Come, tie his body to my horse's tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail. [Exeunt. SCENE X. The same. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and Others, marching. Shouts within. AGAM. Hark! hark! what shout is that? NEST. [Within.] Peace, drums. Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain! Achilles! DIO. The bruit is-Hector's slain, and by Achilles. AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be; Great Hector was as good a man as he. AGAM. March patiently along:-Let one be sent To pray Achilles see us at our tent.If in his death the gods have us befriended, Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended. [Exeunt, marching. elder piece, which the reader will find mentioned in p. 223, n. 2. Some of the scenes therefore he might have fertilized, and left others as barren as he found them. STEEVENS. 4 * Along the field I will the Trojan trail.] Such almost (changing the name of Troilus for that of Hector) is the argu ment of Lydgate's 31st chapter, edit. 1555: "How Achilles slewe the worthy Troylus unknyghtly, and after trayled his body through the fyelde tyed to his horse." STEEVENS. And, stickler like, the armies separates. My half-supp'd sword," that frankly would have fed, Pleas'd with this dainty bit, thus goes to bed.[Sheaths his Sword. * And, stickler-like,] A stickler was one who stood by to part the combatants when victory could be determined without bloodshed. They are often mentioned by Sidney." Anthony (says Sir Thomas North, in his translation of Plutarch,) was himself in person a stickler to part the young men when they had fought enough." They were called sticklers, from carrying sticks or staves in their hands, with which they interposed between the duellists. We now call these sticklers-sidesmen. So, again, in a comedy, called, Fortune by Land and Sea, by Heywood and Rowley: "'tis not fit that every apprentice should with his shop-club play between us the stickler." Again, in the tragedy of Faire Mariam, 1613: "And was the stickler 'twixt my heart and him." Again, in Fuimus Troes, 1633: "As sticklers in their nation's enmity." STEEVENS. Minsheu gives the same etymology, in his Dictionary, 1617: "A stickler betweene two, so called as putting a stick or staffé between two fighting or fencing together." MALONE. Sticklers are arbitrators, judges, or, as called in some places, sidesmen. At every wrestling in Cornwall, before the games begin, a certain number of sticklers are chosen, who regulate the proceedings, and determine every dispute. The nature of the English language, as I conceive, does not allow the derivation of stickler from stick, which, as a word, it has not the remotest connection with. Stickler (stic-kle-er) is immediately from the verb stickle, to interfere, to take part with, to busy one's self in any matter. RITSON. 3 My half-supp'd sword, &c.] These four despicable verses, as well as the rhyming fit with which "the blockish Ajax” is afterwards seized, could scarce have fallen from the pen of our author, in his most unlucky moments of composition. STEEVENS. Whatever may have been the remainder of this speech, as it came out of Shakspeare's hands, we may be confident that this bombast stuff made no part of it. Our author's gold was stolen, and the thief's brass left in its place. RITSON. Perhaps this play was hastily altered by Shakspeare from an Come, tie his body to my horse's tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail. [Exeunt. SCENE X. The same. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NEStor, DIOMEDES, and Others, marching. Shouts within. AGAM. Hark! hark! what shout is that? NEST. [Within.] Peace, drums. Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain! Achilles! Dro. The bruitis-Hector's slain, and by Achilles. AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be ; Great Hector was as good a man as he. To AGAM. March patiently along:-Let one be sent pray Achilles see us at our tent. If in his death the gods have us befriended, Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended. [Exeunt, marching. elder piece, which the reader will find mentioned in p. 223, n. 2. Some of the scenes therefore he might have fertilized, and left others as barren as he found them. STEEVENS. 4 • Along the field I will the Trojan trail.] Such almost (changing the name of Troilus for that of Hector) is the argu ment of Lydgate's 31st chapter, edit. 1555: "How Achilles slewe the worthy Troylus unknyghtly, and after trayled his body through the fyelde tyed to his horse." STEEVENS. 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!" Never go home; &c.] This line is in the quarto given to Troilus. JOHNSON. smile at Troy!] Thus the ancient copies; but it would better agree with the rest of Troilus's wish, were we to read, with a former editor: There can be no doubt but we should read-smite at, instead of-smile. The following words, "I say, at once," make that unquestionable. To call upon the heavens to frown, and on the Gods to smile, at the self-same moment, would be too absurd even for that violent agitation of mind with which Troilus is supposed to be actuated. M. MASON. Smite was introduced into the text by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and adopted by Dr. Warburton. I believe the old reading is the true one. Mr. Upton thinks that Shakspeare had the Psalmist in view: "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn; the I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy, 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: There is a word will Priam turn to stone; 8 Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives," Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains, Lord shall have them in derision." Ps. ii. 4. "The Lord shall laugh him to scorn; for he hath seen that his day is coming." Ps. xxxvii. 13. In the passage before us, (he adds,) "the heavens are the ministers of the Gods to execute their vengeance, and they are bid to frown on; but the Gods themselves smile at Troy; they hold Troy in derision, for its day is coming." MALONE. 7 Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,] I adopt the conjecture of a deceased friend, who would read-welland, i. e. weeping Niobes. The Saxon termination of the participle in and, for ing, is common in our old poets, and often corrupted at the press. So, in Spenser : "His glitterand armour shined far away." Where the common editions have-glitter and. WHALLEY. There is surely no need of emendation. STEEVens. 9 Cold-] The old copy-Coole. STEEVENS. -pight—] i. e. pitched, fixed. The obsolete preterite and participle passive of to pitch. So, Spenser: "Then brought she me into this desert vast, STEEVENS. |