimes deserting, his original: a point, on which some stress has been laid in the Dissertation printed at the end of The Third Part of King Henry VI. See Vol. XIV. p. 255-6.

Of this dull and long-continued truce (which was agreed upon at the desire of the Trojans, for six months,) Shakspeare found an account in the seventh chapter of the third Book of The Destruction of Troy. In the fifteenth chapter of the same book the beautiful daughter of Calchas is first introduced. MALONE.

5

-rusty-] Quarto,-resty. JOHNSON.

more than in confession,] Confession for profession.

WARBURTON.

8

(With truant vows to her own lips he loves,7)
And dare avow her beauty and her worth,
In other arms than hers, to him this challenge.
Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,
Shall make it good, or do his best to do it,
He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer,
Than ever Greek did compass in his arms;
And will to-morrow with his trumpet call,
Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy,
To rouse a Grecian that is true in love:

If

any come, Hector shall honour him If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires, The Grecian dames are sun-burn'd, and not worth The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

AGAM. This shall be told our lovers, lord Æneas; If none of them have soul in such a kind, We left them all at home: But we are soldiers; And may that soldier a mere recreant prove, That means not, hath not, or is not in love! If then one is, or hath, or means to be, That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

NEST. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now; But, if there be not in our Grecian host1 One noble man, that hath one spark of fire

7 to her own lips he loves,] That is, confession made with idle vows to the lips of her whom he loves. JOHNson.

• In other arms than hers,] Arms is here used equivocally for the arms of the body, and the armour of a soldier.

· and not worth

MALONE.

The splinter of a lance.] This is the language of romance. Such a challenge would better have suited Palmerin or Amadis, than Hector or Æneas. STEEVENS.

1

in our Grecian host-] has-Grecian mould. MALONE.

So the quarto. The folio

To answer for his love, Tell him from me,-
I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vantbrace? put this wither'd brawn;
And, meeting him, will tell him, That my lady
Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste
As may be in the world; His youth in flood,
I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood."
ENE. Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth!
ULYSS. Amen.

AGAM. Fair lord Æneas, let me touch your hand;

To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.

Achilles shall have word of this intent;
So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent:
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
And find the welcome of a noble foe.

[Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR.

ULYSS. Nestor,

NEST. What says Ulysses?

ULYSS. I have a young conception in my brain, Be you my time to bring it to some shape.*

2 And in my vantbrace-] An armour for the arm, avant

bras. POPE.

Milton uses the word in his Sampson Agonistes, and Heywood in his Iron Age, 1632:

66

peruse his armour,

"The dint's still in the vantbrace."

STEEVENS.

I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.] So, in Coriolanus, one of the Volscian Guard says to old Menenius, "Back, I say, go, lest I let forth your half pint of blood." Thus the quarto. The folio reads-I'll pawn this truth.

MALONE.

Be you my time &c.] i. e. be you to my present purpose what time is in respect of all other schemes, viz. a ripener and bringer of them to maturity. STEEVENS.