VIII. Warb. Johns.

Enter...] Om. Qq.
367. willingly ] wilftilly Qq, Cap. Mai. Steev.’93, Var. Coll. Sing. Hal. Dyce, Sta. Cam. Ktly, White ii.
368. Jhadowes~\ fairies Gould.
370. garments ] garment Glo. (mis¬ print).
370. hath ] had Q,, Theob. et seq.
371. enterpize ] F, (Editor’s copy), Ver- nor & Hood’s Repr., Staunton’s Photolith. enterprize Booth’s Repr.
372. nointed~\ 'nointed Rowe et seq. 373- f° did ] did so Rowe + . did not
Steev.’8s (misprint).
378. fogge ] fogs Theob. ii, Warb. Johns.
leave the stage without a speech, or a piece of the author’s work which he cancelled as unsatisfactory or superfluous.’ [See Preface to this volume, p. xv. — Ed.]
371. enterpize] See Text. Notes for a variation in Reprints of F,. — Ed.
372. nomted] For a list of words whose prefixes are dropped, see Abbott, § 460.
373. sort] An allusion to fate. ‘All the forms of sort,’ says Skeat (Diet. s. v.), ‘ are ultimately due to Lat. sortem, acc. of sors, lot, destiny, chance, condition, state.’ — Ed.
374. As] I am not sure that in a modem text there should not be a semicolon after ‘ sort ’ in the previous line, to indicate that this ‘As ’ does net follow the ‘ so ’ in that line (unlike the ‘ so ’ and ‘As ’ in lines 379, 380), but means oecause, since. — Ed.
378. Acheron] W. A. Wright : The river of hell in classical mythology, sup¬ posed by Shakespeare to be a pit or lake. Compare Macb. Ill, v, 15 : ‘And at the pit of Acheron Meet me,’ &c. ; Tit. And. IV, iii, 44 : ‘ I’ll dive into the burning lake below And pull her out of Acheron by the heels,’ — R. G. White (ed. ii) : A river in Hades, which Shakespeare mistook to be a pit. [That Shakespeare in Macbeth may have supposed Acheron to be a pit is quite likely, but he made no mistake in the present passage. The rivers of hell were black, and it is with this blackness alone that comparison is here made. In Shakespeare’s contemporary, Sylvester, there is the same simile : ‘ In Groon-land field is found a dungeon, A thousand-fold more dark than Acheron.' — The Vocation, line 532, ed. Grosart. And if it be urged that Syl¬ vester has here fallen into the same error, and overlooked the fact that Acheron is a river, so be it. Shakespeare has a good companion, then, to bear half the disgrace of his oversight in Macbeth. — Ed.]
164
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act hi. sc. ii
And lead thefe teftie Riuals fo affray,
As one come not within anothers way.
Like to Lyfander , fometime frame thy tongue,
Then ftirre Demetrius vp with bitter wrong ;
And fometime raile thou like Demetrius ;
And from each other looke thou leade them thus,
Till ore their browes, death-counterfeiting, fleepe With leaden legs, and Battie-wings doth c reepe ;
Then crufh this hearbe into Lyfanders eie,
Whofe liquor hath this vertuous propertie,
To take from thence all error, with his might,
And make his eie-bals role with wonted fight.
When they next wake, all this derifion Shall feeme a dreame, and fruitleffe vifion,
And backe to Athens fhall the Louers wend With league, whofe date till death fhall neuer end. Whiles I in this affaire do thee imply, lie to my Queene, and beg her Indian Boy ;
And then I will her charmed eie releafe
From monfters view, and all things fhall be peace.
Puck. My Fairie Lord, this muft be done with hafte, For night-fwift Dragons cut the Clouds full faft,
38c
385
390
395
400
385. cou nterfeit ing,Jleepe] counterfeit¬ ing Jleep Ff.
386. legs'] ledgs Qa.
Battle] Batty Qq.
389. his might] its might Rowe + .
395. imply] imploy QtF4> apply Qa. 400. night-fwift] nights fviift Qx night fwift Q2. nights-fwft Fa. nights- fwift F3F4. night's swift Rowe et seq.
388. vertuous] Johnson : Salutiferous. So he calls, in The Tempest, poisonous
dew, ‘ wicked dew.’— R. G. White (ed. i) : ‘ Virtue ’ was used of old, and is some¬ times now used, for power, especially in the sense of healing or corrective power; as in the Gospels : ‘ I perceive some virtue has gone out of me.’ — Luke viii, 16.
392. shall seeme a dreame] Guest (i, 130) gives other examples from Shake¬ speare of this effective ‘ middle-sectional rhyme,’ e. g. ‘ He hath won With fame a name to Caius Martius; these.’— Cor. II, i; and things.’ — Tam. of the Shr. V, iii; ‘Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute’s time.’ — Love's L. L. IV, iii.
39x> 392- derision . . . vision] To be pronounced dissolute.
395. imply] The Qr corrects this compositor’s error.
400. night-swift] This word, instead of night’s-swift, may be accounted for, if the printers of F, composed from dictation. — Ed.
400. Dragons] Steevens : So in Cymb. II, ii, 48 : ‘ Swift, swift you dragons of the night.’ The task of drawing the chariot of the night was assigned to dragons on account of their supposed watchfulness. — Malone : This circumstance Shakespeare
ACT III, sc. ii.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
And yonder fhines Auroras harbinger ;
At whofe approach Ghofts wandring here and there, Troope home to Church-yards; damned fpirits all, That in crofle-waies and flouds haue buriall,
Alreadie to their wormie beds are gone ;
For feare leaf! day fhould looke their ftiames vpon, They wilfully themfelues dxile from light,
And muft for aye confort with blacke browd night.
Ob. But we are fpirits of another fort :
I, with the mornings loue haue oft made fport,
165
401
405
410
403. Church -yards'] church -yard Theob. ii, Johns.
407. themfelues dxile] F,. exile them¬ selves F3F4, Rowe + .
408. black browd] black browed Q . black-browd F3F4.
410. mornings loue] morning loue Ff. Morning-Love Rowe i. Morning-Light Rowe ii + . morning's love Cap. et seq.
might have learned from a passage in Golding’s Ovid, which he has imitated in The Tempest : ‘And brought asleep the dragon fell, whose eyes were never shet.’ — W. A. Wright : Milton perhaps had this passage in his mind when he wrote II Penseroso, 59 : ‘ While Cynthia checks her dragon-yoke Gently o’er the accustom’d oak.’ On which Keightley remarks it is wrong mythology, ‘ for Demeter, or Ceres, alone had a dragon yoke.’ Drayton also ( The Man in the Moon, 431) says that Phoebe ‘ Calls downe the Dragons that her chariot drawe.’
401. harbinger] I suppose this must have had two accents, on the first and on the last syllable, and the latter pronounced to rhyme with ‘ there.’ — Ed.
404. crosse-waies and flouds] Steevens : The ghosts of self-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads ; and of those, who being drowned, were condemned (accord¬ ing to the opinion of the ancients) to wander for a hundred years, as the rites of sepul¬ ture had never been regularly bestowed on their bodies. That the waters were some¬ times the place of residence for ‘ damned spirits ’ we learn from the ancient bl. 1. romance of Syr Eglamcrure of Artoys, no date : ‘ Let some preest a gospel saye, For doute of fendes in the flode.’
405. wormie] Steevens : This has been borrowed by Milton in his On the death of a Fair Infant : ‘ Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed.’
406. vpon] For other examples of the transposition of prepositions, see Abbott, § 203 ; and for examples of an accent nearer to the end than with us, like • exi.e,’ in the next line, see lb. § 490.
407. dxile] Thirlby (Nichols, Illust. ii, 224) : I read exiled, and incline to think Oberon’s speech should begin here.
408. black-browd] Steevens : So in King John, V, vi, 17 : ‘here walk I in the black brow of night To find you out.’
410. mornings loue] There has been some difficulty in determining the refer¬ ence here. — Capell suggests that it may mean ‘ the star Phosphorus ; possibly the sun ; and the sense be that the speaker had sported with one or other of these, i. e. wanton’d in them ; but the simpler sense is that he had courted the morning, made her his love-addresses; the lady’s name is Aurora.’ — Steevens takes it for granted
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iii, sc. ii.
1 66
And like a Forrefter, the groues may tread, 41 1
Euen till the Eafterne gate all fierie red,
Opening on Neptune , with faire bleffed beames,
Turnes into yellow gold, his fait greene ftreames.
But notwithftanding hafte, make no delay : 415
We may effedt this bufineffe, yet ere day.
Puck. Vp and downe, vp and downe, I will leade them vp and downe : I am fear’d in field and towne.
Goblin , lead them vp and downe : here comes one. 419
413. faire bleffed~\ far-blessing Han. Warb. fair-blessed Walker, Dyce ii.
415. notwithjlanding ] notwiflanding, Qj. notwithstanding, Theob. et seq.
416. [Exit Oberon. Rowe.
41 7-41 9. Vp... downe] Two lines, Q,, Four lines, Pope et seq.
417. downe, vp~\ down then, up Han.
that it is Tithonus, the husband of Aurora. — Holt White thinks, and Dyce and W. A. Wright agree with him, that ‘ Cephalus, the mighty hunter and paramour of Aurora, is intended. The context, “And like a forester,” &c. seems to show that the chase was the “ sport ” which Oberon boasts he partook with the “ morning’s love.” ’ — Halliwell says that ‘ Oberon merely means to say metaphorically that he has sported with Aurora, the morning’s love, the first blush of morning ; and that he is not, like a ghost, compelled to vanish at the dawn of day.’ [This interpretation is to me the most natural, and more in harmony than the others with the drift of Obe- ron’s speech, which is to contrast with the fate of the damned spirits, who must con¬ sort with black-browed night, his liberty in the fair blessed beams of day, and not to boast that he is privileged to sport with Phosphorus, or Tithonus, or Cephalus. — Ed.]
413. beames,] I believe that Dyce (ed. ii) and Hudson, who printed from him, are the only editors who have here followed Walker’s convincing suggestion ( Crit. iii, 49) that the comma after 1 beams ’ be erased. It is with these beams that the streams are turned to gold. Compare ‘ gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ’ — Sonn. 33. — Ed.
414. salt greene] Tathwell (ap. Grey, i, 62) : Qu. jm-green. But perhaps the contrast is intended between ‘yellow gold’ and ‘salt green.’ [Undoubtedly ‘ salt green ’ is sea green. — Ed.]
415. notwithstanding] In this word occurs one of those insignificant variants in different copies of the same edition. The Cam. Ed. records as in QI (Fisher’s) not¬ wist an diug, and the same is recorded in Henry Johnson’s microscopically minute collation, whereas Ashbee’s Facsimile and Griggs’s Photo-lithographic Facsimile both have notwistanding. But this minute collation of what is not Shakespeare’s work, but that of a printer, in whom we take no atom of interest, leads, I am afraid, nowhither. — Ed.
417. Vp and downe, &c.] Collier: These four lines [according to Pope’s divis¬ ion] are possibly a quotation from some lost ballad respecting Puck and his pranks ; he would otherwise hardly address himself as ‘ Goblin.’ The ex-it of Oberon is not marked in the old copies, and the last line [419] might belong to him, if we suppose him to have remained on the stage.
419. Goblin, lead] Thirlby (Nichols, Illust. ii, 224) conjectured Goblin'll lead —an emendatio certissima, I think ; a clear case of absorption. Staunton, however,
ACT III, sc. ii.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
1 6/
420
Enter Lyfander.
Lyf. Where art thou, proud Demetrius ?
Speake thou now.
Rob. Here villaine, drawne & readie. Where art thou ? Lyf. I will be with thee ftraight.
Rob. Follow me then to plainer ground.
Enter Demetrius.
Dem. Lyfander, fpeake againe ;
Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
Speake in fome bufh : Where doft thou hide thy head?
425
429
420. Enter] Re-enter Cap.
421, 422. One line, Qq, Pope et seq. 423, 425, &c. Rob.] Puck. Rowe et
seq.
425. to plainer ground] Separate line, Theob. et seq. (except Hal).
[Lys. goes out, as following Dem.
Theob. Exit Lys. as following the Voice, which seems to go off. Cap.
429. Speake in fome bufh .•] Speak. In some bush ? Cap. et seq. (subs.).
Speake. ..head /*] Speak in some bush, where thou dost hide thy head. Han .
in a note on * Sicilia is a so-forth ’ ( Wint. T. I, ii, 218, contributed to The Athenceum, 27 June, ’74), gives a strikingly novel interpretation of the whole line. It is not a happy interpretation, it must be confessed, but it has a sad interest as being one of the very last notes which sprang from that fertile and learned mind, and one which, alas, its writer never saw in print. It is as follows : ‘ There can be no doubt with those well read in our old drama that et cetera in like manner, from being used to express vaguely what a writer or speaker hesitated to call by its plain name, came at length to signify the object itself. “Yea, forsooth” is possibly another case in point. The Puritanical citizens, who were afraid of a good air-splitting oath, and indulged only in mealy- mouthed protestations, got the name of “ yea-forsooths ” [see 2 Hen. IV: I, ii, 41]. I am not sure but that in the same way we get the meaning of [the present line, which is], perhaps, no other than a nickname given to the mischievous sprite to indi¬ cate his will-o’-the-wisp propensities, and to be read: “ Goblin-lead-them-up-and - down." Still more curious, there is some reason for believing that what has always been regarded as a harmless exclamation of Master Flute : “A paramour is, God bless us, a thing of nought,” was really meant as a term of reproach. Compare V, i, 323 : “ He for a man, God warrant us ; she for a woman, God bless us," expressions which have hitherto defied explanation, but which are quite intelligible as terms of oppro¬ brium. The one being a male God-warrant-us ; the other a female God-bless-us. The rationale of these latter expressions being so employed must be gathered, I appre¬ hend, from the all-prevalent fear of witchcraft formerly. When a suspected person came in presence, or was even spoken of, it was customary to invoke the protection of Heaven, and the usual form of invocation was “God bless us!” In the course of time this formula was used to denominate the individual whose malice was depre¬ cated, and finally became a by-name for any one of ill-omened repute.’ It is only Staunton’s interpretation of the present line that is to be deprecated in the foregoing note. — Ed.
423. drawne] That is, with sword drawn.
429. Speake . . . bush] Capell: Very nature and knowledge of what is acting
i68
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act III, SC. il.
Rob. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the ftars, 430
Telling the bufties that thou look’ll: for wars,
And wilt not come ? Come recreant, come thou childe,
He whip thee with a rod. He is defil’d That drawes a fword on thee.
Dem. Yea, art thou there ? 435
Ro. Follow my voice, we’l try no manhood here. Exit.
Lyf. He goes before me, and ftill dares me on,
When I come where he cals, then he’s gone :
The villaine is much lighter heel’d then I :
I followed fail, but falter he did flye ; Jhifting places. 440
That fallen am I in darke vneuen way,
And here wil reft me. Come thou gentle day : lye down.
For if but once thou fhew me thy gray light, 443
43°. bragging ] begging F^, Rowe.
436. Exit.] Exeunt. Qq.
437. [Lys. comes back. Theob. Re -enter Lys. Cap.
438. ca!s,~\ cals me, Ff, Rowe + .
438. Ac’s'] he is Qt.
440. followed ] follow'd Rowe et seq.
fluffing places.] Om. Qq.
442. lye down.] Om. Qq. Lyes down. Rowe.
will tell us, the line is spoke with great pauses ; its sense this, indicated by the tone, Speak. Are you crept into some bush ?
440. shifting places] R. G. White (ed. i) : This stage-direction is misplaced, as it plainly refers to Puck, Lysander, and Demetrius, and belongs several lines above. [R. G. White is the only editor, I believe, who has done more than merely mention that this puzzling stage-direction is to be found in the Folio ; his suggestion is not altogether satisfactory. Just below Demetrius accuses Lysander of ‘shifting every place,’ which certainly seems to refer to this stage-direction, and may indicate some unusual alacrity on the part of Lysander in his attempts in the dense darkness to find Demetrius. It is clear that Demetrius follows Puck’s voice off the stage at line 436. To make Demetrius enter and fall asleep and then Lysander enter and fall asleep, would have smacked of tameness in the repetition, and we should have had but little proof that the two men were really in bitter earnest. Whereas if Demetrius plunges into the darkness and we lose sight of him mad in the pursuit of Puck’s voice, and then see Lysander enter, rush hither and thither, half frenzied, shifting his place every minute, then the conviction is forced on us that this is a fight to the death, and the somnolent power of Puck’s charm in allaying the fury is heightened. There is anotner point which adds somewhat to the belief that this stage-direction is correctly placed : it is not mandatory, as are many other stage-directions in this play, or as that two lines lower, ‘lye down’; it does not tell the actor what to do, but describes what he does. Hence I adhere to the Folio, both as to the propriety of this ‘ shifting places ’ and as to its location. — Ed.]
443. gray] Marshall: Compare Ham. I, i, 166, ‘But look, the mom, in russet mantle clad,’ where ‘ russet,’ as has been pointed out in line [23 of this scene], means
ACT III, sc. ii.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
169
lie finde Demetrius , and reuenge this fpight.
Enter Robin and Demetrius.
Rob. Ho, ho, ho ; coward, why corn’ft thou not ?
Dem. Abide me, if thou dar’ft. For well I wot,
Thou runft before me, fhifting euery place,
444. [sleeps. Cap. 446. why com'JT\ why then coni' st
445. Enter Robin] Robin Qq. Han. why comest Johns. Steev.’85, Rann,
446. Ho, ho, ho /] Ho, ho ; ho, ho ! Cap. Mai. wherefore comest Schmidt. Steev.’93, Var. Knt, Dyce ii, iii, Ktly.
446. Ho, ho, ho] Ritson : This exclamation would have been uttered by Puck with greater propriety if he were not now playing an assumed character, which he, in the present instance, seems to forget. In the old song, printed by Peck and Percy [see ‘ Robin Goodfellow,’ Percy’s Reliques, &c. in Appendix], in which all his gam¬ bols are related, he concludes every stanza with Ho, ho, ho ! So in Grim the Collier of Croydon [Robin Goodfellow says], ‘ Ho, ho, ho, my masters ! No good fellow¬ ship !’ [V, i, p. 459, Hazlitt’s Dodsley). Again, in Drayton’s Nymphidia [p. 164, ed. 1748], ‘ Hoh, hoh, quoth Hob, God save thy grace.’ It was not, however, as has been asserted, the appropriate exclamation, in our author’s time, of this eccentric cha¬ racter ; the devil himself having, if not a better, at least an older, title to it. So in Histriomastix (as quoted by Mr Steevens in a note on Rich. Ill), ‘ a roaring Devil enters, with the Vice on his back, Iniquity in one hand, and Juventus in the other, crying, “ Ho ! ho! ho! these babes mine are all.”’ — [p. 40, ed. Simpson]. Again, in Gammer Gurton's Needle, ‘ But Diccon, Diccon, did not the devil cry ho, ho, ho ?’ [II, iii]. And, in the same play, ‘ By the mass, ich saw him of late cal up a great blacke devill, O, the knave cryed, ho, ho, he roared and he thundered’ [III, ii]. So in the Epitaph attributed to Shakespeare : ‘ Hoh ! quoth the devil, ’tis my John o’ Coombe.’ Again, in Goulart’s Histories, 1607: ‘the Diuills in horrible formes . . . assoone as they beheld him ran unto him, crying Hoh, Hoh, what makest thou here ?’ Again, in the same book, ‘ The blacke guests . . . roared and cryed out, Hoh, sirra, let alone the child.’ Indeed, from a passage in Wily Beguiled, 1606, I suspect that this same ‘ knavish sprite ’ was sometimes introduced on the stage as a demi-devil : ‘ I’ll rather,’ it is Robin Goodfellow who speaks, ‘ put on my flashing red nose and my flaming face, and come wrap’d in a calfs skin, and cry ho, ho.’ — [p. 319, ed. Haw¬ kins, and p. 256, ed. Hazlitt’s Dodsley, in both places it is printed bo, bo. — Ed.]. — Staunton : There is an ancient Norfolk proverb, ‘ To laugh like Robin Goodfellow,’ which means, we presume, to laugh in mockery or scorn. This derision was always expressed by the exclamation in the text, . . . which seems with our ancestors always to have conveyed the idea of something fiendish and unnatural, and is the established burden to the songs which describe the frolics of Robin Goodfellow. — W. A. Wright : There is nothing so exceptional in the cry as to make it inappropriate [as Ritson sug¬ gested] to Puck in an assumed character. — Bell (ii, 121), whose ‘humour’ was Teutonic folk-lore, connects by this exclamation, Puck with The Wild Huntsman.
447. Abide] W. A. Wright : Wait for me, that we may encounter. [It is pos¬ sible that ‘ me ’ may be merely the ethical dative, and thus ‘ abide ’ may be re¬ lieved from any unusual meaning, and the phrase be equivalent merely to ‘ Stand still.’— Ed.]
445
448
A MID SOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act hi, sc. ii.
170
And dar’ft not ftand, nor looke me in the face.
Where art thou ? 450
Rob. Come hither, I am here.
Dem. Nay then thou mock’ft me ; thou fhalt buy this deere,
If euer I thy face by day-light fee.
Now goe thy way : faintneffe conftraineth me,
To meafure out my length on this cold bed,
By daies approach looke to be vifited.
Enter Helena.
Hel. O weary night, O long and tedious night,
Abate thy houres, fhine comforts from the Eaft,
That I may backe to Athens by day-light,
From thefe that my poore companie deteft;
And fleepe that fometime fhuts vp forrowes eie,
455
460
463
450. thou ?] thou now ? Qr, Cap. Coll. Sing. Hal. Dyce, White, Sta. Cam. Ktly.
451. Come] Come thou Pope + .
452. Jhalt]Jhat Qt.
buy] 'by Johns, conj. Coll. Sing. Dyce, Sta.
455* faintneffe] faitnneffe F2.
457. [Lyes down. Rowe.
[Scene X. Pope, Han. Warb.
Scene IX. Johns.
458. Enter...] Enter... and throws herself down. Cap.
460. fhine comforts] fhine comforts , Qx. shine , comforts, Theob. Warb. Johns. Cap. Mai. Steev.’93, Knt, White i, Sta.
463. fometime] fometimes QqF3F^, Rowe + , Knt, Coll, i, ii, Sing. Cam. Ktly, White ii.
452. buy] Johnson : That is, thou shalt dearly pay for this. Though this is sense and may well enough stand, yet the poet perhaps wrote ‘ thou shalt ’by it dear.’ — Staunton : There can be little doubt the true word was 'by. — W. A. Wright : The phrase [‘buy it dear’], if a corruption, was so well established in Shakespeare’s time as to make a change unnecessary. Compare i Hen. IV: V, iii, 7 : ‘ The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought Thy likeness.’ And 2 Hen. VI: II, i, 100 : ‘ Too true ; and bought his climbing very dear.’ Besides, the two words were etymologic¬ ally connected. [See line 181, above.]
460. comforts] This may be an accusative, the object of ‘ shine ’ ; it may be a vocative, like ‘ night ’ ; or it may be a nominative, with ‘ shine ’ as its verb ; which¬ ever the reader may think the most pathetic. — Ed.
462. detest] Walker (Crii. ii, 311) : In writers of [Shakespeare’s] age detest is used in the sense which as then it still retained from its original detestari, being indic¬ ative of something spoken, not of an affection of the mind ; compare attest, protest, which still retain their etymological meaning. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, B. ii, speak¬ ing of secrecy in matters of government, ‘Again, the wisdom of antiquity ... in the description of torments and pains . . . doth detest the offence of facility.’ Thus, Ant. and Cleop. IV, xiv, 55, ‘ Since Cleopatra died I’ve liv’d in such dishonour, that the gods Detest my baseness.’ [Walker gives several other examples, besides the present passage, which justify his observation. — Ed.]
ACT III, sc. ii.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
Steale me a while from mine owne companie. Jy Rob. Yet but three ? Come one more,
Two of both kindes makes vp foure.
Here the comes, curft and fad,
Cupid is a knauifh lad,
Enter Hermia.
Thus to make poore females mad.
Her. Neuer fo wearie, neuer fo in woe, Bedabbled with the dew, and torne with briars,
I can no further crawle, no further goe ;
My legs can keepe no pace with my defires.
Here will I reft me till the breake of day,
Heauens fhield Lyfander , if they meane a fray.
Rob. On the ground fleepe found, lie apply your eie gentle louer, remedy.
171
465
470
475
478
465. three /] three here ? Han.
466. makes'] make F , Pope + , Coll. Hal. White i.
467. comes] cometh Han.
469. Enter Hermia.] Om. Qt. After line 470, Rowe et seq.
473. further] farther Coll. White i. 475- [lies down. Cap.
476. Heauens] Heaven Anon. (ap.
Cam.).
476. [Lyes down. Rowe.
477-480. Six lines, Coll. Sing. Ktly.
Ten lines, Warb. et cet.
477. fleepe] sleep thou Han. Cap.
478. your] QqFf, Hal. to your Rowe et cet.
[squeezing the Juice on Lysan- der’s eye. Rowe.
465-470. Verity : A trochaic measure of three feet with extra syllable at the end. Scan ‘ three ’ as a disyllable ; likewise ‘ comes,’ thus : * Yht but | thrle ? | Come one | mbre,’ and ‘ Hfere she | comes | cftrst and | sad.’ [Why not say that these two lines are made up of amphimacers, and so avoid any barbarous prolongation of syllables ? Thus : ‘ Yet but three | Come one more,’ and ‘ Here she comes. | Curst and sad.’ Or even why give technical terms, which are merely to guide us when in doubt, to lines which no English tongue can possibly pronounce other than rhythmically ?— Ed.]
466. makes] See III, i, 84.
477>478. On . . . eie] Tathwell (ap. Grey, i, 63) would read as two lines; ‘ because verses with the middle rhyme, which were called leonine or monkish verses, seem to have been the ancient language of charms and incantations.’
477-480. On . . . eye] Guest (i, 185): A section of two accents is rarely met with as an independent verse. The cause was evidently its shortness. Shakespeare, however, has adopted it into that peculiar rhythm in which are expressed the wants and wishes of his fairy -land. Under Shakespeare’s sanction it has become classical, and must now be considered as the fairy-dialect of English literature.
478. your eie] Halliwell, who alone of all editors follows the QqFf here in the omission of the preposition to, asserts that ‘ “ apply ” did not necessarily require the addition of the preposition. The verb occurs without it in The Nice Wanton, 1560. The versification is irregular.’ The versification is irregular only when we
172
A MID SOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iii, sc. ii.
When thou wak’ft, thou tak’ft
True delight in the fight of thy former Ladies eye,
And the Country Prouerb knowne,
That euery man fhould take his owne.
In your waking fhall be fhowne.
Iacke fhall haue Iill, nought fhall goe ill,
The man fhall haue his Mare againe , and all fhall bee well.
They Jleepe all the A SI.
480
485
487
479. wak’Jl, thou tak'Jl] wakest next, thou takest Han. wak’st Next, thou tak’st Cap. wak’st See thou tak'st Tyr- whitt, Coll, ii (MS).
tak'Jl] rak'Jt FaF3
484. Two lines, Johns, et seq.
485. Mare'] mate Gould.
485, 486. and... well."] Separate line, Coll. Sing. White i, Ktly.
485. all Jhall bee] all be Rowe + .
486. well] still Steev. conj.
487. They...] Om. Qq. They sleep. Rowe.
count the syllables on our fingers ; a solitary example, and that too, not quoted in full, is hardly sufficient to make a rule, especially in days of careless printing. — Ed.
479. thou tak’st] Tyrwhitt : The line would be improved, I think, both in its measure and construction, if it were written 1 see thou tak’st.’ — Dyce: But see would require take. Compare above, ‘ sleep sound.’ — Guest (i, 292) : The propriety of the rhythm will be better understood if we suppose (what was certainly intended) that the fairy is pouring the love-juice on the sleeper’s eye while he pronounces the words ‘ thou tak’st.’ The words form, indeed, the fairy’s ‘ charm,’ and the rhythm is grave and emphatic as their import. I cannot see how the construction is bettered [by Tyrwhitt’s emendation], and the correspondence, no less than the fitness of the num¬ bers, is entirely lost.
484. Iacke . . . Iill] Steevens : This is to be found in Heywood’s Epigrammes upon Proverbes, 1567: ‘All shalbe well, Iacke shall haue Gill: Nay, nay, Gill is
wedded to Wyll.’ — Grey : Jill seems to be a nickname for Julia or Julianna. _ Hal-
LIWELL ; The nicknames of Jack and Jill, as generic titles for a man and woman, are of great antiquity.— Staunton cites instances of this phrase from Skelton’s Mag- nyfycence, Dyce’s ed. i, 234; from Heywood’s Dialogue, 1598, sig. F3 ; Love's Lab. L- V, ii, 305.
4§5> 4^6. The . . . well] W. A. Wright: This seems to have been a proverbial expression, implying that all would be right in the end. Compare Fletcher, The Chances, III, iv: ‘Fred. How now? How goes it? John. Why, the man has his mare again, and all’s well, Frederic.’
487. Another descriptive stage-direction, if such an expression be allowable, like shifting places,’ above. — Ed.
ACT XV, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
173
Aflus Quartus. [ Scene /.]
Enter Queene of Fairies , and Clowne y and Fairies , and the King behinde them.
Tita. Come, fit thee downe vpon this flowry bed, While I thy amiable cheekes doe coy,
And fticke muske rofes in thy lleeke fmoothe head,
And kiffe thy faire large eares, my gentle ioy.
Clow. Where’s Peafe bloffome ?
Peaf. Ready.
Clow. Scratch my head, Peafe-bloffome. Wher’s Moun- fieuer Cobweb.
Cob. Ready.
Clowne. Mounfieur Cobweb , good Mounfier get your
1. Actus Quartus.] Om. Qq. Act IV, Scene i. Rowe et seq. Act IV, Sc. ii. Fleay.
[The Wood. Pope. The same. The Lovers at a distance asleep. Cap.
2. and Clowne,] Bottom, Rowe et seq. Fairies,] Faieries : Qt.
2, 3. the King...] Oberon, behind, unseen. Cap.
4. [seating him on a bank. Cap.
6. Jleeks /moot he] sleek-smooth' d Pope, Han. sleek , smooth'd Theob. Warb. Johns.
8, 10, &c. Clow.] Bot. Rowe.
10. Mounfieuer] Mounjieur QqFf, Cap. White, Cam. Rolfe (throughout). Monsieur Rowe et cet. (throughout).
I3- get your] get you your Qt, Sta. Cam. White ii.
1. Actus Quartus] Johnson : I see no reason why the Fourth Act should begin here, when there seems no interruption of the action. The division of acts seems t» have been arbitrarily made in Ff, and may therefore be altered at pleasure. [It is precisely because there is so little ‘ interruption of the action ’ that it is necessary to have an interruption of time, which this division supplies. At the close of the last sceDe the stage is pitch-dark, doubly black through Puck’s charms, and a change to daylight is rendered less violent by a new Act. See Preface , p. xxxi. — Ed.]
2, 8, 10, &c. Clowne] See Fleay, V, i, 417.
5. amiable] W. A. Wright: That is, lovely. Compare Psalm lxxxiv, 1 : ‘ How amiable are thy tabernacles.’ And Milton, Par. Lost, iv, 250: ‘ Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable.’
5. coy] Steevens : That is, to soothe, caress. So in Warner’s Albion's England , 1602, vi, 30 [p. 148] : ‘And whilst she coyes his sooty cheekes, or curies his sweaty top.’ Again, in Golding’s Ovid, vii [p. 82, ed. 1567]: ‘Their dangling Dewlaps with his hand he coyd vnfearfully.’ — W. A. Wright : The verb is formed from the adjective, which is itself derived from the French coy or quoy, the representative of the Lat. quietus.
13. Mounsieur] Cambridge Editors: We have retained throughout this scene
174
A M1DSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. I.
weapons in your hand, & kill me a red hipt humble-Bee, on the top of a thiftle ; and good Mounfieur bring mee 15 the hony bag. Doe not fret your felfe too much in the aftion, Mounfieur; and good Mounfieur haue a care the hony bag breake not, I would be loth to haue yon ouer- flowne with a hony-bag figniour. Where’s Mounfieur Mujiardfeed ? 20
Muf Ready.
Clo. Giue me your neafe, Mounfieur Mujiardfeed.
Pray you leaue your courtefie good Mounfieur.
Muf. What’s your will ?
Clo. Nothing good Mounfieur, but to help Caualery 25 Cobweb to fcratch. I muftto the Barbers Mounfieur, for me-thinkes I am maruellous hairy about the face. And I 27
18. would ] should Pope ii, Theob. Warb. Johns.
lothj loath Qt. yon\ Fj.
ouerflowne~\ overflowed Mai. ’90
conj.
22, 23. Prose, Qt, Pope et seq.
22. your neafe'] thy neafe Pope, Theob. Han. Warb. thy neife Johns.
neafe ] newfe F2, Rowe ii. newfe F . news F4, Rowe i.
22. Mufla rdf sed ] Muflard F3F4, Rowe i.
23. courtefie ] curtfle Q,. curtefu F3F4.
25. Caualery] Qq, Coll. Hal. Dyce, White, Cam. Ktly. Cavalero Ff, Rowe et cet.
26. Cobweb] Pease-blossom Rann, Hal. Dyce ii, iii.
27. maruellous ] maruailes Q,. mar- uailous Q2. marvels Cap.
the spelling of the old copies, as representing a pronunciation more appropriate to Bottom, like ‘ Cavalery,’ a few lines lower down. We are aware, however, that the word was generally so spelt. — Rolfe : It should be noted, however, that ‘ Monsieur,’ ‘ Mounsieur,’ ‘ Mounsier,’ &c. are forms quite promiscuously used by the printers of that time. [Any indication whatever which tends to differentiate Bottom’s pronun¬ ciation from Theseus’s should be by all means retained. — Ed.]
22. neafe] Grey : That is, fist. So in 2 Hen. IV: II, iv, 200 : ‘ Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif.’ [See Text. Notes for its evolution into news. — Ed.]
23. courtesie] Schmidt: That is, put on your hat. Compare Love's Lab. L. V i, 103 : ‘ remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy head.’
26. Cobweb] Anon. (ap. Grey, i, 64) : Without doubt it should be Cavalero Pease-blossom ; as for Cavalero Cobweb, he had been just dispatched upon a perilous adventure. — Capell : Unless you will solve it this way, that Cobweb laughs and goes out, but joins the other in scratching; and this, indeed, is the likeliest, for Pease-blos¬ som would stand but sorrily there. — Hudson : Bottom is here in a strange predica¬ ment, and has not had time to perfect himself in the nomenclature of his fairy attend¬ ants, and so he gets the names somewhat mixed. Probably he is here addressing Cavalery Pease-blossom, but gives him the wrong name.
27. marvellous] See III, i, 4.
ACT IV, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
am fuch a tender Affe, if my haire do but tickle me, I muft fcratch.
Tita. What, wilt thou heare fome muficke, my fweet loue.
Clow. I haue a reafonable good eare in muficke. Let vs haue the tongs and the bones.
Muficke Tongs , Rurall Mufcke.
Tita. Or fay fweete Loue, what thou defireft to eat.
Clowne. Truly a pecke of Prouender; I could munch your good dry Oates. Me-thinkes I haue a great defire to a bottle of hay : good hay, fweete hay hath no fel¬ low.
175
28
30
35
39
28. do but] doth but Rowe ii+.
30. fome] fome fome Qa.
32. 33. Let vs] Let’s Qf.
33. tongs] tongues Fa. tonges F3.
34. Muficke...] Ff. Music. Tongs, ... Pope + . Rustic music. White i. Rough music. Dyce ii, Om. Qq et cet.
35. defireft] desidst Rowe et seq. (ex¬ cept Cam.).
36. Prouender] prouander Qt. could] would F3F4, Rowe i. munch] mounch Q .
38. fweete hay] sweet hay. Cap. et seq. (except Dyce ii).
33- tongs . . . bones] Collier : Such music seems to have been played out of sight, at this desire from Bottom.— Planch£ (ap. Halliwell) : In the original sketches of Inigo Jones, preserved in the library of the Duke of Devonshire, are two figures illustrative of the rural music here alluded to. ‘ Knackers ’ is written by Inigo Jones under the first figure, and ‘Tonges and Key’ under the second; the ‘knackers’ were usually made of bone or hard wood, and were played between the fingers, in the same way as we still hear them every day among boys in the streets, and it is a very ancient and popular kind of music ; the ‘ tongs ’ were struck by the ‘ key,’ and in this way the discordant sounds were produced that were so grateful to the ear of the entranced Weaver. — Staunton : These instruments [mentioned by Planch^] must be regarded as the immediate precursors of the more musical marrow-bones and cleavers, the introduction of which may, with great probability, be referred to the establishment of Clare Market, in the middle of the seventeenth century; since the butchers of that place were particularly celebrated for their performances. In Addison’s description of John Dentry’s remarkable ‘ kitchen music ’ ( Spectator , No. 570, 1714), the marrow¬ bones and cleavers form no part of the Captain’s harmonious apparatus, but the tongs and key are represented to have become a little unfashionable some years before. By the year I749> however, the former had obtained a considerable degree of vulgar popularity, and were introduced in Bonnell Thornton’s burlesque ‘ Ode on St. Cecil¬ ia’s Day, adapted to the Ancient British Musick.’ Ten years afterwards this poem was recomposed by Dr Burney, and performed at Ranelagh, on which occasion cleavers were cast in bell-metal to accompany the verses wherein they are mentioned.
34. Musicke, &c.] Capell : This scenical direction is certainly an interpolation of the players, as no such direction appears in either Qto, and Titania’s reply is a clear exclusion of it. [See Collier’s suggestion noted above.]
38. bottle] Halliwell : A ‘ bottle of hay ’ was not a mere bundle , but some
iyt> a
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act rtr, SC. L
Tita. I haue a venturous Fairy, That fhall feeke the Squirrels hoard , And fetch thee new Nuts.
42
40
40, 41. One line, Qs.
40, 42. Prose, Pope, Theob. Two lines,
41. Squirrels ] Squirils Q,.
42. thee\ thee thence Han. Warb. Cap.
ending feeke. ..nuts, Han. et seq. 40. venturous ] vent'rous Cap.
Rann, Dyce ii. iii.
new ] newest Kinnear.
measure of that provender ; by it, is now understood such a moderate bundle as may serve for one feed, twisted somewhat into the shape of a bottle, but in earlier times the bottles were of stated weights. In a court-book, dated 1551, the half-penny bottle of hay is stated to weigh two pounds and a half, and the penny bottle five pounds. Cotgrave has ‘ Boteler, to botle or bundle up, to make into botles or bundles.’ To look for a needle in a bottle of hay is a common proverb, which occurs in Taylor’s IVorkes, 1630, &c.
38. bottle of hay] Hunter (i, 296) : We have here an instance how imperfectly any printing can convey with fulness and precision all that a dramatist has written to be spoken on the stage. Bottom, half man, half ass, is for a bottle of a; hay , or ale, for the actor was no doubt to speak in such a manner that both these words should be suggested. The snatch of an old song that follows is in praise of ale, not ‘ hay.’ Bottom sings, stirred to it by the rural music, the rough music, as it is called, which we learn from the Folio was introduced when Bottom had said ‘ Let us have the tongs and the bones !’ [It is to be feared that this a little too fine-spun. First, it is extremely difficult to know when the dropping of the aspirate began to be the shibboleth of society ; and secondly, I can find no trace of any song such as Hunter thinks that Bottom quotes ; ‘ sweet ’ seems scarcely a fit adjective for ale. That Bot¬ tom talks with the rudest intonation of the clowns of the day is likely. — Ed.]
38. good hay, &c.] Collier : This is consistent with the notion that Bottom really partakes of the nature of the ass ; not so his declaration, — I must to the bar¬ ber’s, &c. He confuses his two conditions. — Halliwell : Bottom’s desire for hay is, of course, involuntary, and has no connexion with any knowledge of his condition. It may be here remarked that it requires a close examination to enable us to reconcile the discourse of Bottom, in the present scene, with the conclusions that have been gen¬ erally drawn from his language in the earlier part of the drama. Here he is a clever humourist, and although, as throughout the play, exhibiting a consciousness of supe¬ riority, yet he is without his former absurdities. Is it quite certain that his wrongly- applied phrases in I, ii are not intended to proceed from his whimsical humour ? [See Puck’s and Philostrate’s description of Bottom and his fellows. — Ed.]
40-42. As Titania always speaks rhythmically, these lines have proved obstinate in all endeavors to reduce them to rhythm. The division into two lines, the first ending ‘ seeke,’ was made by Hanmer, and he has been universally followed. I think it not unlikely that some word has here been lost ; experience has taught me that towards the foot of a column, where these present lines happen to be in the Folio, the compositors, for typographical reasons, were apt to lengthen or shorten lines, regard¬ less of rhythm, and in this process phrases became sophisticated. Hanmer divided the lines rightly, and I think that he was equally fortunate in supplying the word that had been probably omitted : ‘ The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee thence new nuts.’ Collier supposed that for is the omitted word : ‘ and fetch for thee
ACT iv, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
Clown. I had rather haue a handfull or two of dried peafe. But I pray you let none of your people ftirre me, I haue an expofition of fleepe come vpon me.
Tyta. Sleepe thou, and I will winde thee in my arms, Fairies be gone, and be alwaies away.
So doth the woodbine, the fweet Honifuckle,
Gently entwift ; the female Iuy fo Enrings the barky fingers of the Elme.
1 77 43
45
50
43. or two ] Om. Rowe i.
46. transposed to follow 47, Lettsom (ap. Dyce), Huds.
47. alwaies ] Qq. alwayes F2F3. al¬ ways F4, Rowe, Pope, a while Han.
White, Coll, ii, iii (MS), Huds. all ways Theob. et cet.
49. entwijl; the female ] entwist the Maple Warb. Theob.
49, 50. entwijl ;... Enrings] entwist, ... Enring, Han. Cap.
new nuts.’ But to me the similarity between * thee ’ and thence is the more likely source of the omission. Walker ( Crit . ii, 257) suggests that there has been an absorption of the definite article, the full text being ‘ fetch thee the new nuts.’ But this is harsh to my ears. Bulloch (p. 63) supposes that we have here only three-fourths of a stanza ; he therefore supplies a rhyme to ‘ fairy ’ and a rhyme to ‘hoard,’ thus: ‘And fetch the new nuts wary To furnish forth thy board.' — Abbott, § 484> says that either ‘ and ’ must be accented and ‘ hoard ’ prolonged, as Steevens asserted, or we must scan as follows : ‘ The squlr | rel’s h6ard, | and fetch | thee ntw | ' nhts.’ I doubt if Titania’s meaning demands such an emphasis on ‘ new,’ and the prolongation of the word so as to supply the missing rhythm, which is what Abbott intends, gives a sound perilously similar to the characteristic cry of a cat. —Ed.
46, 47. Sleepe thou, &c.] Dyce records a suggestion of Lettsom that these two lines should be transposed, which seems to me a needless change. Titania’s ‘ Sleep thou ’ follows naturally after Bottom’s wish, and line 47 might very well be printed in a parenthesis. — Ed.
47, alwaies] Theobald, to whom we owe so much, here rightly divided this word into all ways, i. e. as he says, ‘ disperse yourselves, that danger approach us from no quarter.’ — Upton (241) : ‘ Read “ and be away. — Away." [Seeing them loiter.’] — Heath (55) : As the fairies here spoken to are evidently those whom the Queen had appointed to attend peculiarly on her paramour, I am inclined to think the true reading may be ‘ and be always i’ th' way,' i. e. be still ready at a call.
48, 49. woodbine, . . . Gently entwist] Warburton.: What does the ‘ wood¬ bine ’ entwist ? The honeysuckle. But the woodbine and honeysuckle were, till now, but two names for one and the same plant. Florio interprets Madre selva by ‘ woodbinde or honniesuckle.’ We must therefore find a support for the woodbine as well as for the ivy. Which is done by reading [line 49], ‘ Gently entwist the Maple , Ivy so,’ &c. The corruption' might happen by the first blunderer dropping the p in writing maple, which word thence became male. A following transcriber thought fit to change this male into female, and then tacked it as an epithet to Ivy. — Upton
(242) : Read wood t :ne, i. e. the honey-suckle entwists the rind or bark of the tree?- 12
178
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. i.
[48, 49. woodbine, . . . entwist]
So doth the wood rine the sweet honey-suckle gently entwist. — Johnson : Shakespeare perhaps only meant, so the leaves involve the flower, using ‘ woodbine ’ for the plant, and ‘ honeysuckle ’ for the flower ; or perhaps Shakespeare made a blunder. — Steevens : Baret, in his Alvearie, 1580, enforces the same distinction that Shake¬ speare thought it necessary [according to Johnson] to make : ‘ Woodbin that beareth the Honie-suckle.’ — Capell, following Hanmer’s text, which he says ‘ merits great commendation,’ observes: ‘bonisuckle and woodbine are one, and “entwist” and “ enring ” are both predicated of the elm’s “barky fingers.’” — Heath (55) : A comma after ‘ entwist,’ and another after ‘ enrings ’ will render any further change unnecessary. Thus : — ‘ So the woodbine, the sweet honeysuckle doth gently entwist the barky fingers of the elm, so the female ivy enrings the same fingers.’ — Farmer : It is certain that the ‘ woodbine ’ and the 1 honey-suckle ’ were sometimes considered as different plants. In one of Taylor’s poems, we have — ‘ The woodbine, primrose, and the cowslip fine, The honisuckle, and the daffadill.’ — Steevens : Were any change necessary I should not scruple to read the weedbind , i. e. smilax ; a plant that twists round every other that grows in its way. In a very ancient translation of Macer’s Herball practised by Doctor Lynacre is the following : ‘ Caprifolium is an herbe called woodbynde or withwynde, this groweth in hedges or in woodes, and it wyll beclyp a tre in her growynge, as doth yvye, and hath white flowers.’ — Gif¬ ford, in a note (referred to by Boswell) on ‘ - behold ! How the blue bindweed
doth itself infold With honey-suckle, and both these intwine Themselves with bryony and jessamine,’ &c. — Jonson’s Vision of Delight — Works, vii, 308, thus observes : — This settles the meaning of [Titania’s speech]. The woodbine of Shakespeare is the blue bindweed of Jonson : in many of our counties the woodbine is still the name for the great convolvulus. — Nares : The ‘ blue bindweed ’ [of Jonson, ut supra ] is the blue convolvulus (Gerard, 864), but the calling it ‘ woodbine ’ [in the present passage] has naturally puzzled both readers and commentators ; as it seems to say that the honeysuckle entwines the honeysuckle. Supposing convolvulus to be meant all is easy, and a beautiful passage preserved. . . . The name woodbine has been applied to several climbing plants, and even to the ivy. In a word, if we would cor¬ rect the author himself, we should read : So doth the bind-weed the sweet honeysuckle gently entwist, &c. Otherwise we must so understand ‘ woodbine,’ and be contented with it as a more poetical word than bind-weed, which probably was the feeling that occasioned it to be used. — Hunter (i, 297) : In fact woodbine and honeysuckle are but two names for one and the same plant, or, at most, the honeysuckle is but the flower of the woodbine. . . . The identity of the two is put beyond doubt by the fol¬ lowing passage in Googe’s Book of Husbandry : ‘ The other, the honeysuckle or the woodbine, beginneth to flower in June.’ — p. 180. All notion, therefore, of the wood¬ bine entwisting the honeysuckle is excluded. ... It seems to me that the woodbine and the sweet honeysuckle are here in apposition. — R. G. White (ed. i) : There are few readers of Shakespeare, in America at least, who have not seen the woodbine and the honeysuckle growing together, and twining round each other from their very roots to the top of the veranda on which they are trained ; and to such persons this passage is simple and plain. . . . [The flowers] of the honeysuckle are long unbroken tubes of deep scarlet, somewhat formally grouped ; those of the woodbine shorter, deeply indented from the edge, of a pale buff colour, and irregularly disposed. [It is to be feared that few American readers will recognise these flowers from this description. I suppose that White refers to what is commonly called ‘ the coral hon-
ACT iv, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
O how I loue thee ! how I dote on thee /
Enter Robin goodfellow and Oberon. Ob. Welcome good Robin :
Seeft thou this fweet fight ?
Her dotage now I doe begin to pitty.
For meeting her of late behinde the wood,
Seeking fweet fauors for this hatefull foole,
179
51
55 5 7
51. [they sleep. Cap. 53, 54. One line, Qq, Pope et seq.
52. Enter...] Enter Puck. Rowe. 57. favors'] fauours Q„ Rowe, Rann,
Oberon advances. Cap. Hal. Dyce, White, Sta. Cam. favors F
and Oberon.] Om. Qq. 4"
eysuckle,’ to distinguish it from the ‘trumpet honeysuckle,’ or tecoma ; and by wood¬ bine he means the ‘ evergreen ’ variety. It is really, however, of small consequence, as long as White makes it clear that he here discriminates between ‘ woodbine ’ and ‘ honeysuckle.’— Ed.]— Dyce : My friend, the late Rev. John Mitford, an excellent botanist, who at one time had maintained in print that Gifford’s explanation of ‘ wood¬ bine ’ was wrong, acknowledged at last that it was the only true one. (What an odd notion of poetic composition must those interpreters have who maintain that here woodbine and honeysuckle are put in apposition as meaning the same plant , and who, of course, consider word ‘ entwist ’ seems to describe the mutual action of two climbing plants, twining about each other, and I therefore prefer to consider the woodbine and the honeysuckle as distinct, the former being the convolvulus, rather than to adopt a construction and interpretation which do violence to the reader’s intelligence. [The question, reduced to its simplest terms, is : Are there here two plants referred to, or only one ? If there are two plants, then either one or both of them bears a name which belonged to the common speech of Shakespeare’s day, and which we can now discover only by a resort to literature, an unsure authority when it deals with the popular names of wild flowers. To me it makes little difference what specific flower Titania calls the ‘ wood¬ bine ’ ; she means herself by it just as she designates the repulsive Bottom with two fairies busy scratching his head, under the name of that sweet, lovely flower, the honeysuckle ; and as these two distinct vines entwist each other, so will she wind him in her arms. As will be seen by the foregoing notes, the consensus of opinion inclines to Gifford’s interpretation of woodbine. — Ed.]
49. female] Steevens : That is, because it always requires some support, which is poetically called its husband. So Milton, Par. Lost, V, 215-217: ‘they led the vine To wed her elm; she spoused, about him twines Her marriageable arms.’ So Catullus, lxii, 54 : ‘ Ulmo conjuncta marito.’
57- savors] Steevens: Favours of Qx, taken in the sense of ornaments, such as are worn at weddings, may be right.— Dyce (Notes, 62) : I think favours decidedly right. Titania was seeking flowers for Bottom to wear as favours ; compare Greene :
' These [fair women] with syren-like allurement so entised these quaint squires, that they bestowed all their flowers vpon them for fauours.’ — Quip for an Vpstart Cour¬ tier, Sig. B 2, ed. 1620— R. G. White was at first {Sh. Scholar, 217) inclined to think that ‘ savours ’ is the true word because Bottom expresses a wish for the ‘ sweet
i8o
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. i.
I did vpbraid her, and fall out with her. 58
For fhe his hairy temples then had rounded,
With coronet of frefh and fragrant flowers. 60
And that fame dew which fomtime on the buds,
Was wont to fwell like round and orient pearles ;
Stood now within the pretty flouriets eyes,
Like teares that did the ir owne difgrace bewaile.
When I had at my pleafure taunted her,
And fhe in milde termes begM my patience,
I then did aske of her, her changeling childe,
Which ftraight fhe gaue me, and her Faiiy fent To beare him to my Bower in Fairy Land.
And now I haue the Boy, I will vndoe This hatefull imperfection of her eyes.
And gentle Pucke , take this transformed fcalpe,
From off the head of this Athenian fwaine ;
That he awaking when the other doe,
May all to Athens backe againe repaire,
And thinke no more of this nights accidents,
65
70
75
61. fomtime ] sometimes Johns.
63. flouriets ] Jlourefs Johns. Mai. flourets ' Steev.’93, Var. flow' rets' Knt et seq. (subs.).
68. Fairy ] fairies Dyce, Ktly.
72. transformed ] transforming D. Wilson.
73- °ff] of Q,.
73. this ] the Johns. Steev.’8s, Rann.
74. That he] That hee, Qt, Theob. Warb. Johns. Coll. Hal. Dyce. That , he Cam. White ii.
other] others Rowe + , Steev.'85, Mai. ’90.
75- May all] All may Grey ap Cam.
savour ’ of a honey-bag, but he recanted in his subsequent edition, and decided that * favours ’ is surely right, wherewith agrees the present Ed.
60. With] Abbott, § 89, refers the omission of the definite article here to that class of cases where it is omitted before a noun already defined by another noun. It seems to me, however, that it is, possibly, a case of absorption in the th of ‘ With.’ —Ed.
62. orient] Halliwell : Sparkling, pellucid. Compare, ‘ His orient liquor in a crystal glass.’ — Comus [65]. — W. A. Wright: Compare Far. Lost, i, 546: ‘Ten thousand banners rise into the air, With orient colours waving.’
63. flouriets] Capell: Flourets' is recommended by [Heath, 56], and is indeed a word of more proper and more analogous formation ; but the other [‘ flouriet ’] was the word of the time, as this editor thinks, but has no examples at hand.
68. Fairy] Dyce here reads fairies. See II, i, 65.
74. other] For examples of ‘ other ’ used as a plural, see Abbott, § 12.
75. May all] Abbott, §399: This might be explained by transposition, ‘may all ’ for all may, but more probably they is implied.
ACT IV, sc. i.] A MJD SOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
But as the fierce vexation of a dreame.
But firft I will releafe the Fairy Queene.
Be thou as thou wajl wont to be ; See as thou waft wont to fee . Dians bud, or Cupids flower ,
Hath fuch force and bleffed power.
Now my Titania wake you my fweet Queene.
Tita. My Oberon, what vifions haue I feene ! Me-thought I was enamoured of an Affe.
Ob. There lies your loue.
Tita. How came thefe things to paffe ?
Oh, how mine eyes d ith loath this vifage now !
Ob. Silence a while. Robin take off his head : Titania, mufick call, and ftrike more dead
80
85
90
78. releafe] relafe F4.
79-82. Roman, Qr
79. Be thou] Be, Qq, Pope et seq.
79, 80. waft] was Knt.
79. [touching her Eyes with an herb. Cap.
81. bud, or] bud o'er Thirlby, Theob. et seq.
84, &c. Tita.] Queen. Rowe.
88. doth ] doe Q,Ff, Rowe et seq. loath this] loathe this Q2. loath his
Q,, Cap. Mai. Var. Knt, Coll. Hal. Dyce Sta. Cam.
89. off his] off this Qx, Cap. Steev. Mai. Var. Knt, Coll. Hal. Dyce, Sta. Cam. of this
79. Be thou] R. G. White (ed. i): In this ‘thou’ there is one of the instances in which it seems proper to allow strong probability and the authority of other edi¬ tions to outweigh the dictum of the Folio. There is a change of rhythm for this little incantation, and that Shakespeare should have vitiated it in the very first line is improbable to the verge of impossibility ; whereas the insertion of ‘ thou ’ in such a place by a transcriber or printer is an accident of a sort that frequently happens.
81. Dians bud] Steevens : This is the bud of the Agnus Castus or Chaste Tree. Thus, in Macer’s Herball , ‘ The vertue of this herbe is, that he wyll kepe man and woman chaste.’— W. A. Wright : It is more probably a product of Shakespeare’s imagination, which had already endued ‘ Cupid’s flower,’ the Heart’s Ease, with qual¬ ities not recognised in botany. [Was it the Heart’s Ease in general which possessed these qualities, or only one particular ‘ little Western flower ’ ?— Ed.] Steevens’s suggestion is, indeed, supported by Chaucer; see The Flower and the Leaf 472-5 :
‘ Tllat is Diane, the goddesse of chastitie, And for because that she a maiden is, In her hond the braunch she beareth this, That agnus castus men call properly.’
8l, 88. or . . . loath this] Here, within a few lines, we have two sophistications, which may be explained by the supposition that the compositors set up at dictation. — Ed.
88. this] F or other instances where this and his have supplanted one another, see Walker ( Crit . ii, 219, et seq.).. The same interchange seems to have taken place with ‘ his ’ in the next line. See ‘ his intelligence,’ I, i, 262.
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. i
182
Then common fleepe ; of all thefe, fine the fenfe. 91
Tita. Muficke, ho muficke, fuch as charmeth fleepe.
Mufick Jlill. 93
91. common ] cammon Fa.
fleepe ; of all thefe, fine] fleep ; of all thefe find FjF^. sleep. Of all these find Rowe i. sleep of all these five Thirlby, Theob. et seq.
92. ho] howe Qx.
93. Mufick ftill.] Om. Qq, Coll. Music, still. Cam. Still music. Theob. et cet.
91. fine] See Text. Note for the correction of the punctuation by Theobald, whose note is : This most certainly is both corrupt in the text and pointing. Would music, that was to strike them into a deeper sleep than ordinary, contribute to fine (or refine) their senses? My emendation [five] needs no justification. The ‘five’ that lay asleep were Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, Helen, and Bottom. I ought to acknow¬ ledge that Dr Thirlby likewise started and communicated this very correction. — Anon. [ap. Halliwell] : The word ‘ fine ’ here signifies mulctare, and consequently Titania does the very thing Oberon desires. She fines or deprives them of their sense. — Halliwell : The last-quoted observations show how very difficult it is to establish the propriety of any emendation to the satisfaction of every mind. Bottom must be presumed to be at some little distance from the other sleepers, and concealed from the observation of Theseus and his train, but, on the whole, the correction [of Theobald] is to be preferred to the above subtle explanation of the original text.
93. Musick still] Collier (ed. i) : This means, probably, that the music was to cease before Puck spoke, as Oberon afterwards exclaims ‘ Sound music !’ when it was to be renewed. — Dyce ( Remarks , 48): ‘Music still’ is nothing more than Still music ; compare a stage-direction in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Triumph of Time [Four Plays in One), where, according to the old eds., the epithet applied to ‘ Trum¬ pets ’ is put last : 1 Jupiter and Mercury descend severally. Trumpets small above.' The music, instead of ‘ ceasing before Puck spoke,’ was not intended to commence at all till Oberon had said * Sound music !’ The stage-direction here (as we frequently find in early eds. of plays) was placed prematurely, to warn the musicians to be in readiness. — Collier (ed. ii) : If, as Mr Dyce [Remarks, 48) suggests, ‘ still music ’ had been meant, the direction would not have been ‘music still.’ He evidently does not understand the force of the adverb; he mistakes it for the adjective, which occurs afterwards. — Dyce (ed. ii) : Yes, Mr Collier ventures so to write, trusting that none of his readers will take the trouble to refer to my Remarks, where I have quoted [a stage-direction] in which the epithet applied to ‘ Trumpets ’ IS put last. — Staun TON : We apprehend that by ‘ Music still ’ or Still music was meant soft, subdued music, such music as Titania could command, ‘ as charmeth sleep ’ ; the object of it being to ‘ strike more dead Than common sleep.’ This being effected, Oberon him¬ self calls for more stirring strains while he and the Queen take hands, ‘And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.’ — Dyce (ed. ii) : I am glad to find that Mr Staun¬ ton agrees with me as to the meaning of the words ‘Music still.’ I cannot, however, agree with him in the rest of his explanation. I believe that the music is not heard till Oberon echoes Titania’s call for it ; and that to the said still or soft music (the sole object of which is to lull the five sleepers) some sort of a pas de deux is danced by the fairy king and queen.
ACT IV, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
183
Rob. When thou wak’ft, with thine owne fooles eies peepe. (me
Ob. Sound mufick; come my Queen, take hands with And rocke the ground whereon thefe fleepers be.
Now thou and I are new in amity,
And will to morrow midnight, folemnly Dance in Duke Thefeus houfe triumphantly,
And bleffe it to all faire pofterity.
There fhall the paires of faithfull Louers be Wedded, with Thefeus , all in iollity.
Rob. Faire King attend, and marke,
I doe heare the morning Larke.
Ob. Then my Queene in filence fad,
Trip we after the nights fhade ;
95
100
105
107
94. When thou wak'Jl] Q2, Knt. When thou awak'Jl Ff, Rowe + , Steev.’85, Hal. Now, when thou wak'Jl Qz et cet.
96. hands ] hand F3F4, Rowe + .
101. faire] far Han. Warb.
pojlerity] profperitie Qt, Cap. Mai. Var. Coll. Sing. Dyce l, Cam. Ktly.
102. the] thefe Ff, Rowe, Theob. + . 104. Faire] Fair F3F4, Rowe. Fairy Qq, Pope et seq.
106. fad,] fade ; Theob. staid Daniel.
107. the nights] Q3Ff. nights Q3. nightis Ktly. night's Cam. ii. the nights Rowe et cet.
98. new] W. A. Wright: It is difficult to say whether ‘new’ is here an adjec¬ tive or an adverb. Probably the latter, as in Ham. II, ii, 510, ‘Aroused vengeance sets him new a- work.’
ich. faire posterity] Warburton: We should read lfar posterity,’ i. e. to the remotest posterity.— Heath (p. 56) : That is, ‘And bestow on it the blessing of a fair fortune to all posterity,’ or, to come nearer the literal construction : ‘And bless it so that the fortunes of all posterity who shall enjoy it may be fair.’ Thus by this beau¬ tiful figure the two parts or branches of the blessing are united and consolidated into one expression : its extent, ‘ to all posterity ’ ; and its object, ‘ that all that posterity may be fair,’ that is, both deserving and fortunate. — Monk Mason : In the conclud¬ ing song, where Oberon blesses the nuptial bed, part of his benediction is that the posterity of Theseus shall be fair. See V, i, 403. — Malone preferred prosperity, induced thereto by II, i, 77.— R. G. White (ed. i) : Prosperity is a tame word here, especially as coming after ‘ fair.’ [I prefer the present text. It involves a larger blessing. To Theseus’s marriage the fairies bring present triumph, but on his house they confer the blessing of a fair posterity. — Ed.]
106. sad] Warburton : This signifies only grave, sober, and is opposed to their
dances and revels, which were now ended at the singing of the morning lark. _
Blackstone : A statute, 3 Henry VII, c. xiv, directs certain offences ... ‘ to be tried by twelve sad men of the king’s household.’ [Theobald’s emendation (see Text. Notes') was well meant, but it is not a success. The defective rhyme certainly exposes ‘ sad ’ to suspicion. — Ed.]
107. the nights] Keightley (p. 135): Of ‘nights’ I have made a disyllable [nightis], as being more Shakespearian than ‘the night’s,’ which most feebly and
184
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. i.
We the Globe can compaffe foone, 108
Swifter then the wandring Moone.
Tita. Come my Lord, and in our flight, 1 10
Tell me how it came this night,
That I fleeping heere was found,
Sleepers Lye Jlill.
With thefe mortals on the ground. Exeunt.
Winde Homes. 1 1 5
Enter Thefeus, Egeus, Hippolita and all his traine.
The J. Goe one of you, finde out the Forrefter ,
For now our obferuation is perform’d ;
And fince we haue the vaward of the day,
My Loue fliall heare the muflcke of my hounds. 120
Vncouple in the Wefterne valley, let them goe ;
1 1 3. Sleepers Lye ftill.] Om. Qq, Cap. et seq.
1 15. Winde Homes.] Homs wind within. Cap. Homs winded within. Dyce. Scene II. Pope+. Act V, Sc. i.
Fleay.
1x6. Egeus, Hippolita] Om. Qq. Egaeus, Hippolita Ff.
121. Vncouple] UncoupP d ~R.3.nn. conj. Wefterne] Om. Marshall. let them] Om. Pope + , Cap. Steev. Mai. Var. Knt, Dyce ii, iii.
inharmoniously throws the emphasis on * the.’ This genitive occurs more than once in our poet’s earlier plays. — W. A. Wright : * Night’s ’ is a disyllable, as ‘ moon’s,’ in II, i, 7, and ‘earth’s,’ in Temp. IV, i, no: ‘Earth’s increase, foison plenty.’ [If the pause in these lines be observed, there will be, I think, no need of any barrel- organ regularity. ‘ Then my queen || in silence sad, Trip we after || the night’s shade ; We the Globe || can compass soon, Swifter than || the wandring moon.’ As far as ‘ the night’s shade ’ is concerned, the necessity of making ‘ night’s ’ a disyllable is removed by the slight pause which we are forced to make between ‘ night’s ’ and ‘shade,’ to avoid the conversion of the two words into one : nightshade. — Ed.]
1 15. Winde Hornes] Again the mandatory direction of a stage-copy. — Ed.
1 1 7. Forrester] Knight calls attention to the fact that the Theseus of Chaucer was also a mighty hunter. The extract from Chaucer may be found in the Appendix, on the Source of the Plot.
1 18. obseruation] Of the rites of May, see ‘obseruance for a mome of May,’
I, b 177-
XI9. vaward] Dyce: The forepart (properly of an army, ‘The Vaward, Prima acies.' — Coles’s Lat. and. Eng. Diet.).
120-140. Hazlitt ( Characters , &c., p. 132): Even Titian never made a hunt¬ ing-piece of a gusto so fresh and lusty, and so near the first ages of the world, as this.
I2X. Vncouple, &c.] Capell: Might not the author’s copy run thus: ‘ Let them uncouple in the western valley; | Go; Dispatch, I say, and find the forrester.’ | ? where ‘ Go ’ is no part of the verse, but a redundance, like ‘ Do ’ in this line in Lear:
Do ; kill thy physician and the fee bestow,’ &c.
KCT iv, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
Difpatch I fay, and finde the Forrefter.
We will faire Queene,vp to the Mountaines top. And marke the muficall confufion Of hounds and eccho in coniundtion.
Hip. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Creete they bayed the Beare
185
122
125
127
I22. [Exit an Attend. Dyce. 127. Beare\ boar Han. Cap. Dyce ii,
127. '^]
Rann. conj. (?)
126. Hercules] Theobald (Nichols, Illust. ii, 235) : Does not the poet forget the truth of fable a little here ? Hippolyta was just brought into the country of the Amazons by Theseus, and how could she have been in Crete with Hercules and Cadmus ?
127. Beare] Theobald (Nichols, Illust. ii, 235) : Should it not be Boar? The Erymanthian Boar, you know, is famous among the Herculean Labours. — Capell: The ‘ bear ’ is no animal of such a warm country as Crete ; and, besides, in penning this passage the poet appears evidently to have had in his eye the boar of Thessaly,
and to have picked up some ideas from the famous description of that hunting. _
Steevens refers to the painting, in the temple of Mars, of ‘ The hunte strangled with the wilde beres,’ Chaucer, Knightes Tale , line 1160, ed. Morris, and observes: Bear- baiting was likewise once a diversion esteemed proper for royal personages, even of the softer sex. While the princess Elizabeth remained at Hatfield House, under the custody of Sir Thomas Pope, she was visited by Queen Mary. The next morning they were entertained with a grand exhibition of bear-baiting, ‘ with which their high¬ nesses were right well content.’ — Life of Sir Thomas Pope, cited by Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, ii, 391.— Malone: In The Winter’s Tale Antigonus is destroyed by a bear, who is chased by hunters. See also Venus and Adonis, 8S3 : ‘ For now she knows it is no gentle chase, But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud.’ — Tollet : Holinshed, with whose histories our poet was well acquainted, says : ‘ the beare is a beast commonlie hunted in the East countrie.’ Pliny, Plutarch, &c. mention bear¬ hunting. Turberville, in his Book of Hunting, has two chapters on hunting the bear. — Dyce ( Remarks , 49) : In spite of what the commentators say [as just quoted], I am strongly inclined to think that ‘bear’ is a misprint for boar. — Walker ( Crit. iii, 50) : Dyce’s conjecture, boar (or is he referring to another critic who proposed it?), deserves attention. The story of Meleager would be sufficient to suggest it to Shake¬ speare.— R. G. White (ed. i) : Passages in Chaucer’s Knightes Tale, Holinshed’s Chronicles, Pliny, and Plutarch so justify ‘ bear ’ that it must remain undisturbed, but I believe that the easiest of all misprints in Shakespeare’s time was made, and that we should read boar. This is also Mr Dyce’s opinion. — Dyce (ed. ii), after quoting the notes of Walker and R. G. White, just given, adds: The ‘passages’ above men¬ tioned formerly weighed little with me ; now they weigh nothing. — W. A. Wright : The references to ‘ bear ’ and ‘ bear-hunting ’ in Shakespeare are sufficiently numerous to justify the old reading, without going into the naturalist’s question whether there are bears in Crete. Besides, according to Pliny (viii, 83), there were neither bears nor boars in the island. We may therefore leave the natural history to adjust itself, as well as the chronology which brings Cadmus with Hercules and Hippolyta into the hunting-field together.
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. i.
1 86
With hounds of Sparta ; neuer did I heare 128
Such gallant chiding. For befides the groues,
The skies, the fountaines, euery region neere, 1 30
Seeme all one mutuall cry. I neuer heard So muficall a difcord, fuch fweet thunder.
Thef My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kinde,
So flew’d, fo fanded, and their heads are hung 134
130. fountaines ] mountains Anon. ap. 131. Seeme~\ Seem'd Ff, Rowe et seq.
Theob.
128. Sparta] W. A. Wright: The Spartan hounds were celebrated for their swiftness and quickness of scent. Compare Virgil, Georgies, iii, 405 : ‘ Veloces Spartae catulos acremque Molossum Pasce sero pingui.’ — Halliwell : See ‘ This latter was a hounde of Crete, the other was of Spart,’ in the description of Action’s dogs in Golding’s Ovid [fol. 33, ed. 1567].
129. chiding] Steevens: ‘Chiding’ in this instance, means only sound. So in Hen. VIII: III, ii, 197: ‘As doth a rock against the chiding flood.’
130. fountaines] Theobald: It has been proposed to me that the author prob¬ ably wrote mountains, from whence an echo rather proceeds than from ‘ fountains,’ but we have the authority of the ancients for Lakes, Rivers, and Fountains returning a sound. See Virgil, AEneid, xii, 756 : ‘ Turn vero exoritur clamor ; ripaeque lacus- que Responsant circa, et coelum tonat omne tumultu.’ Propertius, Eleg. I, xx, 49 : ‘ Cui procul Alcides iterat responsa ; sed illi Nomen ab extremis fontibus aura refert.’ — Dyce (ed. ii) quotes the foregoing lines from Virgil, and adds, in effect, that after all he is ‘ by no means sure that our author did not write mountains .’
131. Seeme] One of the many examples collected by Walker ( Crit . ii, 61) where final d and final e are confounded in the Folio, ‘ arising in some instances, per¬ haps, from the juxtaposition of d and e in the composi tor’s case, but far oftener — as is evident from the frequency of the erratum — from something in the old method of writing the final e or d, and which those who are versed in Elizabethan MSS may perhaps be able to explain.’ In a footnote Walker’s editor, Lettsom, says : ‘ Walker’s sagacity, in default of positive knowledge, has led him to the truth. The e, with the last upstroke prolonged and terminated in a loop, might easily be taken for d. It is frequently found so written.’
133. My hounds] Baynes ( Edin . Rev. Oct. 1872) : Shakespeare might probably enough, as the commentators suggest, have derived his knowledge of Cretan and Spartan hounds from Golding’s Ovid. . . . But in enumerating the points of the slow, sure, deep-mouthed hound it can hardly be doubted he had in view the celebrated Talbot breed nearer home.
134. flew’d] Warton: Hanmer justly remarks that ‘flews’ are the large chaps of a deep-mouthed hound. See Golding’s Ovid, iii [fol. 33, b. 1567] : ‘And shaggie Rugge with other twaine that had a Syre of Crete, And Dam of Sparta : Tone of them callde Iollyboy, a great And large flewd hound.’
134. sanded] Johnson: So marked with small spots. — Steevens: It means of a sandy colour, which is one of the true developments of a blood-hound. — Collier (ed. i) : Thi* may refer to the sandy marks on the dogs, or possibly it is a misprint for sounded, in allusion to their mouths. [This conjecture is omitted in Collier’s ed.
ACT iv, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
1 8 7 135
With eares that fweepe away the morning dew,
Crooke kneed, and dew-lapt, like TheJJalian Buis,
Slow in purfuit, but match’d in mouth like bels,
Each vnder each. A cry more tuneable Was neuer hallowed to, nor cheer’d with home,
In Creete, in Sparta , nor in Theffaly ; 140
Iudge when you heare. But foft, what nimphs are thefe?
Egeus. My Lord, this is my daughter heere afleepe,
And this Ly fancier, this Demetrius is,
This Helena , olde Nedars Helena , 144
136. Theffalian] Theffalonian F4. 142, 150,&c. Egeus.] Egse. Ff(through-
139. hallowed ] hollawed F2F3> hoi- out). lowd Qq. hallow'd Rowe, hallo' d Tbeob. 142. this «] this Qt.
halloo'd Cap. holla'd Mai.
ii, but it reappears in ed. iii. In tbe mean time Dyce ( Remarks , 49) bad asked : ‘ Did Mr Collier really believe that sounded could be used in tbe sense of “ having, or giv¬ ing forth, a sound ” ? Besides, tbe earlier portion of this speech is entirely occupied by a description of tbe appearance and make of tbe hounds (“sanded” denoting their general colour) ; in a later part of it, Theseus describes their cry — “ match’d in mouth like bells.” 1
137. like bels] Baynes (. Edin . Rev. Oct. 1872) : It is clear that in Shakespeare’s day the greatest attention was paid to the musical quality of the cry. It was a ruling consideration in the formation of a pack that it should possess the musical fulness and strength of a perfect canine quire. And hounds of good voice were selected and arranged in the hunting chorus on the same general principles that govern the forma¬ tion of a cathedral or any other more articulate choir. Thus : ‘ If you would have your kennell for sweetnesse of cry, then you must compound it of some large dogges, that have deepe solemne mouthes, and are swift in spending, which must, as it were, beare the base in the consort, then a double number of roaring, and loud ringing mouthes, which must beare the counter tenour, then some hollow, plaine, sweete mouthes, which must beare the meane or middle part ; and soe with these three parts of musicke you shall make your cry perfect.’ — [Markham’s Country Contentments, p. 6, W. A. Wright. Down even to the days of Addison, and it may be down even to this day, for aught I know, this tuneableness was sought after in a pack of hounds. We all remember good old Sir Roger de Coverley’s pack of Stop-hounds : ‘what these want in Speed, he endeavours to make amends for by the Deepness of their mouths and the Variety of their notes, which are suited in such manner to each other, that the whole cry makes up a complete consort. He is so nice in this particular that a gentleman having made him a present of a very fine hound the other day, the Knight returned it by the Servant, with a great many expressions of civility, but desired him to tell his Master that the dog he had sent was indeed a most excellent Bass, but that at present he only wanted a Counter- Tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakespeare, I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus in the “ Midsummer Night’s Dream.” ’ — Ed.]
1 88 A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DR E A ME [act iv, sc. i.
I wonder of this being heere together.
The. No doubt they rofe vp early, to obferue The right of May ; and hearing our intent,
Came heere in grace of our folemnity.
But fpeake Egeus, is not this the day That Hermia fhould giue anfwer of her choice ?
Egeus. It is, my Lord.
The/. Goe bid the huntf-men wake them with their homes.
Hornes and they wake.
Shout within , they all Jlart vp. 155
The/. Good morrow friends : Saint Valentine is paft,
Begin thefe wood birds but to couple now ?
Lyf. Pardon my Lord.
The/. I pray you all ftand vp.
I know you two are Riuall enemies. 160
How comes this gentle concord in the world ,
That hatred is is fo farre from iealoufie ,
To fleepe by hate, and feare no enmity. 163
H5
150
145. of this] Q2Ff, Rowe i. at their Pope + , Cap. Steev.’85. of their Q, et cet.
147- right] Rite Pope et seq. (subs.). 148. grace\ grace F .
IS4) 155- Shoute witbin : they all starte vp. Winde homes. Qq.
158. [He, and the rest, kneel to The¬ seus. Cap.
162. is w] Fj.
145- of] See ‘’Twere pity of my life,’ III, i, 42, and Abbott, § 174, for many other examples of this usage, where we should now use a different preposition. See too, five lines lower down, ‘ answer of her choice.’
J47^ right] From the apparent confusion in the spelling of the words * right’ and ‘ rite,’ we are hardly justified, I think, in imputing ignorance to the compositors. They spelled for the ear (and probably by the ear), and not, as we spell, for the eye.— Ed.
150. That] For other examples where ‘ that ’ is equivalent to at which time, when, see Abbott, § 284; also V, i, 373 .- ‘ That the graves,’ &c.
156. Valentine] Steevens : Alluding to the old saying that birds begin to couple on St Valentine’s day. [Shakespeare knew quite as well as we know that Theseus lived long before St Valentine. But what mattered it to him, any more than it mat¬ ters to us ? — Ed.]
158. Capell here added a very superfluous stage-direction, which few editors after him have had the courage to reject. Whoever is so dull as not to see the meaning in Theseus’s « 1 pray you all stand up,’ had better close his Shakespeare and read no more that day— nor any other day. Why did not Capell further instruct us by add¬ ing Theseus looks at them ? — Ed.
162, 163. so farre . . . To] For other examples of the omission of as after so see Abbott, § 281.
ACT IV, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
189
Lyf. My Lord, I fhall reply amazedly,
Halfe fleepe, halfe waking. But as yet, I fweare, I cannot truly fay how I came heere.
But as I thinke (for truly would I fpeake)
And now I doe bethinke me, fo it is ;
I came with Hermia hither. Our intent Was to be gone from Athens , where we might be Without the perill of the Athenian Law.
165. Jleepe] 'sleep Cap. Steev. Mai. ’90, Knt, Sing. Hal. Sta. Ktly.
167, 168. ( for... is] In parenthesis, Cap. et seq. (subs.).
168. I doe] do I Glo. (misprint?). bethink e] methink Pope, Han.
170, 171. Athens, where we might be Without. ..Law.] QaFf, Rowe + , Cap.
Steev. Mai. Knt, Hal. Sta. Athens; where we might Without. ..lawe, Qt. Athens, where we might Be without peril. ..law. Han. Athens, where we might Without. ..law — Coll. Sing. White i, Ktly. Athens, where we might, With¬ out... law, — Dyce, White ii. Athens, where we might, Without... law. Cam.
165. Halfe sleep, halfe waking] W. A. Wright: Some editors regard ‘sleep’ and ‘waking’ as adjectives, and print the former 'sleep. Schmidt {Lex. p. 1419a) gives this as an instance of the same termination applying to two words, so that ‘ sleep and waking ’ are equivalent to sleeping and waking. He quotes, as a possibly paral¬ lel case, Tro. dr5 Cres. V, viii, 7 : ‘ Even with the vail and darking of the sun.’ In this case, however, ‘ vail ’ may be a substantive formed from a verb, of which there are many instances in Shakespeare. I am inclined to think that both ‘ sleep ’ and ‘ waking ’ are here substantives, and are loosely connected with the verb ‘ reply ’ ; just as we find in Merry Wives, III, ii, 69 : ‘He speaks holiday’ ; Twelfth Night, I, v, 1 15: ‘ He speaks nothing but madman’; King John, II, i, 462: ‘He speaks plain cannon-fire’; and as the Ff read in As You Like It, III, ii, 226: ‘Speak sad brow and true maid.’ [When Schmidt, in the note just cited by Wright, says of the exam¬ ple from Tro. dr5 Cres., ‘ It would not, therefore, be safe to infer the existence [here] of a substantive vail,’ it seems to me that he considers the passage as more than ‘ a possibly parallel case.’ I quite agree with Wright in his explanation, not only of the present line, but also of the line from Tro. dr* 1 Cres., and I would further extend the criticism to almost all the examples collected by Schmidt in his section on ‘ Suffixes and Prefixes Omitted.’ — Ed.]
I7°. I7I- Athens, where . . . Law.] Collier: The reading of Q, is beyond dispute correct [viz. a comma after ‘ Law,’ which Collier holds to be equivalent to his dash], Lysander being interrupted by the impatience of Egeus, with ‘Enough, enough !’ — .Dyce (ed. ii) : Q= and the Ff complete the sentence very awkwardly by adding ‘ be ’ to the reading of Qx. Perhaps Hanmer was right in his text. — R. G. White (ed. i) : The ‘ be ’ is fatal to the rhythm of the line, and not only so, but to the sense of the passage. For, as others have remarked, it is plain that Egeus inter¬ rupts Lysander with great impetuosity ; and, beside, he adds the explanation, ‘ They would have stolen away,’ &c., which would have been entirely superfluous had Lysan¬ der completed the expression of his intent. — Staunton: ‘Without the peril’ is ‘ beyond the peril,’ &c. ‘ Without,’ in this sense, occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare
and the books of his age. There is a memorable instance of it in The Temp. V, i.
190
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act IV, SC. i.
Ege. Enough, enough, my Lord : you haue enough; 172 I beg the Law, the Law, vpon his head :
They would haue ftolne away, they would Demetrius ,
Thereby to haue defeated you and me : 175
You of your wife, and me of my confent ;
Of my confent, that fhe fhould be your wife.
Dem. My Lord, faire Helen told me of their ftealth,
Of this their purpofe hither, to this wood,
And I in furie hither followed them; 180
Faire Helena , in fancy followed me.
But my good Lord, I wot not by what power,
(But by fome power it is ) my loue To Hermia (melted as the fnow)
Seems to me now as the remembrance of an idle gaude, 185 Which in my childehood I did doat vpon :
179. this wood ] the wood Rowe.
180. followed] follow'd Rowe et seq.
181. followed ] Q2Ff, Rowe, Pope, Han. White i. following Qt, Theob. et cet.
183-185. (But... gaude-] Lines end, Hermia... now... gaude Pope et seq.
184. melted as] Is melted as Pope + .
Melted as doth Cap. Mai. Steev.’93, Knt, White, Hal. Coll. iii. Melted as is Steev. ’85, Rann. Melted as melts Dyce ii, iii, Huds. Melted e’en as Ktly. All melted as Sta. conj. Immaculate as Bulloch. Melted as thaws Kinnear. So melted as or Being melted as Schmidt.
186. doat] dote Qq.
271 : ‘a witch . . . That could control the moon . . . And deal in her command with¬ out her power.’ Here ‘ without her power ’ means beyond her power or sphere , as I am strongly inclined to think the poet wrote. Thus, too, in Jonson’s Cynthia's Revels, I, iv: ‘now I apprehend you; your phrase was Without me before.’ — W. A. Wright: We cannot lay much stress on the comma at ‘law’ in Q . ‘Where we might ’ is simply wheresoever we might. [Unquestionably Staunton’s interpretation of ‘ without ’ is correct ; it is used locatively, in the same way, in I, ii, 97. I prefer to retain the ‘ be,’ notwithstanding its rhythmical superfluity. — Ed.]
181. fancy] That is, love.
182. wot] W. A. Wright: This is properly a preterite (A.-S. wdt, from witan, to know), and is used as a present, just as olda and novi. And not only is it used as a present in sense, but it is inflected like a present tense, for we find the third person singular ‘ wots ’ or * wotteth.’
184. melted] The irregularity of the lines possibly indicates an obscurity in the MS. Some monosyllable has been lost, and the Text. Notes show the editorial grop- ings for it. Of Capell’s loth, R. G. White says that the line is prose without it, and Staunton says it is ungrammatical with it. Abbott, §486, suggests that perhaps * melted ’ was prolonged in pronunciation, which is doubtful, I think, because mean¬ ingless. I prefer Dyce’s ‘ Melted as melts’ it is smooth, and the iteration may possi¬ bly have led to the sophistication. — Ed.
185. gaude] See I, i, 41.
act iv, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
And all the faith, the vertue of my heart,
The obiefl and the pleafure of mine eye,
Is onely Helena. To her, my Lord,
Was I betroth’d, ere I fee Hermia ,
But like a fickenefle did I loath this food,
I9I
187
190
190. betroth'd ] betrothed Qt, Rowe+, Cap.
fee Hermia] QqFf. did see Her- mia Rowe i, Cap. Mai. ’90. Hermia saw
Roweii-f. saw Hermia Steev. et cet.
191. But like a ] But like in Steev.’93 et seq. (except Sta.). Belike as Bulloch. When , like in Kinnear.
190. see] Henry Johnson (p. xv) : ‘ See ’ for saw occurs very commonly in dia- '.ect usage in Maine, and presumably in Northern New England generally, ‘ Soons he tee me cummin, he run.’
191. like a sickness] ‘A sickness,’ says Capell, means ‘ a sick thing or one sick; a common metonymy of the abstract for the concrete.’ — Steevens changed the phrase from a preposition to a conjunction, and read ‘ like in sickness,’ and owed the correc¬ tion, as he said, to Dr Farmer; but Halliwell quotes a passage from The Student Oxford, 1750, where this same correction is made on the ground that ‘ it is little better than nonsense to make Demetrius say that he loathed the food like as he loathed a sickness.’ W. A. Wright adopts Farmer’s correction, but says he is ‘ not satisfied ’ with it, and the repetition of ‘ But,’ he continues, ‘ inclines me to suspect that there is a further corruption.’ [I agree with Wright in thinking that there is corruption here, and that it lies in the repetition of ‘ But.’ That there was a repetition seems to me’ not unlikely, but it originally lay in a repetition of ‘ Now.’ Lettsom ( Walker's Crit. ii, 1 15) supposes that the former * But ’ has intruded into the place of Then. I sup¬ pose that the latter ‘ But ’ has intruded into the place of ‘ Now.’ The strong contrast between his former and his present state, which Demetrius emphasises, warrants the repetition : Now, as in health, come to my natural taste. Now do I,’ &c. As for Farmer s change, it is as harmless as it is needless. 1 see no nonsense in saying that a man loathes a sickness. We all do. Had the word been poison, we should have been spared all notes. Farmer’s change, however, serves to show us how little repug¬ nance there was, to cultivated ears of that day, to the use of ‘ like ’ as a conjunction. In this connection see a valuable article by Walker {Crit. ii, 115), where many instances are given of the use of ‘ like ’ in ‘the sense of as— perhaps for like as, as where for whereas; when whenas.' The present passage heads the list, with Stee- vens’s text, ‘like in sickness,’ which apparently both Walker and his editor, Lettsom, assumed to be the origin d reading. See, too, as supplementary to this article, The Nation, New York, 4 Aug. 1892, where Dr F. Hall, of great authority in English, has given many additional examples, and whose conclusion is as follows : 1 The antiq¬ uity [of the conjunction like] proves to be very considerable; few good writers have ever lent it their sanction ; at one stage of its history it was confined mostly to poetry, and its repute, as literary or formal English, is now but indifferent. Yet, as a collo¬ quialism, it is in our day, here in England, widely current in all ranks of society, from the highest to the lowest. . . . Against no one, therefore, can the charge be’ brought, otherwise than arbitrarily, of committing an absolute and indefensible solecism, if he chooses, in his talk, to say, for instance, “ I think like you do ” ’ -Ed.]
192
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. L
But as in health, come to my naturall tafte, 192
Now doe I wifh it, loue it, long for it ,
And will for euermore be true to it.
Thef. Faire Louers, you are fortunately met ; 195
Of this difcourfe we fhall heare more anon.
Egeus, I will ouer-beare your will;
For in the Temple, by and by with vs,
Thefe couples fhall eternally be knit
And for the morning now is fomething worne, 200
Our purpos’d hunting fhall be fet afide.
Away, with vs to Athens ; three and three,
Wee’ll hold a feaft in great folemnitie.
Come Hippolitcz. Exit Duke and Lords .
Dem. Thefe things feeme fmall & vndiftinguiftiable, 205 Like farre off mountaines turned into Clouds.
Her. Me-thinks I fee thefe things with parted eye,
When euery things feemes double.
Hel. So me-thinkes :
And I haue found Demetrius , like a iewell, 210
192. But ] Yet Han.
193. doe I) I doe Qt, Cam. White ii. 196. we piall heare more) we more will
here Qr, Steev.’93, Var. Coll. Sing. Dyce, Hal, Sta. Cam. Ktly, White ii (all read¬ ing hear) . we will heare more Q , Cap. Mai. Knt.
203, 204. Wee'll. . . Hippolitaa] One line, Qq.
204. Come) Come, my Han. Cap. Rann, Dyce ii, iii, Huds.
204, 216. Hippolitas] Q3.
204. Exit. ..Lords.] Om. Q . Exit.
Q2-
210. found ] found Qt. like) Om. Han.
iewell) gimmal Anon. (ap. Sing. i).
IS*6- we shall heare more] Walker (Crit. iii, 50): I somewhat suspect the inversion [of QJ. — Lettsom (in a foot-note to this) : Here we have three authorities [F„Qiand QJ at variance, and who knows but Shakespeare wrote more will we hear?
205. Dem.] Capell (114, b) queries if this speech should not be given to Lysan- der, but gives no reason. Probably, however, for the sake of a more even distri bution of speeches. — Ed.
207, 209. Me-thinkes] Walker ( Vers. 279) is undoubtedly right in surmising that in both these instances the accent is on ‘Me.’
207. parted eye] Deighton : As one would if one’s eyes were not in focus with each other.
208. things seemes] The j in ‘things’ probably comes under Walker’s rule
(given at length at I, i, 239) of an interpolated s, but it is possible that the ear of the compositor was deceived by the j immediately following in ‘ seemes.’ _ Ed.
210. iewell] Warburton : Hermia had observed that things appeared double to her. Helena replies, so, methinks ; and then subjoins that Demetrius was like 2l jewel.
ACT iv, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS D RE A ME
193
[2io. iewell]
ner own and not her own. He is here, then, compared to something which had the property of appearing to be one thing when it was another. Not the property sure of a jewel ; or, if you will, of none but a false one. We should read ‘ like a gemell.' From gemellus, a twin. For Demetrius had that night acted two such different parts that she could hardly think them both played by one and the same Demetrius, but that there were twin Demetriuses, like the two Sosias in the farce. — Theobald inconti¬ nently adopted this emendation in his text, and observed in a note : ‘ If some over- nice spirits should object to Gemell wanting its authorities as an English word, I think fit to observe, in aid of my friend’s fine conjecture, that it is no new thing with Shake¬ speare to coin and enfranchise words fairly derived.’ Furthermore, Theobald finds both in Blount’s Glossographia and in Philips’s World of Words, ‘ Geminels,’ i. e. Twins ; and lastly, that there are ‘ other passages where Shakespeare uses the same manner of thought,’ namely, in the case of twins in the Comedy of Err. and in Twelfth Night. — Capell, the editor to whom of all others we are most indebted for the text of to-day, was beguiled by the glitter of Warburton’s tinsel, and also adopted it, and not only finds Warburton’s reasons satisfactory in them¬ selves, but ‘that there is in gemell a pleasantry, and in ‘jewel’ a vulgarity, that is a further recommendation of gemell.' The pleasantry arises, he says, ‘ from Helena’s being now in good spirits, and able to treat her lover in the vein of her sister Hermia, her friendship’s sister.’ — Johnson: This emendation is ingenious enough to be true. — Heath (p. 57), after denouncing the emendation as neither English nor French, gives his own paraphrase of the passage, but is not as successful therein as were Ritson and Malone subsequently. ‘ I have found Demetrius,’ thus paraphrases Heath, ‘ but I feel myself in the same situation as one who, after having long lost a most valuable jewel, recovers it at last, when he least hoped to do so. The joy of this recovery, succeeding the despair of ever finding it, together with the strange circumstances which restored it to his hands, make him even doubt whether it be his own or not. He can scarcely be persuaded to believe his good fortune.’ In support of Warburton’s gemell. Farmer and Steevens both cite examples of its use in Drayton’s Barons Wars. — Ritson [Remarks, p. 46) : The learned critic [War- burton] wilfully misstates Helena’s words to found his ingenious emendation (as every foolish and impertinent proposal is, by the courtesy of editors, intitled) ; she says that she has found Demetrius as a person finds a jewel or thing of great value, in which his property is so precarious as to make it uncertain whether it belongs to him or not. — Malone : Helena, I think, means to say that having found Demetrius unexpectedly, she considered her property in him as insecure as that which a person has in a jewel that he has found by accident ; which he knows not whether he shall retain, and which, therefore, may properly enough be called his own and not his own. She does not say, as Warburton has represented, that Demetrius was like a jewel, but that she had found him like a jewel, &c. [This explanation is to me entirely satisfactory. Of recent editors, Staunton has a good word for gemell, which, he says, ‘ is prefer¬ able to any explanation yet given of the text as it stands.’] — C. Batten ( The Acad¬ emy, I June, ’76) suggests double, which ‘ in the jewellery trade means “ a counterfeit stone composed of two pieces of crystal, with a piece of foil between them, so that they have the same appearance as if the whole substance of the crystal were col¬ oured.” Of course the use of the word in this sense would require the knowledge of an expert, and this Shakespeare had, as is evident from his frequent use of the
word “ foil.” ’
la
i94
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act IV, sc. i
Mine owne, and not mine owne. 21 r
Dem. It feemes to mee ,
That yet we fleepe, we dreame. Do not you thinke,
The Duke was heere, and bid vs follow him ?
Her. Yea, and my Father. 215
Hel. And Hippolitce.
Lyf. And he bid vs follow to the Temple.
Dem. Why then we are awake ; lets follow him, and by the way let vs recount our dreames.
Bottome wakes. Exit Loners. 220
Clo. When my cue comes, call me, and I will anfwer.
My next is, moft faire Piramus. Hey ho. Peter Quince ?
Flute the bellowes-mender ? Snout the tinker ? Starue- ling ? Gods my life ! Stolne hence, and left me afleepe : I haue had a moft rare vifion. I had a dreame, paft the wit 225 of man, to fay, what dreame it was. Man is but an Affe,
212. Dem. It] Ff, Rowe+, Steev.’93, Knt, White i. Dem. Are you fure That ■we are awake ? It Qq, Steev.’85, Mai. Var. Coll. Dyce i, Hal. Sta. Cam. Dem. But are you sure That we are well awake ? it Cap. Rann, Dyce ii, iii. Dem. But are yoti sure That we are yet awake ? It Ktly. Dem. Are you sure that we're awake ? It White ii. Dem. But are you sure That now we are awake ? It Schmidt.
feemes'] seems so Rowe i.
213. That yet] That F,F4, Rowe i.
217. he bid] he did bid Qt, Theob. Warb. et seq.
follow] to follow Pope, Han.
218. 219. Two lines, ending him... dreames Rowe ii et seq.
219. let vs] lets Qj.
220. Scene III. Pope + .
Bottome... Louers] Om. Qf. Exit.
Qa. As they go out Bottom wakes. Theob. 222. Peter] Peeter Qt.
225. I had] I haue had Qq, Cap. et seq.
212. Dem. It] See Text. Notes for a sentence to be found only in the Qq. ‘I had once injudiciously restored these words,’ says Steevens, ‘ but they add no weight to the sense of the passage, and create such a defect in the measure as is best rem¬ edied by their omission.’ — Dyce (ed. ii) quotes Lettsom as saying that * Capell’s insertions seem to me to improve the sense as well as restore the metre. I had hit
upon the same conjectures long before I became acquainted with Capell.’ _ R. G.
White : Every reader with an ear and common sense must be glad that words sc superfluous and so fatal to the rhythm of two lines do not appear in F,. But although there omitted, they have been industriously recovered from the Qq by those who con¬ sider that antiquity, not authenticity, gives authority. [R. G. White joined the band of the industrious when putting forth his second edition.— Ed.]— Keightley : The poet’s words may have been, ‘Are you sure we are awake ? it seems to me.’ But that would make the preceding speech terminate in a manner that does not occur in this play.
215. Yea] W. A. Wright: ‘ Yea’ is here the answer to a question framed in the negative, contrary to the rule laid down by Sir Thomas More, according to which it should be ‘ yes.’
ACT IV, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME 195
if he goe about to expound this dreame. Me-thought I 227 was, there is no man can tell what. Me thought I was, and me-thought I had. But man is but a patch’d foole, if he will offer to fay, what me-thought I had. The eye of 230 man hath not heard, the eare of man hath not feen, mans hand is not able to tafte, his tongue to conceiue, nor his heart to report, what my dreame was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballet of this dreame, it fhall be called Bottomes Dreame , becaufe it hath no bottome; and I will 235 fing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Per- aduenture, to make it the more gracious , I fhall fing it at her death. Exit. 238
227. to expound ] expound Qt.
227, 229, 230. Me-thought\ Me thought
Q,-
229. a patch' d] patcht a Qq.
234. ballet ] Ballad F^.
236. a play\ the play Han. Rann, Hal.
Coll. MS. our play Walker Dyce ii, iii, Hudson.
238. at her ] after Theob. + , Cap. Rann, Sta. Dyce ii, Coll. iii. at Thisby's Coll. MS.
229. patch’d foole] Johnson i That is, a fool in a parti-coloured coat. — Staun¬ ton : I have met with a remarkable proof of the supposed connexion between the term patch, applied to a fool, and the garb such a character sometimes wore, in a Flemish picture of the sixteenth century. In this picture, which represents a grand al fresco entertainment of the description given to Queen Elizabeth during her ‘ Prog¬ resses,’ there is a procession of masquers and mummers, led by a fool or jester, whose dress is covered with many-coloured coarse patches from head to heel.
230. The eye of man, &c.] Halliwell : Mistaking words was a source of mer¬ riment before Shakespeare’s time. . . . This kind of humour was so very common, it is by no means necessary to consider, with some, that Shakespeare intended Bottom to parody Scripture.
236. a play] Walker ( Crit . ii, 320) has collected several instances of the con¬ fusion of a and our; he therefore conjectures ‘ our play’ here; Dyce (ed. ii) and Hudson adopted the conjecture.
238. at her death] Theobald : At her death ? At whose ? In all Bottom’s speech there is not the least mention of any she-creature to whom this relative can be coupled. I make not the least scruple, but Bottom, for the sake of a jest and to ren¬ der his Voluntary, as we may call it, the more gracious and extraordinary, said, ‘ I shall sing it after death.’ He, as Pyramus, is killed upon the scene, and so might promise to rise again at the conclusion of the Interlude and give the duke his dream by way of a song. The source of the corruption of the text is very obvious. The f in after being sunk by the vulgar pronunciation, the copyist might write it from the sound, a' ter, which, the wise editors not understanding, concluded two words were erroneously got together ; so splitting them, and clapping in an h, produced the pres¬ ent reading, ‘ at her.’ — Capell : The singing after death does not allude to Pyramus’ death, but a death in some other play, ‘ a play ’ generally ; opportunities of which the speaker was very certain of, from the satisfact’on he made no question of giving in
iq6
A MID SOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act iv, sc. ii.
[Scene //.]
Enter Quince , Flute , Thisbie, Snout , and Starueling.
Quin. Haue you fent to Bottomes houfe ? Is he come home yet ?
Staru. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt hee is tranfported.
Thif. If he come not, then the play is mar’d. It goes not forward, doth it ?
Scene IV. Pope + . Act V, Sc. ii. Fleay. Scene II. Cap. et seq.
[Changes to the Towne. Theob. Athens. Han. A Room in Quince’s House. Cap.