Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/109

 "Our fire-brand brother, Paris, burns us all. Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen, and a woe: Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go."

Troilus flatly says that she is mad. Finally, Hector, though confessing that by every moral law Helen ought to be restored to her husband, thinks it better to hold on to her because she is a spur to valor, and their reputations depend upon preventing the Greeks from carrying their point. It is a discussion of shopkeepers who are aspiring to be actors and couch their speech in high-stepping hexameters.

Pandarus sings to Helen such a bit of frippery that we expect to see them both begin to hop from one foot to the other in the style of the burlesque, as they deliver the chorus of "Oh! oh! ha! ha! hey ho!"

There never was such deliberate absurdity as the fighting in this play. The original draught of it was certainly left untouched by Shakspeare, probably to keep the laugh sustained. It is all done in the vein of Bombastes. "Now, they are clapper-clawing one another," says Thersites; "I'll go look on." Diomedes enters, followed by Troilus, who bids him stand; for, if he took to the river Styx, Troilus would jump in after him. "Stand, forsooth," says Diomedes; "don't flatter yourself I was flying: no, my worthy Trojan, I was only extricating myself from the multitude to get at you,—so come on." They come on, and go off fighting. Pretty soon Diomedes enters with the horse of Troilus, under the pantomimic illusion that he has slain its master. He despatches the horse with a note to