There can be little doubt that Shakspere had before him Caxton's translation of the Recuyel of the Historyes of Troy,' and there the names of the gates are thus given: "In this cittie were sixe principall gates: of which the one was named Dardane, the second Tymbria, the thyrd Helias, the fourth, Chetas, the fifth Troyan, and the sixt Antenorides." But he was also familiar with the Troy Boke' of Lydgate, in which the six gates are described as Dardanydes, Tymbria, Helyas, Cetheas, Trojana, Anthonydes. It is difficult

a

And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard:-And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd,°-but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but suited
In like conditions as our argument,—
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.

Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 't is but the chance of war.

to say whether Shakspere meant to take the Antenorides of Caxton, or the Anthonydes of Lydgate; or whether, the names being pure inventions of the middle age of romancewriters, he deviated from both. As it is, we have retained the Antenorides of the modern editors.

a Fulfilling. The verb fulfil is here used in the original sense of fill full.

b Sperr up. The original has stirre up, which Tieck considers preferable to Theobald's substitution of sperr up. Desirous as we are to hold to the original, we cannot agree with Tieck. The relative positions of each force are contrasted. The Greeks pitch their pavilions on Dardan plains; the Trojans are shut up in their six-gated city. The commentators give us examples of the use of sperr, in the sense of to fasten, by Spenser and earlier writers. They have overlooked a passage in Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida' (book v.), which Shakspere must have had before him in the composition of his play :

For when he saw her dorés sperred all,

Wel nigh for sorrow adoun he gan to fall."

c Arm'd. Johnson has pointed out that the prologue was spoken by one of the characters in armour. This was noticed, because in general the speaker of the Prologue wore a black cloak. (See Collier's Annals of the Stage,' (vol. iii., p. 442.)

d Vaunt-the van.

Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.

Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Ay, the grinding: but you must tarry the bolting.

Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Ay, the bolting: but you must tarry the leavening.

Tro. Still have I tarried.

Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word hereafter, the kneading, the making of

a Needs is not found in the quarto, and is consequently omitted in all modern editions.

81

the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking: nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,

Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.
At Priam's royal table do I sit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,— So, traitor! when she comes!-When is she thence ?

Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

Tro. I was about to tell thee,-When my heart,

As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain;
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have (as when the sun doth light a storm)
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile :
But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to,) there were no more comparison between the women.-But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her,-But I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but

Tro. O, Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,— When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad In Cressid's love: Thou answer'st, she is fair; Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her

a This line as it stands is an ingenious and tasteful correction by Rowe. The line in both the originals appears thus:

"So (traitor) then she comes when she is thence."

b We do not receive this passage as an interjection beginning "O! that her hand;" for what does Troilus desire? -the wish is incomplete. The meaning we conceive to be rather, in thy discourse thou handlest that hand of hers, in whose comparison, &c.

e Johnson explains spirit of sense as the most exquisite sensibility of touch.

Pan. I speak no more than truth. Tro. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair 't is the better for her; an she be not she has the mends in her own hands.

Tro. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? Pan. I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of her, and ill-thought on of you : gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what,

with me?

Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 't is all one to me.

Tro. Say I she is not fair?

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. Tro. Pandarus,— Pan. Not I.

:

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end.

[Exit PANDARUS. An alarum. Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;

It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo,
As she is stubborn-chaste, against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we ?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself, the merchant; and this sailing Pandar,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

Alarum. Enter ENEAS.

Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield?

Tro. Because not there: This woman's answer

sorts,

For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?

Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt. Tro. By whom, Æneas? Ene. Troilus, by Menelaus. Tro. Let Paris bleed: 't is but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum Ene. Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day!

and no use; or purblinded Argus, all eyes and no sight.

Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

Alex. They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector

you

bound

Cres. Who were those went by?
Alex.
Cres. And whither go they?
Alex.

Queen Hecuba, and Helen.

Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale,

To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd:
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.
Cres.

?

What was his cause of anger Alex. The noise goes, this: There is among

the Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him Ajax.

Cres.

Enter PANDarus.

Cres. Who comes here?

Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Cres. Hector's a gallant man.
Alex. As may be in the world, lady.
Pan. What's that? what's that?
Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of ?-Good morrow, Alexander. How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium ? 1 Cres. This morning, uncle.

Pan. What were you talking of when I came ? Was Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not

up.

Pan. E'en so; Hector was stirring early.
Cres. That were we talking of, and of his
anger.
Pan. Was he angry?
Cres. So he says here.

Pan. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that : and there's Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus; I can tell them that too.

Cres. What, is he angry too?

Pan. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

Good;

and what of him?

Do

Alex. They say he is a very man per se,

And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: He hath the joints of everything; but everything so ont of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands

G 2

Cres. O, Jupiter! there's no comparison. Pan. What, not between Troilus and Hector? you know a man if you see him?

Cres. Ay; if I ever saw him before, and knew