STEEV.

with person,] Thus the folio. The quarto reads, with portion.

And parts with person.' The present reading is bad. I read with the quarto, portion ; but with some little change in the arrangement: How novelties may move with parts in 'portion.' i. c. in proportion. B.

Troi. Fear not my truth; the moral of my wit Is-plain, and truth,-there's all the reach of it. -the moral of my wit

Is-plain, and true,

That is, the governing principle of my understanding; but I rather think we should read:

-the motto of my wit

Is, plain and true,

JOHN.

Surely moral in this instance has the same meaning as in Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. sc. iv.

"Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in this Benedictus."

Again, in the Taming of a Shrew, Act IV. sc. iv.

-he has left me here behind to expound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens." ToL.

'Plain and truth.' We must read plain and true, or print plain with an apostrophe (') plainness. B.

Troi. Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek, If e'er thou stand at mercy of my sword,

Name Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe

As Priam is in Ilion.

'Entreat her fair, and by my soul, fair Greek.' The second fair in this line should be written faire, i. e. fortunate, happy. See Chaucer. B.

Dio.

When I am hence,

I'll answer to my lust: And know you, lord,

I'll nothing do on charge.

This I think is right, though both the old copies

What is the difference, in our old writers, between lust and list? STEEV.

My list.' List is the proper reading. List and lust, indeed,. are frequently used indifferently by the old writers, and in the sense of will, desire. But that is not the meaning here.

'When I am hence,

I'll answer to my list,'

Signifies, when I am away I will perform what I am listed or bound to, or engaged for. To list was formerly to bind or engage. Hence, to list or inlist men as soldiers, means, to bind or engage

them, and is not expressive of inrolling or registering them as some have imagined. B.

Ulyss. There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.

O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts.

-a coasting-] An amorous address; courtship. JOHN.

A coasting welcome' is harsh, to say the least against it. We may read, accosting welcome,' i. e. they who are the first to accost or address any one. Accost was formerly understood as salute,

kiss. B.

Ulyss. Yet gives he not 'till judgment guide his bounty, Nor dignifies an impair thought with breath.

an impair thought-] A thought unsuitable to the dignity of his character. This word I should have changed to impure, were I not overpowered by the unanimity of the editors, and concurrence of the old copies. JOHN.

So in Chapman's preface to his translation of the Shield of Homer, 1598: " -nor is it more impaire to an honest and absolute man," &c.

STEEV.

An impair thought.'

An impair thought,' or as it should rather be written, an impare thought, is a thought with any imparity or want of conA Latin sense. sistency in it. Mr. S.'s quotation is foreign to the purpose; impair has there its usual signification of injury, disparagement. B.

Ulyss. For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes
To tender objects.

Hector-subscribes

To tender objects;-] That is, yields, gives way. JOHN.

So, in King Lear, subscrib'd his power, i. e. submitted. STEEV. To tender objects.' Mr. S.'s quotation is again impertinent, Subscrib'd his power' is, His power is contracted or limited.' See my note on the passage.

B.

Hect.
Give me thy hand, my cousin;
I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.

your knights.] The word knight, as often as it occurs, is sure to bring with it the idea of chivalry, and revives the memory of Amadis and his fantastic followers, rather than that of the mighty confederates who fought on either side in the Trojan war. I wish that eques and armiger could have been rendered by any other words than knight and

squire. Mr. Pope, in his translation of the Iliad, is very liberal of the latter. STEEV.

'Your knights.' Mr. Steevens' observation is ridiculous. Eques, among the Romans, signified a man of arms. Knight, among the English, signifies, or rather did signify, the same. How then was the Latin expression to be rendered but by one which was equivaleut or correspondent to it? The same will hold with respect to armiger. B.

Hect. O, you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks !
Mock not, that I affect the untraded oath;

Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove:
She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.
Mock not, &c.] The quarto has here a strange corruption:

Mock not thy affect, the untraded earth. JouN.

'Mock not that I affect the untraded oath.' The reading of the quarto, and which Johnson has called a strange corruption,' is preferable, I think, to that of the text. Indeed, as the passage now stands, I do not fully comprehend it. What, for instance, are we to understand by Hector's untraded oath? Is the swearing by Mars to be considered as such? But if this be the case, why must the Trojan hero be said to affect it? Could any expression be more in character than that he makes use of? and are we not to conclude from it that the god of war would at all times be obtested in aid of the soldier? Should he for this expect to be mocked at? But, as I have already said, the reading of the quarto is the best. Affect' should be affects (feelings). 'Untraded' is printed in mistake for intruded. Earth' is earthling, a weak, frail, creature. I read as follows:

6

6

By Mars's gauntlet thanks!

The intruded earth', (1 mock not thy affects,)

Your quondam wife, swears still by Venus' glove,' &c. i. e. Do not imagine that I would sport with your feelings; but that intruded earthling, that poor frail one who has been forced on us, your quondam wife,' &c. He calls Helen'earthling' in contempt, and on account of the mischiefs occasioned by her both to Trojan and Greek :-' intruded earthling,' by reason of the manner in which she had been brought in by Paris, and which endangered his city even to its fall. B.

Achil. I have with exact view perus'd thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.

And quoted joint by joint.] To quote is to observe. STEEV.

Quoted joint by joint.' Quoted' in this, as in many other

places, should be coted, i. e. marked. B.

Achil. How now, thou core of envy?

Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?

Thou crusty batch of nature.

-] Batch is changed by Theobald to botch, and the change is justified by a pompous note, which discovers that he did not know the word batch. What is more strange, Hanmer has

followed him. Butch is any thing baked. JOHN.

Crusty batch of nature.' 'Batch' has no very obvious meaning here. We might better read patch. Shakspeare often uses the word in contempt. B.

Ther. Pr'ythee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet.

Patr. Male varlet, you rogue! what's that?
Ther. Why, his masculine whore.

Male varlet,----] Hanmer reads male harlot, plausibly enough, except that it seems too plain to require the explanation which Patroclus demands. JOHN.

Male varlet.' Hanmer's male harlot' is insufferable. Male,' in the first instance, is not used to signify masculine, the he of a species it is the male of the Latins, ill-disposed, wickedly inclined. Varlet' must here be taken in its original acceptation of servant simply, and not of rogue or rascal, as at the present day, so that the expression may not become redundant. Thersites means to call Patroclus an ill-conditioned serving-man, as being always at the beck of Achilles. But finding by the question what's that?' that he is not fully understood, he catches at the circumstance, and plays on the word male, thereby affecting to cast au odium (for it is but affected) on the hero of Greece. B.

Patr. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

-you ruinous, &c.] Patroclus reproaches Thersites with deformity, with having one part crowded into another. JOHN.

Ruinous butt' I do not understand. Butt, I suppose, should be bott, i. e. Grub-worm. When he says ruinous bott' he uses the expression in allusion to the destructive nature of the grubworm. B.

Ther. And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull,-the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds;

And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull ;— the primitive statue, and OBLIQUE memorial of cuckolds;] He calls Menelaus the transformation of Jupiter, that is, as himself explains it, the bull, on account of his horns, which he had as a cuckold. This cuckold he calls the primitive statue of cuckolds; i. e. his story had inade him so famous, that he stood as the great archetype of his character. But how was he an oblique memorial of cuckolds can any thing be a more direct memorial of cuckolds, than a cuckold? and so the foregoing

Το

character of his being the primitive statue of them plainly implies. reconcile these two contradictory epithets therefore we should read: ―an OBELISQUE memorial of cuckolds.

He is represented as one who would remain an eternal monument of his wife's infidelity. And how could this be better done than by calling him an obelisque memorial? of all human edifices the most durable. And the sentence rises gradually, and properly from a statue to an obelisque. To this the editor Mr. Theobald replies, that the bu is called the primitive statue: by which he only giveth us to understand, that he knoweth not the difference between the English articles a and the. But by the bull is meant Menelaus; which title Thersites gives him again afterwards-The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it—THE BULL has the game-But the Oxford editor makes quicker work with the term oblique, and alters it to antique, and so all the difficulty is evaded. WARB.

The author of The Revisal observes (after having controverted every part of Dr. Warlurton's note, and justified Theobald) that the memorial is called oblique, because it was only indirectly such, upon the common supposition, that both bulls and cuckolds were furnished with horns.' STEEV.

May we not rather suppose, that Shakspeare, who is so frequently licentious in his language, meant nothing more by this epithet than horned, the bull's horns being crooked or oblique? MAL.

And oblique memorial of cuckolds.' The defence of 'oblique,' as set up by Mr. Heath, must fall to the ground, since nothing indirect can be understood in the case. Nor can Mr. Malone's position in regard to it be admitted, for it will by no means follow, from the bull having horns, that those horns must of consequence be crooked: they are not unfrequently straight. With respect to Dr. Warburton's obelisque' I do not think it right the picture acquires a hardness by it which offends. I would read, the 'applique memorial' (the French word in lieu of the English) and in the sense of proper, true (as applicable or belonging to him) 'cela lui applique bien,' it suits with or belongs to his character entirely. The meaning of the applique memorial' will therefore be, the true, the perfect memorial of cuckolds.' It must indeed be confessed after all, that the expression is not very easy; but we must not always look for ease in the language of Shakspeare. o for a, with one p dropped and the other inverted at the press, will constitute the mistake. I need not again insist on the continual use of French words in the time of our author. I have yet another reading to propose. Oblique' must be absolutely rejected; but led by the sound, and considering the circumstances, one may substitute in lieu of it, Job-like, as being sneeringly expressive, and according to Thersites' conceit of the quietness of Menelaus, of the tameness with which he endured his wrongs. I anticipate the objection that may be made to such reading, but will answer that it can nothing avail: for every attentive reader must discover that the metaphors and comparisons of Shakspeare are, in many instances, mixed and incongruous; since when an image had once presented itself to his mind, he would seize on and employ it without attention to time or place. I make a transposition in the passage and read, 'the primitive, Joblike, statue, memorial of cuckolds.' 'Statue' is used merely in the sense