affinego may tutor thee: Thou fcurvy valiant afs! thou art here put to thrash Trojans; and thou art bought and fold among thofe of any wit, like a Barbarian flave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou!

Ajax. You dog!

Ther. You fcurvy lord!
Ajax. You cur!

[Beating him.

Ther. Mars his ideot! do, rudeness; do, camel;

do, do.

Enter Achilles, and Patroclus.

Achil. Why, how now, Ajax? wherefore do you thus?

How now, Therfites? what's the matter, man?
Ther. You fee him there, do you?

Athil. Ay; What's the matter?

Ther. Nay, look upon him.

Achil. So I do; What's the matter?

Hanmer, for an afs-driver: but in Mirza, a tragedy by Rob. Baron, Act III. the following paffage occurs, with a note annexed to it:

-the ftout trufty blade,

"That at one blow has cut an afinego

"Afunder like a thread.".

"This (fays the author) is the ufual trial of the Perfian fhamfheers, or cemiters, which are crooked like a crefcent, of fo good metal, that they prefer them before any other, and fo fharp as any razor."

I hope, for the credit of the prince, that the experiment was rather made on an afs, than an afs-driver. From the following paffage I fhould fuppofe afinego to be merely a cant term for a foolish fellow, an idiot: "They apparell'd me as you fee, made a fool, or an afinego of me." See The Antiquary, a comedy, by S. Marmion, 1641. Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady:

-all this would be forfworn, and I again an afinego, as your fifter left me." STEEVENS. Afinego is Portuguese for a little afs. MUSGRAVE.

Ther.

Ther. Nay, but regard him well.
Achil. Well, why I do fo.

Ther. But yet you look not well upon him: for, whofoever you take him to be, he is Ajax. Achil. I know that, fool.

Ther. Ay, but that fool knows not himself,
Ajax. Therefore I beat thee,

Ther. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evafions have ears thus long. I have bobb'd his brain, more than he has beat my bones : I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a fparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax,-who wears his wit in his belly, and his guts in his head,I'll tell you what I fay of him.

Achil. What?

Ther. I fay, this Ajax

Acbil. Nay, good Ajax.

[Ajax offers to ftrike him, Achilles interpofes.

Ther. Has not fo much wit

Acbil. Nay, I must hold you.

Ther. As will ftop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight.

Achil. Peace, fool!

Ther. I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there; that he; look you there. Ajax. O thou damn'd cur! I fhall

Achil. Will you fet your wit to a fool's?
Ther. No, I warrant you; for a fool's will fhame it
Patr. Good words, Therfites,

Acbil. What's the quarrel?

Ajax. I bade the vile owl, go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me,

Ther. I ferve thee not.

Ajax. Well, go to, go to.

Ther. I ferve here voluntary.

Achil. Your laft fervice was fufferance, 'twas not

E 3

volun

voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

Ther. Even fo?-a great deal of your wit too lies in your finews, or else there be liars. Hector fhall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; 'a were as good crack a fufty nut with no kernel. Achil. What, with me too, Therfites?

Ther. There's Ulyffes and old Neftor,-whose wit was mouldy ere your grandfires had nails on their toes,-yoke you like draft oxen, and make you plough up the war.

Achil. What, what?

Ther. Yes, good footh; To, Achilles ! to, Ajax ! to!

Ajax. I fhall cut out your tongue.

Ther. 'Tis no matter; I fhall fpeak as much as thou, afterwards.

Patr. No more words, Therfites; peace.

Ther. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, fhall I?

Achil

5 Neftor whofe it was mouldy ere their grandfires had nails-] This is one of these editors' wife riddles. What! was Neftor's wit mouldy before his grandfires toes had any nails? Prepofterous nonfenfe! and yet to eafy a change, as one poor pronoun for another, fets all right and clear. THEOBALD.

• when Achilles' brach bids me,-] The folio and quarto read,-Achilles' brooch. Brooch is an appendant ornament. The meaning may be, equivalent to one of Achilles' hangers-on.

JOHNSON.

Brach I believe to be the true reading. He calls Patroclus, in contempt, Achilles' dog. STEEVENS.

Brooch, which is the reading of all the old copies, had perhaps formerly fome meaning at prefent unknown. In the following paffage in Lodge's Rofalynde or Euphues' Golden Legacie, 1592, it feems to fignify fomething very different from a pin or a bod"His bonnet was green, whereon ftood a copper brocch with the picture of St. Denis."

kin:

Perhaps Achilles's breach may mean, the perfon whom Achilles holds fo dear; fo highly eftimates. So, in Hamlet :

He

Achil. There's for you, Patroclus.

I her. I will fee you hang'd, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. [Exit.

Patr. A good riddance.

Achil. Marry this, fir, is proclaim'd through all our host:

That Hector, by the fifth hour of the fun,
Will, with a trumpet, 'twixt our tents and Troy,
To-morrow morning call fome knight to arms,
That hath a stomach; and fuch a one, that dare
Maintain-I know not what; 'tis trafh: Farewel.
Ajax. Farewel. Who fhall answer him?

Achil. I know not, it is put to lottery; otherwise, He knew his man.

Ajax. O, meaning you:-I'll go learn more of it. [Exeunt.

Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris, and Helenus,

Pri. After fo many hours, lives, fpeeches spent,

-He is the broach indeed,

"And gem of all the nation."

MALONE,

I have little doubt of broch being the true meaning as a term of contempt.

The meaning of broche is well afcertained-a fpit-a bodkin ; which being formerly ufed in the Ladies' drefs, was adorned with jewels, and gold and filver ornaments. Hence in old Lifts of jewels are found brotches,

I have a very magnificent one, which is figured and defcribed by Pennant, in the fecond volume of his Tour to Scotland, p. 14, in which the fpit or bodkin forms but a very fmall part of the whole.

The prefent birt buckles may well be called brockes.
Hence, to broach a calk of liquor-Turn-broche, &c. &c. L.

E 4

Thus

Thus once again fays Neftor from the Greeks
Deliver Helen, and all damage elfe-

As honour, lofs of time, travel, expence,
Wounds, friends, add what else dear that is confum'd
In bot digeftion of this cormorant war,-

Shall be ftruck off:-Hector, what fay you to't?
Het. Though no man leffer fears the Greeks than I,
As far as toucheth iny particular, yet,

Dread Priam,

There is no lady of more fofter bowels,
More fpungy to fuck in the fenfe of fear,

More ready to cry out- Who knows what follows?
Than Hector is: The wound of peace is furety,
Surety fecure; but modeft doubt is call'd'
The beacon of the wife, the tent that fearches
To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
Since the first fword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe foul, 'mongst many thousand difimes,
Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
If we have loft fo many tenths of ours,
To guard a thing not ours; not worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten;

What merit's in that reason, which denies
The yielding of her up?

Troi. Fie, fie, my brother!

Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,
So great as our dread father, in a scale

Of common ounces? will you with counters fum
The past-proportion of his infinite?

7

many thoufand difmes,] Difme, Fr. is the tithe, the tenth. So, in the Prologue to Gower's Confeffio Amantis, 1554; "The difme goeth to the battaile."

Again, in Holinfhed's Reign of Rich. II:

so that there was levied, what of the difme, and by the devotion of the people, &c." STEEVENS.

• The past-proportion of his infinite?] Thus read both the copies. The meaning is, that greatness to which no measure bears any proportion. The modern editors filently give:

The vast proportion. JOHNSON.

And