Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught with us? Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general? Nest. Nothing, my lord. Agam. The better. No. [Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR. Achil. Good day, good day. Men. How do you? how do you? [Exit MENELAUS. Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me? Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles? Patr. They pass by strangely: they were us'd to bend, To send their smiles before them to Achilles; Achil. What, am I poor of late? 'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune, Hath any honour; but honour for those honours Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, VOL. VII. The love that lean'd on them as slippery too, Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out I'll interrupt his reading. How now, Ulysses? Ulyss. Now, great Thetis' son? Achil. What are you reading? Ulyss. A strange fellow here Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,' How much in having, or without, or in,Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; As when his virtues shining upon others Heat them, and they retort that heat again To the first giver. Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses. Till it hath travell'd, and is married there It is familiar; but at the author's drift: 7 how dearly ever parted,] However excellently endowed, with however dear or precious parts enriched or adorned. in his circumstance,] În the detail or circumduction of his argument. That no man is the lord of any thing, (Though in and of him there be much consisting,) Till he communicate his parts to others: Nor doth he of himself know them for aught The voice again; or like a gate of steel The unknown Ajax.9 Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse; That has he knows not what. there are, Nature, what things Most abject in regard, and dear in use! What things again most dear in the esteem, How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall, Achil. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: The unknown Ajax,] Ajax, who has abilities, which were never brought into view or use. JOHNSON. Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: Perséverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, O'er-run and trampled on: Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,— 1 And give to dust, that is a little gilt, More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.] Dust a little gilt means, ordinary performances ostentatiously displayed and magnified by the favour of friends and that admiration of novelty which prefers The present eye praises the present object: Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions' 'mongst the gods themselves, And drave great Mars to faction. Achil. I have strong reasons. Of this my privacy But 'gainst your privacy Ulyss. Achil. Ulyss. Is that a wonder? Ha! known? The providence that's in a watchful state, Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold; Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps; Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods, Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. "new-born gawds" to " things past." Gilt o'er-dusted means, splendid actions of preceding ages, the remembrance of which is weakened by time. 2 Made emulous missions-] This means the descent of deities to combat on either side; an idea which Shakspeare very probably adopted from Chapman's translation of Homer. In the fifth Book, Diomed wounds Mars, who on his return to heaven is rated by Jupiter for having interfered in the battle. This disobedience is the faction which I suppose Ulysses would describe. STEEVENS. one of Priam's daughters.] Polyxena, in the act of marrying whom, he was afterwards killed by Paris. |