ACT IV. (1) SCENE II.-A bugbear take him!] In the banter of Pandarus here, we have arch reminiscences of his prototype in "Troylus and Cryseyde: " "Pandare, on morwe whiche that comen was And seide, Al this night so reyned it, allas! Al night,' quod he, hath rain so do me wake, "And nigh he come and seid, How stant it now? (2) SCENE IV.-To our own selves bend we our needful talk.] The parting of the lovers, if not more natural, is managed with more pathos and delicacy in the elder poet : 'Cryseyde, when she redy was to ride, Ful sorwfully she sighte, and seyde, Allas!' What wonder is, though that hyre soore smerte, "This Troylus, in gise of curteysie, With hauke on hond, and with an huge route "And right with that was Antenor ycome "And therwithal he moot his leve take, "With that his courser turned he about, As he that konthe moore than the crede In swiche a craft, and by the reyne hire hente, And Troylus to Troye homwarde wente." (3) SCENE V.-HECTOR and AJAX fight.] In Chapman's Homer, the combat is described with uncommon pomp and spirit: "This said, in bright armes shone The good strong Ajax: who, when all his warre attire was on, Marcht like the hugely figur'd Mars, when angry Jupiter, With strength, on people proud of strength, sends him forth to inferre Wreakfull contention; and comes on, with presence full of feare; joynts Of all the Troians; Hectors selfe felt thoughts, with horrid points, Did frame it for exceeding proofe, and wrought it wondrous well. All thy bold challenge can import: begin then, words are vaine. I triumph in the crueltie of fixed combat fight, And manage horse to all designes; I think then with good right, Neere to the upper skirt of brasse, which was the eighth it held. Sixe folds th' untamed dart strooke through, and in the seventh. tough hide The point was checkt; then Ajax threw his angry lance did glide Quite through his bright orbicular targe, his curace, shirt of maile; drous great. Againe Priamides did wound, in midst, his shield of brasse, Full on the bosse; and round about the brasse did ring with it. streight. Then had they layd on wounds with swords, in use of closer fight; Doth love you both; both souldiers are, all witnesse with good right: But now night lays her mace on earth; tis good t'obey the night ACT V. (1) SCENE II.-Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.] Steevens cites several passages from our old writers to show that it was customary for warriors to wear a lady's sleeve for a favour; the sleeve which Cressida bestows on Diomed, however, was that she had received from Troilus at their parting. Malone supposes it to have been such a one as was formerly used at tournaments :-" Also the deepe smocke sleive, which the Irish women use, they say, was old Spanish, and is used yet in Barbary; and yet that should seeme rather to be an old English fashion, for in armory the fashion of the manche, which is given in armes by many, being indeed nothing else but a sleive, is fashioned much like to that sleive."-SPENSER'S View of Ireland, p. 43, edit. 1633. (2) SCENE II.-Rather think this not Cressid.] The grief of Troylus for his "light o' love" is beautifully told by the elder poet : "Than spak he thus:-'O, lady myn Cryseyde, Wher is youre feith, and wher is youre beheste? "Who shal nowe trowe on any other mo? "Was there non other broche yow liste lete You yaf, as for a remembraunce of me? "Thorwgh which I se, that clene out of youre minde Ye han me caste, and ne kan nor may For al this world withinne myn herte fynde, (3) SCENE IX. And hangs his shield behind him.] The circumstance of Hector being overpowered by Achilles and his followers when unarmed, the author is believed to have taken from Lydgate's poem : "And in this while a grekishe kinge he mette, The which in sothe on his cote armure Of whose arraye when Hector taketh hede, Y 2 CRITICAL OPINIONS ON TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. "THE "Troilus and Cressida' of Shakspeare can scarcely be classed with his dramas of Greek and Roman history; but it forms an intermediate link between the fictitious Greek and Roman histories, which we may call legendary dramas, and the proper ancient histories. There is no one of Shakspeare's plays harder to characterise. The name and the remembrances connected with it prepare us for the representation of attachment no less faithful than fervent on the side of the youth, and of sudden and shameless inconstancy on the part of the lady. And this is, indeed, as the gold thread on which the scenes are strung, though often kept out of sight and out of mind by gems of greater value than itself. But as Shakspeare calls forth nothing from the mausoleum of history, or the catacombs of tradition, without giving or eliciting some permanent and general interest, and brings forward no subject which he does not moralize or intellectualize, so here he has drawn in Cressida the portrait of a vehement passion, that, having its true origin and proper cause in warmth of temperament, fastens on, rather than fixes to, some one object by liking and temporary preference. 'There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, "This Shakspeare has contrasted with the profound affection represented in Troilus, and alone worthy the name of love;—affection, passionate indeed, swoln with the confluence of youthful instincts and youthful fancy, and growing in the radiance of hope newly risen, in short enlarged by the collective sympathies of nature ;-but still having a depth of calmer element in a will stronger than desire, more entire than choice, and which gives permanence to its own act by converting it into faith and duty. Hence, with excellent judgment, and with an excellence higher than mere judgment can give, at the close of the play, when Cressida has sunk into infamy below retrieval and beneath hope, the same will, which had been the substance and the basis of his love, while the restless pleasures and passionate longings, like sea-waves, had tossed but on its surface, this same moral energy is represented as snatching him aloof from all neighbourhood with her dishonour, from all lingering fondness and languishing regrets, whilst it rushes with him into other and nobler duties, and deepens the channel which his heroic brother's death had left empty for its collected flood. Yet another secondary and subordinate purpose Shakspeare has inwoven with his delineation of these two characters,—that of opposing the inferior civilization, but purer morals, of the Trojans, to the refinements, deep policy, but duplicity and sensual corruptions, of the Greeks. "To all this, however, so little comparative projection is given,-nay, the masterly group of Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses, and, still more in advance, that of Achilles, Ajax, and Thersites, so manifestly occupy the foreground, that the subservience and vassalage of strength and animal courage to intellect and policy seems to be the lesson most often in our poet's view, and which he has taken little pains to connect with the former more interesting moral impersonated in the titular hero and heroine of the drama. But I am half inclined to believe, that Shakspeare's main object, or shall I rather say, his ruling impulse, was to translate the poetic heroes of paganism into the not less rude, but more intellectually vigorous, and more featurely, warriors of Christian chivalry, and to substantiate the distinct and graceful profiles or outlines of the Homeric epic into the flesh and blood of the romantic drama,—in short, to give a grand history-piece in the robust style of Albert Durer. "The character of Thersites, in particular, well deserves a more careful examination, as the Caliban of demagogic life; the admirable portrait of intellectual power deserted by all grace, all moral principle, all not momentary impulse ;-just wise enough to detect the weak head, and fool enough to provoke the armed fist of his betters ;-one whom malcontent Achilles can inveigle from malcontent Ajax, under the one condition, that he shall be called on to do nothing but abuse and slander, and that he shall be allowed to abuse as much and as purulently as he likes, that is, as he can ;-in short, a mule,―quarrelsome by the original discord of his nature,- -a slave by tenure of his own baseness,-made to bray and be brayed at, to despise and be despicable."-COLERIDGE. |