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SCENE III.

The Grecian Camp.

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, Nestor, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done you, The advantage of the time prompts me aloud To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind,3 That, through the sight I bear in things, to Jove⭑ I have abandon'd Troy,5 left my possession,

3

Appear it to your mind,] Sir Thomas Hanmer, very properly in my opinion, reduces this line to measure, by reading: Appear it to you,-. Steevens.

4

through the sight I bear in things, to Jove &c.] This passage, in all the modern editions, is silently depraved, and printed thus:

-.

through the sight I bear in things to come, The word is so printed that nothing but the sense can determine whether it be love or Jove. I believe that the editors read it as love, and therefore made the alteration to obtain some meaning. Johnson

I do not perceive why love, the clear and evident reading of both the quartos and folios, should be passed over without some attempt to explain it. In my opinion it may signify-"No longer assisting Troy with my advice, I have left it to the dominion of love, to the consequences of the amour of Paris and Helen."

5 That, through the sight Ibear in things, to Jove

Steevens.

I have abandon'd Troy, &c.] This reasoning perplexes Mr. Theobald: "He foresaw his country was undone; he ran over to the Greeks; and this he makes a merit of (says the editor). I own (continues he) the motives of his oratory seem to be somewhat perverse and unnatural. Nor do I know how to reconcile it, unless our poet purposely intended to make Calchas act the part of a true priest, and so from motives of self-interest insinuate the merit of service." The editor did not know how to reconcile this. Nor I neither. For I do not know what he means by "the motives of his oratory," or, "from motives of self-interest to insinuate merit." But if he would insinuate, that it was the poet's design to make his priest self-interested, and to represent to the Greeks that what he did for his own preservation, was done for their service, he is mistaken. Shakspeare thought of nothing so silly, as it would be to draw his priest a knave, in order to make him talk like a fool. Though that be the fate which generally attends their abusers. But Shakspeare was no such; and consequently wanted not this cover for duiness. The perverseness is all the editor's own, who interprets,

Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniencies,

through the sight I have in things to come,

I have abandon'd Troy,

to signify," by my power of preseience finding my country must be ruined, I have therefore abandoned it to seek refuge with you;" whereas the true sense is, "Be it known unto you, that on account of a gift or faculty I have of seeing things to come, which faculty I suppose would be esteemed by you as acceptable and useful, I have abandoned Troy my native country." That he could not mean what the editor supposes, appears from these considerations: First, if he had represented himself as running from a falling city, he could never have said:

"I have expos'd myself,

"From certain and possess'd conveniencies,
"To doubtful fortunes;

Secondly, the absolute knowledge of the fall of Troy was a secret hid from the inferior gods themselves; as appears from the poetical history of that war. It depended on many contingencies, whose existence they did not foresee. All that they knew was, that if such and such things happened, Troy would fall. And this secret they communicated to Cassandra only, but along with it, the fate not to be believed. Several others knew each a several part of the secret; one, that Troy could not be taken unless Achilles went to the war; another, that it could not fall while it had the palladium; and so on. But the secret, that it was absolutely to fall, was known to none.-The sense here given will admit of no dispute amongst those who know how acceptable a scer was amongst the Greeks. So that this Calchas, like a true priest, if it needs must be so, went where he could exercise his profession with most advantage. For it being much less common amongst the Greeks than the Asiatics, there would be a greater demand for it. Warburton.

I am afraid, that after all the learned commentator's efforts to clear the argument of Calchas, it will still appear liable to objection; nor do I discover more to be urged in his defence, than that though his skill in divination determined him to leave Troy, yet that he joined himself to Agamemnon and his army by unconstrained good-will; and though he came as a fugitive escaping from destruction, yet his services after his reception, being voluntary and important, deserved reward This argument is not regularly and distinctly deduced, but this is, I think, the best explication that it will yet admit. Johnson.

In page 17, n. 3, an account has been given of the motives which induced Calchas to abandon Troy. The services to which he alludes, a short quotation from Lydgate will sufficiently explain. Auncient Hist. &c. 1555:

"He entred into the oratorye,

"And besily gan to knele and praye,
"And his things devoutly for to saye,

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To doubtful fortunes; séquest'ring from me ali
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,

"And to the god crye and call full stronge;
"And for Apollo would not tho prolonge,
"Sodaynly his answere gan attame,
"And sayd Calchas twies by his name;
"Be right well 'ware thou ne tourne agayne
"To Troy towne, for that were but in vayne,
"For finally lerne this thynge of me,
"In shorte tyme it shall destroyed be:
"This is in sooth, whych may not be denied.
"Wherefore I will that thou be alyed
"With the Greekes, and with Achilles go
"To them anone; my will is, it be so:-
"For thou to them shall be necessary,
"In counseling and in giving rede,

"And be right helping to their good spede."

Mr. Theobald thinks it strange that Calchas should claim any merit for having joined the Greeks after he had said that he knew his country was undone; but there is no inconsistency: he had left, from whatever cause, what was dear to him, his country, friends, children, &c. and, having joined and served the Greeks, was entitled to protection and reward.

On the phrase-As new into the world, (for so the old copy reads) I must observe, that it appears from a great number of passages in our old writers, the word into was formerly often used in the sense of unto, as it evidently is here. In proof of this assertion the following passages may be adduced:

"It was a pretty part in the old church-playes when the nimble Vice would skip up nimbly like a jackanapes into the devil's necke, and ride the devil a course." Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, 4to. 1602.

Again, in a letter written by J. Paston, July 8, 1468; Paston Letters, Vol. II, p. 5: "- and they that have justed with him into this day, have been as richly beseen," &c.

Again, in Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenelworth, 1575: "- what time it pleased her to ryde forth into the chase, to hunt the hart of fors; which found, anon," &c.

Chase, indeed, may mean here, the place in which the Queen hunted; but I believe it is employed in the more ordinary sense. Again, in Daniel's Civil Warres, B. IV, st. 72, edit. 1602: "She doth conspire to have him made away,

"Thrust thereinto not only with her pride,
"But by her father's counsell and consent."

Again, in our author's All's Well that Ends Well:

I'll stay at home,

"And pray God's blessing into thy attempt." Malone. The folio reads

in things to love,

which appears to me to have no meaning, unless we adopt the

Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit,

Out of those many register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.

Agam. What would'st thou of us, Trojan? make demand.

Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,
Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore)
Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied: But this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest in their affairs,7

explanation of Mr. Steevens, which would make sense of it. The present reading, though supported by Johnson and Malone, is little better than nonsense, and there is this objection to it, that it was Juno not Jove, that persecuted the Trojans. Jove wished them well; and though we may abandon a man to his enemies, we cannot, with propriety, say, that we abandon him to his friends. Let me add, that the speech of Calchas would have been incomplete, if he had said that he abandoned Troy, from the sight he bore of things, without explaining it, by adding the words-to come. I should, therefore, adhere to that reading, which I consider as one of those happy amendments which do not require any authority to support them.

The merit of Calchas did not merely consist in his having come over to the Greeks; he also revealed to them the fate of Troy, which depended on their conveying away the palladium, and the horses of Rhesus, before they should drink of the river Xanthus. M. Mason.

6- Antenor,] Very few particulars respecting this Trojan are preserved by Homer. But as Professor Heyne, in his seventh Excursus to the first Æneid, observes, "Fuit Antenor inter eos, in quorum rebus ornandis ii maxime scriptores laborarunt, qui narrationes Homericas novis commentis de suo onerarunt; non aliter ac si delectatio a mere fabulosis et temore effusis figmentis proficisceretur." Steevens.

71

such a wrest in their affairs,] According to Dr. Johnson, who quotes this line in his Dictionary, the meaning is, that the loss of Antenor is such a violent distortion of their affairs, &c. But as in a former scene [see p. 44-n. 1,] we had o'er-rested for o'er-wrested, so here I strongly suspect wrest has been printed instead of rest. Antenor is such a stay or support of their affairs, &c. All the ancient English muskets had rests by which they were supported. The subsequent words-wanting his manage

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That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,

In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,

In most accepted pain. 8

Let Diomed bear him,

Agam.
And bring us Cressid hither; Calchas shall have
What he requests of us.-Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal, bring word-if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

[Exeunt Dio. and CAL.

appear to me to confirm the emendation. To say that Antenor himself (for so the passage runs, not the loss of Antenor,) is a violent distortion of the Trojan negotiations, is little better than nonsense. Malone.

I have been informed that a wrest anciently signified a sort of tuning hammer, by which the strings of some musical instruments were screwed or wrested up to their proper degree of tension. Antenor's advice might be supposed to produce a conge. nial effect on the Trojan councils, which otherwise

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66

must slack,

Wanting his manage;

Steevens.

Wrest is not misprinted for rest, as Mr. Malone supposes, in his correction of Dr. Johnson, who has certainly mistaken the sense of this word. It means an instrument for tuning the harp by drawing up the strings. Laneham, in his Letter from Kenilworth, p. 50, describing a minstrel, says, his harp in good grace dependaunt before him; his wreast tyed to a green lace and hanging by." And again, in Wynne's History of the Gwedir Family: "And setting forth very early before day, unwittingly carried upon his finger the wrest of his cosen's harpe." To wrest is to wind. See Minsheu's Dictionary. The form of the wrest may be seen in some of the illuminated service books, wherein David is represented playing on his harp; in the second part of Mersenna's Harmonics, p. 69; and in the Syntagmata of Prætorius, Vol. II, Fig. xix. Douce.

8 In most accepted pain.] Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him read:

In most accepted pay.

They do not seem to understand the construction of the passage. Her presence, says Calchas, shall strike off, or recompense the serrice have done, even in those labours which were most accepted.

Johnson.

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