I. First given by Rowe. 5. in Love with Hermia .] belov’d of

Helena. Cap.
2. Theseus] Throughout the play, a trisyllable : Theseus.
6. Quince] Bell (iii, 182, note), letting the cart, as Lear’s Fool says, draw the horse, asserts that Shakespeare adopted this name from the old German comedy Peter Squenz.
8. Bottom] Halliwell: Nicholas was either a favourite Christian name fora weaver, or a generic appellation for a person of that trade. Bottom takes his name from a bottom of thread. lAnguinum, a knotte of snakes rolled together lyke a bot- tome of threede.’ — Elyot’s Dictionarie, 1559. [‘ Botme of threde.’ — Promp. Parv. In a footnote Way gives ‘ “A bothome of threde, filarium." — Cath. Angl. “ Bottome of threde, gliceaux, plotton de fill' — Palsg. Skinner derives it from the French boteau, fasciculus.' In Two Gent. Ill, ii, 53, Shakespeare uses it as a verb meaning to wind, to twist. For an example of its modern use by Colman, The Gentleman, No. 5 : ‘ Give me leave to wind up the bottom of my loose thoughts on conversation,’ &c., and refer¬ ences to Bentley, Works, iii, 537, and to Charles Dibdin, The Deserter, I, i, see Fitz- edward Hall’s Modern English, 1873, p. 217. — Ed.]
16, 17. Malone (ii, 337, 1821): Oberon and Titania had been introduced in a
2
DRAMA TIS PERSONAE
[Oberon . . . Titania]
dramatic entertainment before Queen Elizabeth in 1591, when she was at Elvetham in Hampshire ; as appears from A Description of the Queene’s Entertainment in Progress at Lord Hartford' s, &c. in 1 59 1 • Her majesty, after having been pestered a whole afternoon with speeches in verse from the three Graces, Sylvanus, Wood Nymphs, &c., is at length addressed by the Fairy Queen, who presents her majesty with a chaplet, ‘ Given me by Auberon the fairie king.’ [Malone does not mention, but W. Aldis Wright does ( Preface , p. xvi), that the name of the Fairy who thus addressed her majesty was not Titania, but ‘Aureola, the Queene of Fairyland.’ For the derivation of the name Oberon, see Keightley’s note in Preface to this volume, p. xxv. — Ed.]
17. Titania] Keightley {Fairy Myth, ii, 127) : It was the belief of those days tnat the Fairies were the same as the classic Nymphs, the attendants of Diana : ‘ That fourth kind of spiritis,’ says King James, ‘ quhilk be the gentilis was called Diana, and her wandering court, and amongs us called the Phairie.' The Fairy-queen was therefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid frequently styles Titania.
Hunter {New Illust. i, 285) : We shall be less surprised to find Diana in such company when we recollect that there is much in the Fairy Mythology which seems but a perpetuation of the beautiful conceptions of primeval ages, of the fields, woods, mountains, rivers, and the margin of the sea being haunted by nymphs, the dryades and hamadryades, oreades and naiades.
SlMROCK {Die Quellen des Sk. 2te Aflge, ii, 344) : The Handbook of German Myth. (p. 414, § 125) gives us an explanation of the name of Titania, in that it shows how elvish spirits, and Titania is an elfin queen, steal children, and children are called Titti, whence the name of Tittilake, wherefrom, according to popular belief, children are fetched. . . . The name does not come from classic mythology, which knows no Titania; nor is it of Shakespeare’s coinage, who had enough classic culture to know that the Titans were giants, not elves. [It is rare, indeed, to catch a German nap¬ ping in the classics, but, aliquando dormitat, &c. Almost any Latin Dictionary wouW have given Simrock the reference to Ovid, Meta, iii, 173: ‘ Dumque ibi perluitur solita Titania lympha,’ where ‘ Titania ’ is Diana, who is about to be seen by Actaeon. Golding, with whose translation of Ovid we suppose that Shakespeare was familiar, gives us no help here ; in the three other places where Ovid uses the name Titania as an epithet of Latona, of Pyrrha, and of Circe, Golding does not use that name, but a’ paraphrase. — Ed.]
Baynes {Frasers Maga. Jan. 1880, p. 101, or Shakespeare Studies, 1894, p. 210) [Keightley s] statement is that Titania occurs once in the Metamorphoses as a designation of Diana. [A remarkable and, I think, unusual oversight on the part of Prof. Baynes. Vide Keightley, supra. — Ed.] But in reality the name occurs not once oniy, but several times, not as the designation of a single goddess, but of several female deities, supreme or subordinate, descended from the Titans. . . . Diana Latona, and Circe are each styled by Ovid ‘Titania.’ . . . Thus used [the name]' embodies rich and complex associations connected with the silver bow, the magic cup, and the triple crown. . . . Diana, Latona, Hecate are all goddesses of night, queens of the shadowy world, ruling over its mystic elements and spectral powers. The common name thus awakens recolle'tions of gleaming huntresses in dim and dewy woods, of dark rites and potent incantations under moonlit skies, of strange aerial voy¬ ages, and ghostly apparitions of the under-world. It was, therefore, of all possible names, the one best fitted to designate the queen of the same shadowy empire, with its
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
3
18
Puck, or Robin-goodfellow, a Fairy.
phantom troops and activities, in the Northern mythology. And since Shakespeare, with prescient inspiration, selected it for this purpose, it has naturally come to repre¬ sent the whole world of fairy beauty, elfin adventure, and goblin sport connected with lunar influences, with enchanted herbs, and muttered spells. The Titania of Shake¬ speare’s fairy mythology may thus be regarded as the successor of Diana and other regents of the night belonging to the Greek Pantheon. [It is not easy to over-esti¬ mate the value of what Prof. Baynes now proceeds to note. Not since Maginn’s day has so direct an answer been given to Farmer with his proofs that Shakespeare knew the Latin authors only through translations. — Ed.] Reverting to the name Titania, however, the important point to be noted is that Shakespeare clearly derived it from his study of Ovid in the original. It must have struck him in reading the text of the Metamorphoses , as it is not to be found in the only translation which existed in his day. Golding, instead of transferring the term Titania, always trans¬ lates it in the case of Diana by the phrase ‘ Titan’s daughter,’ and in the case of Circe by the line : ‘ Of Circe, who by long descent of Titans’ stocke, am borne.’ Shakespeare could not therefore have been indebted to Golding for the happy selec¬ tion. On the other hand, in the next translation of the Metamorphoses by Sandys, first published ten years after Shakespeare’s death, Titania is freely used. . . . But this use of the name is undoubtedly due to Shakespeare’s original choice, and to the fact that through its employment in the Midsummer Nighfs Dream it had become a familiar English word. Dekker, indeed, had used it in Shakespeare’s lifetime as an established designation for the queen of the fairies. It is clear, therefore, I think, that Shakespeare not only studied the Metamorphoses in the original, but that he read the different stories with a quick and open eye for any name, incident, or allusion that might be available for use in his own dramatic labours.
18. Puck] R. Grant White (ed. i) : Until after Shakespeare wrote this play ‘puck’ was the generic name for a minor order of evil spirits. The name exists in all the Teutonic and Scandinavian dialects; and in New York [and Pennsylvania. —Ed.} the Dutch have left it spook. The name was not pronounced in Shakespeare’s time with the u short. Indeed, he seems to have been the first to spell it ‘ puck,’ all other previous or contemporary English writers in whose works it has been discovered spell¬ ing it either powke, pooke, or pouke. There seems to be no reason to doubt that Shake¬ speare and his contemporaneous readers pronounced it pook. The fact that it is made a rhyme to ‘luck’ is not at all at variance with this opinion, because it appears equally certain that the u in that word, and in all of similar orthography, had the scund of oo. My own observation had convinced me of this long before I met with the following passages in Butler’s English Grammar, 1633: ‘ . . . for as i short hath the sound of ee short, so hath u short of 00 short.’ p. 8. ‘ The Saxon u wee
have in sundry words turned into 00, and not onely u short into 00 short ( which sound is all one),’ &c. p. 9.
W. A. Wright ( Preface, xvi) : Puck is an appellative and not strictly a proper name, and we find him speaking of himself, ‘As I am an honest Puck,’ ‘ Else the Puck a liar call.’ In fact, Puck, or pouke, is an old word for devil, and it is used in this sense in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, 11345 (ed. T. Wright) : ‘Out of the poukes pondfold No maynprise may us fecche.’ And in the Romance of Richard Coer de Lion, 4326 (printed in Weber’s Metrical Romances, vol. ii) : ‘ He is no man he is a pouke.’ The Icelandic piiki is the same word, and in Friesland the kobold
4
DRAMATIS PERSONA!
Peafebloffom,'
Cobweb,
Moth,
Muftardfeed,
Fairies.
Other Fairies atte7iding on the King and Queen. Scene Athens, and a Wood not far from it. [Theobald added :]
Philostrate, Master of the Sports to the Duke. Pyramus,
Thisbe,
Wall,
Moonshine,
Lyon,
20
Characters in the Interlude perform'd by the Clowns.
or domestic spirit is called Puk. In Devonshire, pixy is the name for a fairy, and in Worcestershire we are told that the peasants are sometimes poake leddert , that is, mis¬ led by a mischievous spirit called Poake. ‘ Pouk-laden ’ is also given in Hartshome’s Shropshire Glossary. [The inquisitive student, the very inquisitive student, is re¬ ferred to Bell’s Shakespeare' s Puck , 3 vols. 1852-64, where will be found a mass of Folk-lore of varying value, whereof the drift may be learned from an assertion by the author (vol. iii, p. 176) to the effect that ‘unless this entire work hitherto is totally valueless, it must follow that our poet’s original view of this beautiful creation [A Midsummer Night' s Dream] is entirely owing to foreign support.’ — Ed.]
26. Philostrate] Fleay ( Life and IVork, p. 185) says that Shakespeare got this name from Chaucer’s Knighte's Tale.
Malone in his Life of Shakespeare (Var. ’21, ii, 491) suggests that not a jour¬ ney between London and Stratford was made by Shakespeare which did not prob¬ ably supply materials for subsequent use in his plays ; ‘ and of this,’ he goes on to say ‘ an instance has been recorded by Mr. Aubrey : “ The humour of . . . the cunstable in a Midsomer’s Night’s Dreame, he happened to take at Grenden in Bucks (I thinke it was Midsomer Night that he happened to lye there) which is the roade from Lon¬ don to Stratford, and there was living that constable about 1642, when I first came to Oxon : Mr. Jos. Howe is of the parish, and knew him ” [Halliwell, Memoranda, &c. 1879, P- 31]- It must be acknowledged that there is here a slight mistake, there being no such character as a constable in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The person in contemplation probably was Dogberry in Much Ado.'
A
MIDSOMMER
Nights Dreame.
AFtus primus . [Scene /.]
Enter The feus, Hippolita , with others.
Thefeus.
Ow faire Hippolita, our nuptiall houre Drawes on apace : foure happy daies bring in Another Moon: but oh, me thinkes,how flow This old Moon wanes ; She lingers my defires
5
7
Midfommer Nights] Midfummers nights F3F4 (thus also throughout in running title). Midsummer - Night’s Rowe.
1. Actus primus.] Om. Qq.
[Scene, the Duke's Palace in
Athens. Theob. A State-Room in The¬ seus’s Palace. Cap.
2. with others.] with Attendants.
Rowe. Philostrate, with Attendants. Theob.
4. hours’] hower Qt.
5. apace] apa/e Qt. foure] power QIt
6. Another] An other Qt. me thinkes] me-thinks Q2.
7. wanes;] wanes ! Qt. wanes : Qa. wanes ? Ff. wanes ! Rowe et seq.
7. defires] defres, Qt.
1. Actus primus] The division into Acts is marked only in the Folios; neither in the Quartos nor in the Folios is there any division into Scenes. The division into Scenes which has most generally obtained is that of Capell, which I have followed here, with the exception of the last Act, wherein I have followed the Cambridge Edition. Albeit Capell’s division is open to criticism, particularly in the Second Act, the whole subject is, I think, a matter of small moment to the student, and more concerns the stage-manager, who, after all, will make his own division to suit his public, regardless of the weight of any name or text, wherein he is quite right. For the student it is important that there should be some standard of Act, Scene, and Line for the purpose of reference. This standard is supplied in The Globe edi¬ tion. — Ed.
7. lingers] For other instances of this active use, see Schmidt s. v., or Abbott, § 290.
S
6
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act i, sc. i.
Like to a Step-dame, or a Dowager, 8
Long withering out a yong mans reuennew.
Hip. Foure daies wil quickly fteep thefelues in nights io
Foure nights wil quickly dreame away the time:
And then the Moone, like to a filuer bow,
Now bent in heauen, fhal behold the night 13
8. Step-dame~\ Stepdame Q,. Step- dam Qa.
•withering out] wintering on Warb. withering-out Cap. widowing on Gould.
9. yong] young Q„F3F4.
10. 11. Foure"] Power Qt.
10. nights] night : Qf, Theob. Warb.
Johns. Cam. Wr. Wh. ii. nights , Ff et cet. (subs.).