Another, smother'd, seems to pelt and swear";
And in their rage such signs of rage they bear,
As, but for loss of Nestor's golden words,

It seem'd they would debate with angry swords.

For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles' image stood his spear,

stances of similar temerity in the present edition of our author's works.

Boll'n means swollen, and is used by Golding in his translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis, 1567:

"Her leannesse made her joynts bolne big, and knee-pannes, for to swell."

Auxerat articulos macies, genuumque rigebat

Orbis-.

Again, (as an anonymous writer has observed,) in Phaer's translation of the tenth book of Virgil's Æneid:

66

"with what bravery bolne in pride

Gawin Douglas translating the same passage uses the words orpit and proudly." See p. 92 of this volume.

Skinner supposes the word to be derived from bouillier, Fr. to bubble. But Mr. Tyrwhitt in his accurate Glossary to Chaucer, (as has likewise been observed by the same anonymous writer,) says, it is the part. pa. of bolge. v. Sax. MALONE.

7 Another, smother'd, seems to PELT and swear ;] To pelt meant, I think, to be clamorous, as men are in a passion. So, in an old collection of tales, entitled Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614: "The young man, all in a pelting chafe-." MALONE. DEBATE with angry swords.] i. e. fall to contention. Bate is an ancient word signifying strife. So, in the old play of Acolastus, 1540:

8

"We shall not fall to bate, or stryve for this matter."

STEEVENS.

Debate has here, I believe, its usual signification. They seemed ready to argue with their swords. So, in Julius Cæsar: "Speak hands for me."

Again, in Hamlet:

66

I will speak daggers to her, but use none." Again, more appositely, in Troilus and Cressida:

66

Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue." MALONE.

Grip'd in an armed hand; himself, behind,
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind 1:
A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imagined.

And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy When their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to field,

Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy

To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield; And to their hope they such odd action yield,

That, through their light joy, seemed to appear (Like bright things stain'd) a kind of heavy fear.

And, from the strond of Dardan where they fought,
To Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran,
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
With swelling ridges; and their ranks began
To break upon the galled shore, and than 2

9 Conceit deceitful, so compact, so KIND,] An artful delineation, so nicely and naturally executed. Kind and nature, in old language, were synonymous. MALONE.

Was left unseen, save to THE EYE OF MIND:] We meet with the same expression in Hamlet, and in one of our author's Sonnets. Again, in King Richard II.:

with the eyes of heavy mind

"I see thy glory." MALONE.

To break upon the galled shore, and THAN] Than for then. This licence of changing the termination of words is sometimes used by our ancient poets, in imitation of the Italian writers. Thus Daniel, in his Cleopatra, 1594:

"And now wilt yield thy streames

"A prey to other reames;

i. e. realms. Again, in his Complaint of Rosamond, 1592: "When cleaner thoughts my weakness 'gan upbray,

66

Against myself, and shame did force me say-.

Again, in Hall's Satires, 1599:

"As frozen dunghills in a winter's morne,
"That voyd of vapours seemed all beforne,
"Soone as the sun," &c.

Retire again, till meeting greater ranks

They join, and shoot their foam at Simois' banks.

To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
To find a face where all distress is stêl'd3.
Many she sees, where cares have carved some,
But none where all distress and dolour dwell'd,
Till she despairing Hecuba beheld,

Staring on Priam's wounds with her old eyes,
Which bleeding under Pyrrhus' proud foot lies 1.

Again, ibid.:

"His bonnet vail'd, or ever he could thinke,

"The unruly winde blowes off his periwinke."

Again, in Godrey of Bulloigne, translated by Fairfax, 1600: "Time was, (for each one hath his doting time,

"These silver locks were golden tresses than,)

"That countrie life I hated as a crime,

"And from the forrests sweet contentment ran." Again, in Drayton's Mortemeriados, sign. Q 1. 4to. 1596: "Out of whose top the fresh springs trembling downe, Duly keep time with their harmonious sowne." Again, in Songes and Sonnetes by the earle of Surrey and others, edit. 1567, f. 81:

66

66

half the paine had never man "Which had this woful Troyan than."

Many other instances of the same kind might be added. See the next note. MALONE.

1

Reames, in the first instance produced, is only the French royaumes affectedly anglicized. STEEVENS.

In Daniel's time the French word was usually written royaulme. MALONE.

3 To find a face where all distress is STEL'D.] Thus the quarto, and all the subsequent copies.-In our author's twentyfourth Sonnet we find these lines:

"Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath steel'd
"Thy beauty's form in table of my heart."

This therefore I suppose to have been the word intended here, which the poet altered for the sake of rhyme. So before-hild for held, and than for then. He might, however, have written :

where all distress is spell'd."

i. e. written. So, in The Comedy of Errors:

"And careful hours with time's deformed hand

"Have written strange defeatures in my face." MALONE. 4 WHICH bleeding under Pyrrhus' proud foot lies.] Dr.

In her the painter had anatomiz'd

Time's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim care's reign;
Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguis'd;
Of what she was, no semblance did remain :
Her blue blood chang'd to black in every vein,
Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had
fed,

Show'd life imprison'd in a body dead.

5

On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes
And shapes her sorrow to the beldame's woes,
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries,
And bitter words, to ban her cruel foes:
The painter was no God to lend her those;
And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.

Poor instrument, quoth she, without a sound,
I'll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue :
And drop sweet balm in Priam's painted wound,
And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,
And with my tears quench Troy, that burns so long;
And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes
Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.

Show me the strumpet that began this stir,
That with my nails her beauty I may tear.
Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur
This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here:

And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,
The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter, die.

Sewell unnecessarily reads-Who bleeding, &c. The neutral pronoun was anciently often used for the personal. It still remains in the Liturgy. Which, however, may refer to wounds, notwithstanding the false concord which such a construction produces. MALONE.

5 On this sad shadow Lucrece SPENDS earnestly; gives it her whole attention. their tongues, when they join in full cry.

HER EYES,] Fixes them
Hounds are said to spend
MALONE.

Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the publick plague of many mo?
Let sin, alone committed, light alone
Upon his head that hath transgressed so;
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:
For one's offence why should so many fall,
To plague a private sin in general?

8

Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds";
Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,
And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds
And one man's lust these many lives confounds":
Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire,
Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire.

Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes :
For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,
Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes;

6 the plague of many мo?] Mo for more. The word is now obsolete. MALONE.

7 Here manly Hector faints, here TROILUS SWOUNDS ;] In the play of Troilus and Cressida, his name is frequently introduced in the same manner as here, as a dissyllable. The mere English reader still pronounces the word as, I believe, Shakspeare did.

Swounds is swoons. Swoon is constantly written sound or swound in the old copies of our author's plays; and from this stanza it is probable that the word was anciently pronounced as it is here written. So also Drayton in his Mortimeriados, 4to. no date :

"Thus with the pangs out of this traunce areysed,
"As water sometime wakeneth from a swound,-
"As when the bloud is cold, we feele the wound."
MALONE.

8 And friend to friend gives UNADVISED WOUNDS,] Advice, it has been already observed, formerly meant knowledge. Friends wound friends, not knowing each other. It should be remembered that Troy was sacked in the night. MALONE.

9 confounds :] i. e. destroys.

So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"What willingly he did confound, he wail'd.”

See also p. 175, 1, 2. MALONE.