sion shall have a praife in prefent; we will not name defert before his birth, and, being born, his addition fhall be humble; few words to fair faith. Troilus fhall be fuch to Creffida, as what envy can fay worst, fhall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can fpeak trueft, not truer than Troilus.

Cre. Will you walk in, my lord?

Pan. What blufhing ftill? have you not done talk ing yet?

Cre. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.

Pan. I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you'll give him me; be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.

Troi. You know now your hoftages; your uncle's word and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too; our kindred, though they be long ere they are woo'd, they are conftant, being won; they are burrs, I can tell you, they'll stick where they are thrown.

Cre. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me
heart:

Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day,
For many weary months.

Troi. Why was my Creffid then fo hard to win?
Cre. Hard to feem won: but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever-pardon me
If I confefs much, you will play the tyrant;
I love you now; but not till now, fo much
But I might master it—in faith, I lie-
My thoughts were, like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother; fee, we fools!
Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us,

When

When we are fo unfecret to our felves?
But though I lov❜d you well, I woo'd you not;
And yet, good faith, I wifht my self a man:
Or that We women had men's privilege,

Of fpeaking firft. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue;
For in this rapture I fhall furely speak

The thing I fhall repent; fee, fee, your filence
(Cunning in dumbnefs) from my weakness draws
My very foul of counfel. Stop my mouth.

Troi. And fhall, albeit fweet mufick iffues thence.
[Kiffing.

Pan. Pretty, i'faith

Cre. My lord, I do befeech you, pardon me; 'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kifs:

I am afham'd; -O heavens, what have I done!For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

Troi. Your leave, fweet Creffid?

Pan. Leave! an you take leave till to morrow
morning-

Cre. Pray you, content you.
Troi. What offends you, lady?
Cre. Sir, mine own company..
Troi. You cannot fhun your self.
Cre. Let me go try:

I have a kind of felf refides with you:
But an unkind self, that it self will leave,

To be another's fool. Where is my wit?
I would be gone: I fpeak, I know not what.
Troi. Well know they what they speak, that speak
fo wifely.

Cre. Perchance, my lord, I fhew more craft than love,

And fell fo roundly to a large confeffion,

To angle for your thoughts: but you are wife,
Or else you love not: To be wife and love,
Exceeds man's might, and dwells with Gods above.
Troi. O, that I thought it could be in a woman,

(As

(As, if it can, I will prefume in you,)
To feed for ay her lamp and flames of love,
To keep her conftancy in plight and youth
Out-living Beauties outward; with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or, that perfwafion could but once convince me,
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of fuch a winnow'd purity in love:
How were I then up-lifted! but alas,
I am as true as Truth's fimplicity,
3 And fimpler than the infancy of truth.
Cre. In that I'll war with you.

Troi. O virtuous fight!

When Right with Right warrs who fhall be moft right.

True fwains in love shall in the world to come • Approve their truths by Troilus; when their rhimes, • Full of proteft, of oath, and big compare,

4

• Want fimilies: truth, tired with iteration, • As true as steel, as + Plantage to the Moon, • As Sun to day, as turtle to her mate,

• As iron to adamant, as earth to th' center; Yet after all comparisons of truth,

3 And fimpler than the infancy of truth.] This is fine: and means, Ere truth, to defend itself against deceit in the commerce of the world, had, out of neceffity, learn'd worldly policy.

4 Plantage to the Moon.] I formerly made a filly conjecture, that the true reading was,

Planets to their Moons.

But I did not reflect that it was wrote before Galileo had difcovered the Satellites of Jupiter; this play being printed in 1609, and that difcovery made in 1710. So that Plantage to the Moon is right, and alludes to the common opinion of the influence the Moon has over what is planted or fown, which was therefore done in the increase.

Rite Latona puerum canentes,
Rite crefcentem face noctilucam,
Profperam frugum

Hor. L.

4.

Od. 6.

* (As

As truth authentick, ever to be cited,
As true as Troilus, fhall crown up the verse,
And fanctifie the numbers.

Cre. Prophet may you be!

• If I be falle, or fwerve a hair from truth,
• When time is old and hath forgot it felf,
When water-drops have worn the ftones of Troy,
And blind Oblivion swallow'd Cities up,
And mighty States characterlefs are grated
To dufty Nothing; yet let Memory,

From falfe to falfe, among false maids in love, • Upbraid my falfehood! when they've said, as false As air, as water, as wind, as fandy earth;

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf;
Pard to the hind, or ftep-dame to her son;
Yea, let them fay, to stick the heart of falsehood,
As falfe as Crefid.-

Pan. Go to, a bargain made: feal it, feal it, I'll be the witnefs. Here I hold your hand; here my coufin's; if ever you prove falie to one another, fince I have taken fuch pains to bring you together, let all pitiful Goers-between be call'd to the world's end after my name; call them all Pandars: (a) let all inconftant men be Troilus's, all falfe women Creffida's, and all brokers between Pandars: fay, Amen.

Troi. Amen!

Cre. Amen!

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will fhew you a bedchamber; which bed, because it fhall not fpeak of

5 As TRUTH'S AUTHENTIC AUTHOR to be cited] This line is abfolute nonfenie. We should read,

As TRUTH AUTHENTIC, EVER to be cited.

i. e. when all comparifons of truth are exhaufted, they fhall be then all fummed up in this great one, this authentic truth ever to be cited, as true as Troilus.

[(a) let, all inconftant men. Oxford Editor.-Vulg. let all conftant men.]

your

your pretty encounters, press it to death: away.
And Cupid grant all tongue-ty'd maidens here,
Bed, chamber, and Pandar to provide this Geer!

SCENE

VI.

Changes to the Grecian Camp.

[Exeunt.

Enter Agamemnon, Ulyffes, Diomedes, Neftor, Ajax, Menelaus, and Calchas.

Cal.

•NOW

JOW, Princes, for the fervice I have done you, Th' advantage of the time prompts me aloud To call for recompenfe: appear it to you,

6

6

appear it to you,

That, through the fight I bear in things to come,

That,

I own

I have abandon'd Troy.-] This reafoning perplexes Mr. Theobald, He forefaw his country was undone; he ran over to the Greeks; and this he makes a merit of, fays the Editor. (continues he) the motives of his oratory feem to me fomevihat per verfe and unartful. Nor do I know how to reconcile it, unless our poet purposely intended to make Chalcas act the part of a TRUE PRIEST, and fo from motives of felf-intereft infinuate the merit of fervice. The Editor did not know how to reconcile this. Nor I neither. For I don't know what he means by the motives of his oratory, or, from motives of felf-intereft to infinuate merit. But if he would infinuate, that it was the poet's defign to make his priest felf-interested, and to reprefent to the Greeks that what he did for his own preservation was done for their fervice, he is mistaken. Shakespear thought of nothing fo filly, as it would be to draw his priest a knave, in order to make him talk like a fool. Tho' that be the fate which generally attends their abufers. But Shakespear was no fuch; and confequently wanted not this cover for dulness. The perveseness is all the Editor's own, who interprets,

through the fight I have in things to come

I have abandoned Troy

To fignify, by my power of prefcience finding my country must be ruined, I have therefore abandoned it to feek refuge with you; whereas the true fenfe is, Be it known unto you, that on account of a gift or faculty I have of feeing things to come, which faculty I fuppofe would be efteemed by you as acceptable and useful, I have

abandoned