PROLOGUE. In Troy, there lies the scene. From ifles of Greece The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd, * I cannot regard this Prologue (which indeed is wanting in the quarto editions) as the work of Shakspeare; and perhaps the drama before us, was not entirely of his construction. It appears to have been unknown to his associates, Hemings and Condell, till after the first folio was almost printed off. On this subject, indeed, (as I learn from Mr. Malone's Emendations and Additions, &c. fee Vol. III.) there seems to have been a play anterior to the present one: "Aprel 7, 1599. Lent unto Thomas Downton to lende unto Mr. Deckers, & harey cheattel, in earnest of ther boocke called Troyeles and Creaffedaye, the some of iii lb." "Lent unto harey cheattell, & Mr. Dickers, [Henry Chettle and mafter Deckar] in pte of payment of their booke called Troyelles & Creffeda, the 16 of Aprell, 1599, xxs." "Lent unto Mr. Deckers and Mr. Chettel the 26 of maye, 1599, in earnest of a booke called Troylles and Crefeda, the fome of xxs." STEEVENS. I conceive this Prologue to have been written, and the dialogue, in more than one place, interpolated by fome Kyd or Marlowe of the time; who may have been paid for altering and amending one of Shakspeare's plays: a very extraordinary instance of our author's negligence, and the managers' taste! RITSON. 2 The princes orgulous,] Orgulous, i. e. proud, disdainful. Orgueilleux, Fr. This word is used in the ancient romance of Richard Cueur de Lyon : "His atyre was orgulous." "-but Again, in Froiffart's Chronicle, Vol. II. p. 115, b: they wyst nat how to passe ye ryver of Derne whiche was fell and orgulous at certayne tymes," &c. STEEVENS. Have to the port of Athens fent their ships, With wanton Paris fleeps; And that's the quarrel. And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge 3 - Priam's fix-gated city, &c.] The names of the gates are here exhibited as in the old copy, for the reason affigned by Dr. Farmer; except in the inftance of Antenorides, instead of which the old copy has Antenonydus. The quotation from Lydgate shows that was an error of the printer. MALONE. 4-fulfilling bolts,] To fulfill, in this place, means to fill till there be no room for more. In this sense it is now obfo lete. So, in Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, Lib. V. fol. 114: Again: "A luftie maide, a fobre, a meke, "Fulfilled of all unkindship." STEEVENS. To be "fulfilled with grace and benediction" is still the language of our liturgy. BLACKSTONE. 5 Sperr up the fons of Troy.] [Old copy-Stirre.] This has been a most miferably mangled paffage throughout all the editions; corrupted at once into false concord and false reasoning. Priam's fix-gated city stirre up the fons of Troy? Here's a verb plural governed of a nominative fingular. But that is eafily remedied. The next question to be asked is, In what • Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek, sense a city, having fix strong gates, and those well barred and bolted, can be faid to ftir up its inhabitants? unless they may be supposed to derive some spirit from the strength of their fortifications. But this could not be the poet's thought. He must mean, I take it, that the Greeks had pitched their tents upon the plains before Troy; and that the Trojans were fecurely barricaded within the walls and gates of their city. This sense my correction reftores. To sperre, or spar, from the old Teutonick word Speren, fignifies to shut up, defend by bars, &c. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, Book V. c. 10: THEOBALD. 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 " unfparryd 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 2d 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 barbaroufly 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 inftructed to read "Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scea, Trojan, 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 Shakfpeare, nor his editors : "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, "Was by the kinge called | Dardanydes; Sets all on hazard :-And hither am I come Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils, "And in storye | lyke as it is founde, " Tymbria | was named the seconde ; "And the thyrde | called Helyas, 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 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 standard 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 generally infert quotations from the Troye Booke modernized, as being the most intelligible of the two. STEEVENS. 6 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 : 7 " With drums and trumpets in this warring age, STEEVENS. -the vaunt-] i. e. the avant, what went before. So, in King Lear: "Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts." STEEVENS. 'Ginning in the middle; starting thence away The vaunt is the vanguard, called, in our author's time, the vaunt-guard. PERCY. 8-firstlings-] A fcriptural phrase, signifying the first produce or offspring. So, in Genesis, iv. 4: "And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock." STEEVENS. |