"The plague of Greece upon thee," &c. THERSITES has been termed by Coleridge "the Caliban of demagogic life;" and he goes on to describe him as "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." This is the Thersites of Shakspere; he of Homer is merely a deformed jester. The wonderful finished portrait is made out of the slightest of sketches: "All sat, and audience gave; Thersites only would speak all. A most disorder'd store Of words he foolishly pour'd out; of which his mind held more In Troy's brave siege: he was squint-eyed, and lame of either foot: So crook-back'd that he had no breast: sharp-headed, where did shoot (Here and there sperst) thin mossy hair. He most of all envied Ulysses and acides, whom still his spleen would chide; Nor could the sacred king himself avoid his saucy vein, Against whom, since he knew the Greeks did vehement From Troy's knights, to redeem their sons? whom, to be dearly sold, Than it could manage; anything with which he could I, or some other Greek, must take? or wouldst thou yet again Force from some other lord his prize, to soothe the lusts that reign In thy encroaching appetite? It fits no prince to be And ills eternal! Greekish girls, not Greeks, ye are: Come, fly Home with our ships; leave this man here, to perish with his preys, And try if we help'd him, or not: he wrong'd a man that weighs Far more than he himself in worth: he forc'd from Thetis' son, And keeps his prize still: nor think I that mighty man hath won The style of wrathful worthily; he's soft, he's too remiss, Or else, Atrides, his had been thy last of injuries.' Thus he the people's pastor chid; but straight stood up 5 SCENE II." You are for dreams and From his 'Homer' Shakspere` turned to the old Gothic romancer, and there he found the reproach of Troilus to Helenus, in the following very characteristic passage: "Then arose up on his feet Troylus, the youngest son of King Pryamus, and began to speak in this manner:-O noblemen and hardy, how be ye abashed for the words of this cowardly priest here? If Helenus be afraid, let him go into the Temple, and sing the divine service, and let the other take revenge of their injurious wrongs by strength and force of arms. * * All they that heard Troylus thus speak allowed him, saying that he had very well spoken. And thus they finished their parliament, and went to dinner." SCENE III." The elephant hath joints," &c. Up to the time when Sir Thomas Brown wrote his 'Vulgar Errors' (about 1670), there was a prevailing opinion that the elephant had no joints, and that it could not lie down. Its joints, according to the passage before us, were not "for flexure." Sir T. Brown refutes the error by appealing to the experience of those who had "not many years past" seen an elephant in England, "kneeling, and lying down." [Head of Paris.]. ACT III. An appetite that I am sick withal, To see great Hector in his weeds of peace." In the Destruction of Troy' we have the same conception worthy to be received into the poetry of Shakspere : "The truce during, Hector went on a day unto the tents of the Greeks, and Achilles beheld him gladly, forasmuch as he had never seen him unarmed. And at the request of Achilles, Hector went into his tent; and as they spake together of many things, Achilles said to Hector, I have great pleasure to see thee unarmed, forasmuch as I have never seen thee before." 9 SCENE II. [Phrygian attired in Coat of Mail.] "We must give up to Diomedes' hand The lady Cressida." ACT IV. had left the Troyans, had a passing fair daughter, and wise, named Briseyda-Chaucer, in his book that he made of Troylus, named her Cresidafor which daughter he prayed to King AgamemTHIS part of the story is thus told in the non, and to the other princes, that they would 'Destruction of Troy' :require the King Priamus to send Briseyda unto "Calcas, that by the commandment of Apollo him. They prayed enough to King Priamus at : 11 SCENE V. the instance of Calcas, but the Troyans blamed sore Calcas, and called him evil and false traitor, and worthy to die, that had left his own land and his natural lord, for to go into the company of his mortal enemies: yet at the petition and earnest I desire of the Greeks, the King Priamus sent Briseyda to her father." * SCENE IV.-" Be thou but true of heart." The parting of Troilus and Cressida is very beautifully told by Chaucer; but as Shakspere's conception of the character of Cressida is altogether different from that of Chaucer, we see little in the scene before us to make us believe that Cressida will keep her vows. In the elder poet she manifests a loftiness of character which ought to have preserved her faith. Shakspere has made her consistent : "And o'er all this, I pray you, quod she tho⚫, I n'ere but dead, and ere ye cause yfind, "To this answered Troilus, and said, Now God, to whom there is no cause awry, At short wordés, well ye may me believe; But moral virtue, grounded upon truth;- As rudeness, and peoplish & appetite, That I was yours, and shall while I may dure." (Book iv.) "Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son." This incident, which is one of the occasions in which Shakspere, following the old romance writers, desires to exhibit the magnanimity of Hector, is found in the 'Destruction of Troy:' "As they were fighting, they spake and talked together, and thereby Hector knew that he was his cousin-german, son of his aunt and then Hector for courtesy, embraced him in his arms, and made great cheer, and offered to him to do all his pleasure, if he desired anything of him, and prayed him that he would come to Troy with him for to see his lineage of his mother's side: but the said Thelamon, that intended to nothing but to his best advantage, said that he would not go at this time. But he prayed Hector, requesting that, if he loved him so much as he said, that he would for his sake, and at his instance, cease the battle for that day, and that the Troyans should leave the Greeks in peace. The unhappy Hector accorded unto him his request, and blew a horn, and made all his people to withdraw into the city." [Parting of Hector and Andromache.] ACT V. 18 SCENE II." Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve." THE story of Cressida's falsehood is prettily told by Chaucer. Shakspere has literally copied one of the incidents: "She made him wear a pencell of her sleeve." But we still trace the inconsistency of character in Chaucer's Cressida. Mr. Godwin laments that Shakspere has not interested us in his principal female, as Chaucer has done. Such an interest would have been bought at the expense of truth. The passages which we give will enable the reader to compare the two characters: "The morrow came, and ghostly for to speak, "And after this the story telleth us That she unto him gave the fair bay steed And eke the bet from sorrow him to relieve, "I find eke in the story ellés where, When through the body hurt was Diomed There maden never women more woe (Book v.) 14 SCENE III.-"My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day." |