Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard:-And hither am I come

So, in Spenser's Faery Queen, Book V. c. 10:
"The other that was entred, labour'd fast
"To Sperre the gate" &c.

Again, in the romance of The Squhr of Low Degre :
Sperde with manie a dyvers pynne."
And in The Vision of P. Plowman, it is faid that a blind man
" unsparryd his eine."

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, Book II. ch. 12: "When chased home into his holdes, there sparred up in gates." Again, in the 2nd Part of Bale's Actes of English Votaryes: "The dore thereof oft tymes opened and speared agayne."

STEEVENS.

Mr. Theobald informs us that the very names of the gates of Troy have been barbarously demolished by the editors; and a deal of learned dust he makes in setting them right again; much however to Mr. Heath's fatisfaction. Indeed the learning is modeftly withdrawn from the later editions, and we are quietly instructed to read

" Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scea, Trojan,
"And Antenorides."

But had he looked into the Troy boke of Lydgate, instead of puzzling himself with Dares Phrygius, he would have found the horrid demolition to have been neither the work of Shakspeare, nor his edi

tors:

"Therto his cyte | compassed enuyrowne
"Had gates VI to entre into the towne:
"The firste of all | and strengest eke with all,
Largest also | and moste princypall,
" Of myghty byldyng | alone pereless,
"Was by the kinge called | Dardanydes;
"And in storye | lyke as it is founde,
"Tymbria | was named the seconde;
"And the thyrde | called Helyas,
"The fourthe gate | hyghte alfo Cetheas;
"The fyfthe Trojana, ❘ the syxth Anthonydes,
"Stronge and mighty | both in werre and pes."

Lond. empr. by R. Pynson, 1513, fol. b. ii. ch. 11. The Troye Boke was fomewhat modernized, and reduced into regular stanzas, about the beginning of the last century, under the name of, The Life and Death of Hector who fought a Hundred

A prologue arm'd,'--but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but fuited
In like conditions as our argument,-
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
'Ginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digefted in a play.
Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians, wherein there were flaine on both Sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thousand, Fourscore and Sixe Men. - Fol. no date. This work Dr. Fuller, and several other criticks, have erroneoufly quoted as the original; and observe in consequence, that " if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined tandard for purer language: so that one might mistake him for a modern writer." FARMER.

On other occafions, in the course of this play, I shall infert quotations from the Troye Booke modernized, as being the most intelligible of the two. STEEVENS.

1 A prologue arm'd,] I come here to speak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the author's or actor's abilities, but merely in a character suited to the subject, in a dress of war, before a warlike play.

JOHNSON.

Motteux seems to have borrowed this idea in his prologue to Farquhar's Twin Rivals :

8

" With drums and trumpets in this warring age,
"A martial prologue should alarm the stage."

King Lear:

STEEVENS.

the vaunt-] i. e. the avant, what went before. So, in

"Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts."

STEEVENS.

The vaunt is the vanguard, called in our author's time the vauntguard. PERCY.

firstlings-] A fcriptural phrafe, fignifying the first produce or offspring. So, in Genesis, iv. 4: "And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock." STEEVENS.

Calchas, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks.

Pandarus, Uncle to Cressida.

Margarelon, a bastard son of Priam.

Agamemnon, the Grecian General:
Menelaus, his brother.

Achilles,

Ajax,
Ulyffes,

Neftor,
Diomedes,

Patroclus,

}

Grecian Commanders:

Thersites, a deformed and fcurrilous Grecian.
Alexander, fervant to Cressida.

Servant to Troilus; Servant to Paris; Servant to

Diomedes.

Helen, wife to Menelaus.

Andromache, wife to Hector.

Cassandra, daughter to Priam; a Prophetess.
Cressida, daughter to Calchas.

Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants.

SCENE, Troy, and the Grecian Camp before it.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

ACT I. SCENE I.
Troy. Before Priam's Palace.

Enter TROILus arm'd, and PANDARUS.

TRO. Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again:
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find fuch cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan, that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

PAN. Will this geer ne'er be mended??
TRO. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their

strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant; But I am weaker than a woman's tear,

2

my varlet,] This word anciently signified a servant or footman to a knight or warrior. So, Holinshed, speaking of the battle of Agincourt: diverse were releeved by their varlets, and conveied out of the field." Again, in an ancient epitaph in the church-yard of faint Nicas at Arras:

Cy gift Hakin et fon varlet,

"Tout dis-armè et tout di-pret,

"Avec son espé et falloche," &c. STEEVENS.

Concerning the word varlet, see Recherches historiques fur les cartes à jouer. Lyon, 1757. p. 61. M. C. TUTET.

3 Will this geer ne'er be mended?] There is fomewhat proverbial in this question, which I likewise meet with in the Interlude of King Darius, 1565:

Wyll not yet this geere be amended,

" Nor your finful acts corrected?" STEEVENS.

4 skilful to their ftrength, &c.] i. e. in addition to their strength. The fame phraseology occurs in Macbeth. See Vol. VII. p. 330, n. 5. STEEVENS.

Tamer than fleep, fonder than ignorance;
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 further. He, that will have a cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding.

TRO. Have I not tarry'd?

PAN. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

TRO. Have I not tarry'd ?

PAN. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

TRO. Still have I tarry'd.

PAN. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word-hereafter, the kneading, the making of 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 leffer blench at fufferance than I do. At Priam's royal table do I fit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,

4-fonder-] i. e. more weak, or foolish. See Vol. V. p. 483, n. 7. MALONE.

5 And skill-less &c.] Mr. Dryden, in his alteration of this play, has taken this speech as it stands, except that he has changed skill-less to artless, not for the better, because skill-less refers to skill and skilful. JOHNSON.

6 Doth leffer blench-] To blench is to shrink, start, or fly off.

So, in Hamlet :

if he but blench,

" I know my course."

Again, in The Pilgrim, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

men that will not totter,

"Nor blench much at a bullet." STEEVENS.