In the same fashion, the Prologue seems written by a pen whose feather was in a constant ruffling. It talks of "princes orgulous," a word nowhere used by Shakspeare, and one which he would have rallied: the six gates of Troy have
"Massy staples And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts."
And Hector well earns the epithet which has sprung from his name when he cries,--
"Stand, stand, thou Greek! thou art a goodly mark:-- No! wilt thou not?--I like thy armor well; I'll frush it, and unlock the rivets all, But I'll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide? Why then, fly on, I'll hunt thee for thy hide."
Numerous passages like this have the tone which unmistakably remands them to the original play.
But who can help feeling the joyous and tender mood of Shakspeare reproduced by the worshipping lines of Troilus to Cressida?--
"Oh that I thought it could be in a woman (As, if it can, I will presume in you), To feed for aye her lamp and flame of love; To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays! Or, that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnow'd purity in love! How were I then uplifted! but, alas! I am as true as truth's simplicity, And simpler than the infancy of truth."
What a pure flame mounts up from each altar of these consecrated lines to show the detestable uncleanness of some scenes which are left over from the original play! When the wanton Cressida sweeps the chaste fire from those altars and leaves them standing cold in his heart, Shakspeare cries,--
"O Cressid! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, And they'll seem glorious."
Some of the sentences spoken by Ulysses have become fixed in the English consciousness; the rings of robust reflection have grown around and appropriated them, so that the material is quotable in every market and is applied to modern conveniences. The famous speech that charges the Greek factions to their neglect of "degree, priority, and place,"--
"Oh, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder to all high designs, The enterprise is sick!"--
contains a truth as applicable to a democracy as to that Shakspearian age which reared the defeaters of the Armada, and sent Drake and Hawkins round the world.