D. Wilson (withdrawn).

Egeus to. leave his daughter with Lysander. Verity : The plot requires this private conference between Hermia and Lysander, at which the scheme to leave Athens may be arranged. Shakespeare’s device to bring about the conference is . . . artificial. . . . In his later plays, when he is more experienced in stage-craft, Shakespeare so contrives his plot that one event springs naturally from another, in accordance with probabil¬ ity. [As the Text. Notes show, Pope, followed by Hanmer and Warburton, began here a new scene, but as these editors are wont to begin new scenes whenever there is any shifting of characters, small attention need be paid to their divisions. Yet, at the same time, a new scene, in spite of the Manent, &c. of FI( would certainly help to remove the objections urged by Wright and Verity; and, indeed, such a division was proposed by Fleay {Robinson' Epit. of Lit. Apr. 1879), on the ground that it is unlikely that Lysander and Hermia would indulge in confidential conversation in Theseus’s palace, and that when Helena enters Hermia should say, ‘ God speed, fair Helena ! whither away ?' — this new scene, says Fleay, ‘ is clearly in a street.’ This last assertion reveals a difficulty in the way of adopting Fleay’s proposed division. It is perhaps a little less likely that Lysander and Hermia would indulge in a con¬ fidential conversation in the open street than in an empty room of Theseus’s palace. Finally, it is hard utterly to ignore the grey authority of the Folio with its Manet, when we are almost sure that the copy from which the Folio was printed was a stage-copy. — Ed.]
139. chance] The full phrase would be, ‘ How chances it,’ as in Hamlet , II, ii, 343 : ‘ How chances it they travel ?’ See also post , V, i, 315 ; or Abbott, § 37.
140. Belike] W. A. Wright : This word is unusual if not singular in form. It is recorded in Nodal and Milner’s Lancashire Glossary as still in use.
141. Beteeme] Pope: Beteem, or pour down upon ’em. Johnson: Give them, bestow upon them. The word is used by Spenser. Capell: The word which Skinner explains — effundere seu ab uno vase in aliud transfundere is — teem ; and is (it seems) a local word only, proper to Lincolnshire : so that the particula otiosa before it should be Shakespeare’s ; and he a user of other liberties with it, making ' beteem them ’ stand for ‘ beteem to them,’ i. e. the roses : If the passage be uncor¬ rupted, and this the sense of ‘beteem’ (of both which there is some suspicion), he must have us’d it that his verb might suit the strength of his substantive, ‘tempest,’ requiring- -a pouring out. Steevens : ‘ So would I ’ (said th’ enchaunter), ‘ glad and faine Beieeme to you this sword, you to defend.’ — Fairie Queene [Bk II, canto viii, 19]. But I rather think that to ‘ beteem ’ in this place signifies (as in the north¬ ern counties) to pour out. [In a note on ‘beteem’ in Hamlet, I, ii, 141, Steeveni says] : This word occurs in Golding’s Ovid, 1587, and from the corresponding Latin word ( dignatur , bk x, line 157) must necessarily mean to vouchsafe, deign, permit, or suffer. Knight: That is, pour forth. Collier: To ‘teem’ is certainly to pour out, but that sense is hardly wanted here. [Staunton, R. G. White, and W. A. Wright all give the meaning afford, yield, allow. The last says there is ‘ probably
2
1 8 A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act i, sc. i
Lyf. For ought that euer I could reade, 142
Could euer heare by tale or hiftorie,
The courfe of true loue neuer did run fmooth,
But either it was different in blood. 145
Her. O croffe ! too high to be enthral’ d to loue.
142. For ] Eigh me : for Qq. Her- mia, for Ff, Rowe+, Cap. Wh. i. Ah me, for Johns. Steev. Mai. Knt, Coll. Sing. Hal. Ay me! for Dyce, Sta. Cam. Wh. ii.
ought ] aught QI( Warb. Johns. Steev. et seq.
142. euer I could] I could euer Qq, Cap. Coll. Hal. Sta. Cam. Wh. ii.
143. heare'] here Qt.
I45-I47* blood. ...yeares.] bloud yeares ; or blood — ...years — Qq, Rowe et cet.
146. enthral d] inthrald Qq.
loue] low ! Theob. Warb. et seq.
a reference to the other meaning of the word, to pour.' Dyce ( Gloss.) gives a happy and concise paraphrase : ‘ to give in streaming abundance,’ but even here it is not absolutely necessary to add the idea of abundance. ‘ Beteem ’ is here used, I think, exactly as it is asserted to be by Pope and suggested by Capell. The tempest of Her- mia’s eyes could readily pour down the rain to revive the roses in her cheeks. _ Ed.]
142. For] Hunter (Illust. i, 288) finds in the ‘ Hermia ’ of the Second Folio (see Textual Notes) * a point and pathos even beyond what the passage, as usually printed, possesses. A skilful actor might give great effect to the name ; and we ought always to remember, what Shakespeare never forgot, that he was writing for spokesmen, not in the first instance for students in their closets.’ R. G. White (ed. i) : The excla¬ mation [‘Ay me !’] is unsuited to Lysander and to his speech ; and I believe that it was an error of the press, or of the transcribers, for the proper name, and that its absence in the Folio is the result of its erasure in the Quarto stage-copy, the inter¬ lineation of the correct word having been omitted by accident. [White’s objections were removed before he printed his second edition. The line as it stands in the Folio is certainly deficient, and although I agree both with Hunter, that the direct personal address is more impressive, and with White, that ‘Ay me ’ seems out of character and is somewhat lackadaisical, yet the authority of the Quartos greatly out¬ weighs that of the Second Folio, and we cannot quite disregard it. _ Ed.]
144. The course, &c.] W. A. Wright : Bishop Newton, in his edition of Milton [1749]> called attention to the resemblance between Lysander’s complaint and that of Adam in Paradise Lost, x, 898-906.
146, 148. Coleridge (p. 101) : There is no authority for any alteration, — but I never can help feeling how great an improvement it would be, if the two former of Hermia’s exclamations were omitted [lines 146 and 148];— the third and only appro¬ priate one would then become a beauty, and most natural. IIalliwell ( Introd . p. 70) goes further, and thinks ‘ it cannot be denied ’ that Lysander’s speech would be improved by the omission of all of Hermia’s interpolations, and adds that Dodd and Planch6 have so printed it. This Halliwell afterwards modified by the reflection (p. 36, folio ed.) that ‘ the author evidently intended both the speakers should join in passionately lamenting the difficulties encountered in the path of love.’
146. loue] Theobald’s reasons for his change to low, which has been uniformly adopted from the days of Warburton, are that Hermia, if she undertakes to answer Lysander s complaint of the difference in blood, ‘ must necessarily say low. So the
ACT I, sc. i.j A MID SOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
19
Lyf. Or elfe mifgraffed, in refpe£l of yeares. 147
Her. 0 fpight ! too old to be ingag’d to yong.
Lyf. Or elfe it flood vpon the choife of merit. 149
148. to yong] too young F
i. friends ; Qq et cet. men Coll. (MS)
antithesis is kept up in the terms ; and so she is made to condole the disproportion of blood and quality in lovers. And this is one of the curses, that Venus, on seeing Adonis dead, prophecies shall always attend love, in our author’s Venus and Adonis, lines 1136-1140.’
147. misgraffed] That is, ill-grafted. Skeat (s. v. graff) : The form graft is corrupt, and due to a confusion with graffed , originally the past participle of graff. Shakespeare has ‘ grafted,’ Macb. IV, iii, 51 ; but he has rightly also ‘ graft ’ as a past participle, Rich. Ill : III, vii, 127. The verb is formed from the substantive graff, a scion. Old French, graffe, grafe, a style for writing with a sort of pencil, whence French greffe, ‘ a graff, a slip, or young shoot.’ — Cotgrave ; so named from the resem¬ blance of the cut slip to the shape of a pointed pencil. [See As You Like It, III, ii, 1 1 6, of this edition.]
147. in respect] The Cowden-Clarkes ( Sh . Key, p. 627) : We have discovered recurrent traces of special features of style marking certain plays by Shakespeare, which lead us to fancy that he thought in that particular mode while he was writing that particular drama. Sometimes it is a peculiar word, sometimes a peculiar manner of construction, sometimes a peculiar fashion of employing epithets or terms in an unusual sense. Throughout [this present] play the word * respect ’ is used somewhat peculiarly ; so as to convey the idea of regard or consideration, rather than the more usually assigned one of reverence or deference, as in the present line ; see also line 170, just below, II, ii, 217, and 232, V, i, 98.
149. merit] As the Folio was printed from the Second Quarto, and presumably a stage-copy at that, the substitution of the word ‘ merit ’ for ‘ friends ’ of the Quarto can hardly be deemed either a compositor’s sophistication or an accident. A change so decided must have been made with authority ; it is a change, moreover, not from an obscure word to a plainer word, but from a plain word to one more recondite in meaning. A ‘ choice of merit ’ is a choice enforced through desert or as a reward, qual ities with which true love or * sympathy in choice ’ can have nothing in common. It is a choice good enough in itself, but worldly-wise, calculating, one of the roughest of obstructions to the course of true love, in that it may be urged by parents so plaus ibly ; and this very urging is implied in Hermia’s phrase of choosing ‘ by another’s eye,’ and possibly the vehemence of her expletive indicates that this obstruction is the worst of the three. But with the exception of Rowe and R. G. White (in his first edition) all editors have adopted ‘ friends ’ of the Quartos, and only two have any remarks on it. ‘ The alteration in the Folio,’ says Knight, * was certainly not an acci¬ dental one, but we hesitate to adopt the reading, the meaning of which is more recondite than that of friends. The “ choice of merit ” is opposed to the “ sympathy in choice,” — the merit of the suitor recommends itself to “ another’s eye,” but not to the person beloved.’ — R. G. White says, ‘the “choice of merit” is, plainly enough, not the spontaneous, and at first unconscious, preference of the lover.’ This is in his first edition; the second edition is silent. — The Cambridge Editors (vol i, Preface, xii) pronounce ‘the reading of the Folios certainly wrong.’ And yet, in spite of all.
20
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act i, sc. i.
Her. 0 hell ! to choofe loue by anothers eie. 150
Lyf. Or if there were a fimpathie in choife,
Warre, death, or fickneffe, did lay fiege to it ;
Making it momentarie, as a found :
Swift as a fhadow, fhort as any dreame,
Briefe as the lightning in the collied night, 155
That (in a fpleene) vnfolds both heauen and earth ;
150. eie.~\ eyes ! QI( Coll. Wh. i, Dyce 153. momentarie ] momentany Qq,
iii. eyes. Qa, Cam. Wh. ii. eye. Ff, Rowe Mai. Steev. Coll. Hal. Dyce, Sta. Cam. et cet. 156. fpleene~\ sheen Han. MS conj.
ap. Cam.
after a careful review, as the Duke says in As You Like It, ‘ I would not change it.’ —Ed.]
I53> &c- Capell: This passage rises to a pitch of sublimity that is not exceeded by any other in Shakespeare.
153. momentarie] Johnson: [ Momentany of the Qq] is the old and proper word. — Henley : ‘ That short momentany rage ’ is an expression of Dryden. — Knight: Momentany and ‘momentary’ were each indifferendy used in Shake¬ speare’s time. We prefer the reading of the Folio, because momentary occurs in four other passages of our poet’s dramas ; and this is a solitary example of the use of momentany, and that only in the Quartos. The reading of the Folio is invariably ‘momentary.’ — Collier: Stubbes, in 1593, preferred momentany to ‘momentary,’ where in the list of errors of the press, before his Motive to Good Works, he enume¬ rated the misprinting of ‘ momentary,’ instead of momentany, in the following pas- sage, p. 188: ‘this life is but momentary, short and transitory; no life, indeed, but a shadow of life.’ — Staunton : We have improvidently permitted too many of our old expressions to become obsolete. — Halliwell: ‘Momentary’ is hardly to be con¬ sidered a modernisation; in Meas. for Meas. Ill, i, 114, ‘momentary’ in Fr and Fa is altered to momentany in F? [and F4. — Ed.]. — Walker ( Crit. iii, 46): With momentany compare the old adjective miscellany, e. g. miscellany poems. Donne has momentane. Sermon cxlviii, ed. Alford, — ‘ a single, and momentane, and transitory man.’— W. A. Wright: Momentany seems to have been the earlier form, from Fr. momentaine, Lat. momentaneus.
154. swift as a shadow] Compare ‘love’s heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams, Driving back shadows over louring hills.’ — Rom. and Jul. II, v, 4. — Ed.
155. collied] Steevens: That is, black, smutted with coal. A word still used in
the Midland counties. — Halliwell : ‘ I colowe, I make blake with a cole, je char- bonne.' — Palsgrave, 1530. ‘ Colwyd, carbonatus.' — Prompt. Parv. [‘ CharbonnC
Painted, marked, written, with a coale, collowed, smeered, blacked with coales; (hence) also, darkened.’ — Cotgrave.]
156. spleene] Warburton : Shakespeare, always hurried on by the grandeur and multitude of his ideas, assumes, every now and then, an uncommon license in the use of his words. Particularly in complex moral modes it is usual with him to employ one only to express a very few ideas of that number of which it is composed. Thus, wanting here to express the ideas — of a sudden, or — in a trice, he uses the
ACT I, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
21
And ere a man hath power to fay, behold,
The iawes of darknefle do deuoure it vp :
So quicke bright things come to confufion.
Her. If then true Louers haue beene euer croft,
It ftands as an edift in deftinie :
Then let vs teach our triall patience,
Becaufe it is a cuftomarie croffe,
As due to loue, as thoughts, and dreames, and fighes,
Wifhes and teares ; poore Fancies followers.
Lyf. A good perfwafion ; therefore heare me Hermia ,
*57' behold ] hehold Fa. 161. It fiands~\ If t stand Rann conj.
158. do] to IqF^. 164. due~\ dewe Q2.
word * * spleen,’ which, partially considered, signifying a hasty sudden fit, is enough for him, and he never troubles himself about the further or fuller use of the word. Here he uses ‘ spleen ’ for a sudden hasty fit ; so, just the contrary, in The Two Gent. he uses ‘ sudden ’ for splenetic : ‘ sudden quips.’ And it must be owned this sort of conversion adds a force to the diction. — Nares : In this sense of violent haste we do not find the word so used by other writers. — Hunter (i, 289) : This is a mistake ; and it will be seen that a happier choice could not have been made than the poet has made of this word. ‘ Like winter fires that with disdainful heat The opposition of the cold defeat ; And in an angry spleen do burn more fair The more encountered by the frosty air.’ — Verses by Poole, before his England's Parnassus, 1637. So in Lithgow’s Nineteen Years Travels, 1632, p. 61 : ‘All things below and above being cunningly per¬ fected, ... we recommend ourselves in the hands of the Almighty, and in the mean¬ while attended their fiery salutations. In a furious spleen, the first holla of their cour¬ tesies, was the progress of a martial conflict,’ &c. [This note of Hunter has been quoted by Staunton and by Halliwell, yet, as both Poole and Lithgow are post-Shake- spearian, and possibly may have drawn the phrase from this very passage, its value as an illustration is doubtful. — Ed.]
*57- say, behold] Compare ‘like the lightning which doth cease to be, Ere one can say “ It lightens.” ’ — Rom. and Jul. II, ii, 119.
161. edict] For a list of words in which the accent was formerly nearer the end than at present, see Abbott, § 490. W. A. Wright notes that ‘ edict ’ has the accent on the penultimate in 1 Hen. IV: IV, iii, 79.
165. Fancies] It is scarcely necessary to remark that in Shakespeare ‘fancy’ means love ; see ‘fancy free,’ II, i, 170; ‘fancy-sick,’ III, ii, 99; and ‘ Helena, in fancy followed me,’ IV, ii, 18 1. Arber (Introd. to Dry den's Essay on Dramatic Poesie. — Eng. Garner, iii, 502) notes four changes of the meaning of ‘fancy.’ First, in the Elizabethan Age it was but another word for personal Love or Affection. Sec¬ ond, the Restoration Age understood by it, Imagination, the mental power of pic¬ turing forth. Third, Coleridge endeavoured yet further to distinguish between Imagination and Fancy. Fourth, it is now used in another sense, ‘ I do not fancy that,’ equivalent to ‘ I do not like ox prefer that.’
166. perswasion] Schmidt defines this as opinion, belief W. A. Wright sug¬ gests that as persuasion ’ signifies a persuasive argument, it may perhaps have that
157
l60
165
22
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act i, sc. i
I haue a Widdow Aunt, a dowager, 167
Of great reuennew, and the hath no childe,
From Athens is her houfe remou’d feuen leagues,
And flie refpedts me, as her onely fonne : 170
There gentle Hermia , may I marrie thee,
And to that place, the fharpe Athenian Law Cannot purfue vs. If thou lou’ft me, then Steale forth thy fathers houfe to morrow night :
And in the wood, a league without the towne, 1 75
(Where I did meete thee once with Helena ,
To do obferuance for a morne of May) 177
167. Aunt ] Ant Qs.
169. remou'd ] remote Qq, Cap. Steev. Mai. Coll. Hal. Dyce, Sta. Cam.
170. Transposed to follow line 168,
Johns, conj. Ktly, Huds.
173. lou'JT\ louejt Qq.
177. for 0] Ff, Rowe, Wh. i. to the Pope + . to a Qq, Cap. et cet.
sense here. Hermia’s words have carried conviction to Lysander and persuaded him. — Ed.
169, 170. Johnson proposed to transpose these lines, reading in line 169, ‘ Her house from Athens is,’ &c. — Keightley (p. 130) : Common sense dictates this trans¬ position. Line 170, it is evident, has been an addition made by the poet in the margin.
169. remou’d] A change to the ‘remote’ of the Qq is unnecessary. Familiarity has reconciled us to this word in Hamlet , ‘ It waves you to a more removed ground.’ Again, As You Like It, III, ii, 331 : ‘ Your accent is something finer, than you could purchase in so remoued a dwelling.’ — Ed.
174. forth] For other examples of ‘forth,’ used as a preposition equivalent to from, see Abbott, § 156.
175. the wood, a league] Halliwell: This wood in the next scene is called the ‘ Palace wood,’ and is there described as being ‘ a mile without the town.’ It appears that Shakespeare, in this and other instances, made a league and a mile syn¬ onymous. The league was certainly variously estimated. In Holland’s translation of Ammianus Marcellinus it is reckoned as a mile and a half.
177. obseruance] Knight: See Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 1500, where the very expression occurs : ‘And for to doon his observance to May.’ [I doubt if there be a breather of the world, whose native speech is English, who does not know that May- day is welcomed with more or less festivity. As W. A. Wright says, ‘ scarcely an English poet from Chaucer to Tennyson is without a reference to the simple cus¬ toms by which our ancestors celebrated the advent of the flowers.’ Details of these customs, which are endless, can scarcely be said to be strictly illustrative of Shake¬ speare. To mention Brand’s Popular Antiquities, Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, Stubbes’s Anatomie of Abuses, or Chambers’s Book of Days will be quite sufficient, and no student of Folk-lore will be at a loss for other quarters into which to pursue his enquiry. — Ed.]
177. for a] That Chaucer, in the line quoted above, has the expression ‘ observance to May,’ has been, I suppose, a sufficing reason for following the Quartos here, bul the improvement is scarcely appreciable. — Ed.
ACT I, sc. i.J A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME 23
There will I ftay for thee.
Her. My good Ly fancier ,
I fweare to thee, by Cupids ftrongeft bow, 180
By his beft arrow with the golden head,
178. Hereupon, in Garrick’s Version, Lysander sings as follows. (May we not assume that, foreseeing the inspiration which Milton would draw from this play, Lysander deems it no felony to convey freely from L' Allegro ?)
‘ When that gay season did us lead To the tann’d hay-cock in the mead,
When the merry bells rung round,
And the rebecks brisk did sound,
When young and old came forth to play On a sunshine holyday;
‘ Let us wander far away,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray O’er the mountains barren breast,
Where labouring clouds do often rest,
O’er the meads with daisies py’d,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide.’
179, &c. Warburton : Lysander does but just propose her running away from her father at midnight, and straight she is at her oaths that she will meet him at the place of rendezvous. Not one doubt or hesitation, not one condition of assurance for Lysan- der’s constancy. Either she was nauseously coming, or she had before jilted him, and he could not believe her without a thousand oaths. But Shakespeare observed nature at another rate. The speeches are divided wrong. [Hereupon Warburton gives to Lysander lines 180-187 aQd to Hermia lines 188 and 189. This reading attracted but little attention in Warburton’s own day, and still less since. If any answer be needed, it is sufficiently given by Heath, who says (p. 42)] : No doubt [Hermia’s] conduct is not to be justified according to the strict rules of prudence. But when it is considered that she is deeply in love, and a just allowance is made for the necessity of her situation, being but just sentenced either to death, a vow of perpetual virginity, or a marriage she detested, every equitable reader, and I am sure the fair sex in gen¬ eral, will be more inclined to pity than to blame her. . . . Lysander asks no oaths of her. They are the superfluous, but tender effusion of her own heartfelt passion. . . . Would any man in his senses, when he is giving the strongest assurances of his fidel¬ ity to his mistress, endeavour at the same time to defeat the purpose, and destroy the effect of them, by expressly reminding her how often her sex had been deceived and ruined by trusting to such security ? Whereas in her mouth these expressions have the greatest beauty. She finely insinuates to her lover that she is not insensible of the hazard she runs from the entire confidence she reposes in him ; but at the same time she lets him see that she loves him with a passion above being restrained by this or any other consideration. This excess of tenderness, expressed with so much deli¬ cacy, must very strongly affect every mind that is susceptible of a sympathy with these generous sentiments.
181. best arrow] Halliwell: An allusion to the two arrows mentioned in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, i, 466 : [‘ tone causeth Loue, the totl er dotl it slake. That
24 A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act I, sc. i.
By the fimplicitie of Venus Doues, 182
By that which knitteth foules, and profpers loue,
And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage Qucene,
When the falfe Troyan vnder faile was feene, 185
By all the vowes that euer men haue broke,
(In number more then euer women fpoke)
In that fame place thou haft appointed me,
To morrow truly will I meete with thee.
Lyf. Keepe promife loue : looke here comes Helena . 1 90
Enter Helena.
Her. God fpeede faire Helena , whither away ?
Hel. Cal you me faire ? that faire againe vnfay,
Demetiius loues you faire : O happie faire! 194
183. loue\ loues Q,, Pope et seq. 192. fpeede faire~\ speed, fair Theob.
185. Troyan ] Trojan F4. Warb. Johns. Cap. Steev. Mai.
191. [Scene III. Pope + . 194. you\ Ff,Wh.ii. you, Rowe ii + ,
Cap. Wh. i. your Qq et cet.
causeth loue, is all of golde with point full sharpe and bright, That chaseth loue is blunt, whose steele with leaden head is dight.’ — Golding’s trans.]
181. golden head] Green (. Emblem Writers, p. 401) suggests that Shake speare might have derived this epithet, ‘ golden,’ quite as well from Alciat’s 154th and 155th Emblem, ed. 1581, or from Whitney, p. 132, 1586, as from Golding’s Ovid.
182. 183, 186-189. ‘These six lines,’ says Roffe (p. 53), ‘have been excellently set by Sir Henry Bishop as a solo, which was sung by Miss Stephens, as Hermia, in the operatised Midsum?ner Night's Dream.'
183. This line is transposed to follow line 181 in Singer’s second edition. This edition derives its chief value from the contributions to it of W. W. Lloyd. This transposition is probably an emendation by the latter ; he proposed it in Notes and Queries, 6th ser. vol xi, p. 182, 1878, which he would not have done had it not been his own. Hudson adopted this transposition, which Keightley ( Exp . 130) says is unnecessary, because the allusion in line 183 is not to the arrows, but ‘most prob¬ ably to the Cestus of Venus.’ — Ed.
184. Carthage Queene] For many another noun-compound, see Abbott, § 430. Steevens : Shakespeare had forgot that Theseus performed his exploits before the Trojan war, and consequently long before the death of Dido. — W. A. Wright : But Shakespeare’s Hermia lived in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and was con¬ temporary with Nick Bottom the weaver.
194-197, 204, 205. In Garrick’s Version these six lines are sung by Helena. The air by Mr. Christopher Smith. Line 194 reads : ‘ O Hermia fair, O happy, happy fair,’ and the last line : ‘ You sway the motions of your lover’s heart.’ In the List of All the Songs and Passages in Shakspere which have been set to Music, issued by the New Shakspere Society, p. 35, three other compositions adapted to these lines are noted;
fcCT I, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS D RE A ME
25
Your eyes are loadftarres, and your tongues fweet ayre More tuneable then Larke to fhepheards eare,
When wheate is greene, when hauthorne buds appeare, Sickneffe is catching : O were fauor fo,
Your words I catch, faire Herinia ere I go,
195
199
198. fo,~] so! Theob. + , Cap. Steev. Var. '
199. Your words /] Qq, Coll. i. Your
■words Ide Ff, Rowe, Pope, Tbeob. Mai. ’90, Sta. Your worth I Id Wagner conj. YouYs would I Han. et cet.
see also Roffe’s Handbook, p. 54- Hermia in turn sings lines 217-220; again the air is by Smith, who has also, set to music, lines 248-253.
194. you faire] In the Folio ‘you’ and ‘your’ are so frequently confounded (for many examples, see Walker, Crit. ii, 190) that the choice here may well depend on personal preference. Those who prefer ‘ your fair ’ of the Qq take ‘ fair ’ as a noun (for which there is abundant authority, see Abbott, § 5) ; and take it again as a noun also in ‘ O happie faire !’ For my part, I prefer to take it as a noun only in the latter phrase. ‘ Demetrius loves you, it is you who are fair. Ah, happy fairness, that can bring such blessings !’ — Ed.
195. loadstarres] Johnson: This was a compliment not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode-star is the leading or guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the same reason, called the lode-stone, either because it leads iron or because it guides the sailor. Milton has the same thought in L ’ Allegro , 80 : ‘ Where perhaps some beauty lies, The cynosure of neighbouring eyes ’ [_Kvv6aovpa being the Greek name for the constellation Ursa Minor, in which is the pole-star. — W. A. Wright.] Davies calls Queen Elizabeth : ‘ Lode-stone to hearts, and lode-stone to all eyes.’ — Grey (i, 44) : Sir John Maundevile, in his voiages and travailes, ch. 17, speaking of Lemery , saith : ‘ In that Lond, ne in many othere begonde that, no man may see the Sterre transmontane, that is clept the Sterre of the See, that is unmevable, and that is toward the Northe that we clepen the Lode Sterre.’ — Halliwell, as an aid to our imaginations, gives us a wood-cut of a six-pointed star.
198. fauor] Steevens : That is, feature, countenance. — Halliwell ( Introd. p. 72, 1841) : ‘ Favour ’ is not here used, as all editors and commentators have supposed, in the sense of countenance , but evidently in the common acceptation of the term — ‘ O, were favour so,’ i. e. favour in the eyes of Demetrius ; a particular application of a wish expressed in general terms. — Staunton : Sometimes in Shakespeare it means countenance, features, and occasionally, as here, good graces generally. [Whether ‘ favor ’ refers to the qualities of mind or of person is decided, I think, by the enu¬ meration which follows. — Ed.]
199. Your words I] Knight, albeit adopting Hanmer’s emendation, says that the text of the Folio will give an intelligible meaning if we include in a parenthesis ‘ Your words I catch, fair Hermia,’ adding ‘ it is in the repetition of the word fair that Helena catches the words of Hermia ; but she would also catch her voice, her intonation, and her expression as well as her words.’ — Collier, in his first edition, is the only editor who adopts the text of the Folio, and justifies it ; ‘ the meaning is,’ he says, ‘ that Helena only catches the words and not the voice of Hermia.’ In his sec¬ ond edition he followed Hanmer. — The text of the Second Folio, ‘Your words I’d catch,’ Malone pronounces ‘ intelligible,’ and Staunton, who also adopts it, remarks that ‘ Helena would catch not only the beauty of her rival’s aspect and the melody
26
A MIDS OMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act i, sc. L
My eare ftiould catch your voice, my eye, your eye,
My tongue thould catch your tongues fweet melodie,
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The reft lie giue to be to you tranflated.
203. IU\ ile Qv I'le F3F4. I'd Han. Cam. Wh. ii, Ktly, Huds.
of her tones, but her language also,’ which applies quite as well to Hanmer’s emen¬ dation.—* 1 But,’ says W. A. Wright, 1 Hanmer’s correction gives a better sense.’ However reluctant we may be to desert the QqFf, I am afraid we must submit.— Ed.
200. eare . . . voice] Dyce (ed. ii) : Mr W. N. Lettsom would read, 1 My hair should catch your hair, my eye your eye,’ and defends the alteration thus : ‘As the passage stands at present, Helena wishes her ear may resemble the voice of Hermia 1 I conceive that, in the first place, “ heare ” — “ heare " [a common old spelling of 1 hair'] was transformed into “ eare ” — “ eare ” by the blunder of a transcriber. The verse was then operated upon by a sophisticator, who regarded nothing but the line before him, and was not aware of the true meaning of “ my eye your eye ,” but took “ catch " in the ordinary sense, not in the peculiar sense of contracting a disease, which it bears throughout this passage.’ — Deighton : If any change were allowable,
I should be inclined to read : 1 My fair should catch your fair,' i. e. the personal beauty you have ascribed to me should catch your personal beauty, . . .fair being the general term including the particulars 1 eye ’ and 1 tongue.’ 1 Voice ’ seems clearly wrong, . . . and with my conjecture we have in these two lines a complete corre¬ spondency with lines 194, 195.— [Hudson adopted Lettsom’s emendation, wherein, I think, the fact is overlooked that, while it is quite possible for Helena’s eyes to catch the love-light that lies in Hermia’s, and for Helena’s tongue to catch the melody of her rival’s, by no possibility can Helena’s hair be made to resemble Hermia’s, short of artificial means. Deighton’s emendation is certainly more plausible than Lett¬ som s. Both of them, however, are, I think, needless. To a compositor, 1 eare ’ might be mistaken for fair or hair, but it is unlikely that for either of these words he should mis-read or mis-hear ‘voice.’ — Ed.]
200. my] Abbott, § 237 : Mine is almost always found before eye, ear, &c. where no emphasis is intended. But where there is antithesis we have my, thy. See, also, III, ii, 230 : ‘ To follow me and praise my eies and face ?’
200, 201. eye . . . melodie] I cannot believe that to Elizabethan ears the rhyme here was imperfect. It was as perfect as are all the others in this scene. ‘ Melody,’ therefore, must have been pronounced then as it is in German at this day: melodei. If additional proof be needed, compare the Fairy’s song in II, ii, 15, 16: ‘ Philo- mele with melodie, Sing in your sweet Lullaby,’ where the music is marred if the rhyme be not perfect. — Ed.
202. bated] That is, excepted.
203. Ile] LErrsoM : Read I'd. I cannot but think that the frequent confusion of ‘ lie ’ and ‘ Ide ’ is a misprint, not an idiom.— Dyce (ed. ii, where the foregoing note is found): But it certainly appears that our ancestors frequently used ‘■will' where we now use ‘ would,’ e.g. ‘ If I should pay your worship those again, Perchance you will not bear them patiently.’— Com. of Err. I, ii, 85; ‘I would bend under any heavy weight That he'll enjoin me to.’— Much Ado, V, i, 286.
203. translated] That is, transformed, as in Quince’s ‘ Bottom, bless thee ; thou art translated,’ III, i, 124.
200
203
ACT i, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME 27
O teach me how you looke, and with what art you fway the motion of Demetrius hart. 205
Her. I frowne vpon him, yet he loues me ftill.
Hel. O that your frownes would teach my fmiles fuch skil.
Her. I giue him curfes, yet he giues me loue.
HeU O that my prayers could fuch affe&ion mooue. 210 Her. The more I hate, the more he followes me.
Hel. The more I loue, the more he hateth me.
Her. His folly Helena is none of mine.
Hel. None but your beauty, wold that fault wer mine Her. Take comfort : he no more fhall fee my face, 2 1 5
Lyfander and my felfe will flie this place.
Before the time I did Lyfander fee, 217
213. folly Helena ] fault , oh Helena Han. folly, Helen Dyce ii, iii, Huds. fault, fair Helena Coll. (MS).
none~\ Q,Ff, Rowe, Pope, Han.
Coll. (MS), no fault Qz et cet.
214. None...wold~\ None. — But yow beauty ; — ’ would Henderson ap. Var.
beauty\ beauty's Daniel, Huds.
213, 214. It is by no means easy to decide between the text as we have it above in the Folio, and the text of Q, (which has been adopted by a majority of editors) : ‘ His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.’ If we assume that Hermia is trying to com¬ fort her dear friend with assurances of her enduring love, then there is a charm in this asseveration, in the Folio, that she does not share in Demetrius’s folly, which gives hate for love, but that she returns love for love ; and her words become sympa¬ thetic and caressing. But if we adopt the text of Qr, Hernia’s words have a faint tinge of acerbity (which, it must be confessed, is not altogether out of character), as though she were defending herself from some unkind imputation, and wished to close the discussion (which would also be not unnatural). It is again in favour of the Quarto that Helena replies ‘ would that fault were mine.’ The demonstrative ‘ that ’ seems clearly to refer to a ‘ fault ’ previously expressed. This weighs so heavily with Capell that he says the word ‘ fault ’ must ‘ of necessity have a place ’ in Hermia’s line. Lastly, it is in favour of the Folio that Helena’s first words are Hermia’s last. ‘ It is none of mine,’ says Hermia, ‘ It is none of yours,’ assents Helena. On the whole, therefore, I adhere to the text of the Folio. — Ed.
215, &c. Johnson : Perhaps every reader may not discover the propriety of these lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to consider the power of pleasing as an advan¬ tage to be much envied or much desired, since Hermia, whom she considers as pos sessing it in the supreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happi¬ ness. — Deighton: How powerful must be the graces of my beloved one, seeing that they have made Athens a place of torture to me ; i. e. since so long as she remained in it she could not marry Lysander. [According to Johnson’s interpretation, ‘he,’ in the phrase ‘he hath turn’d,’ refers, not to Lysander, but to ‘love,’ Hermia’ a own love, which is doubtful. — Ed.]
28
A MID SOMMER NIGHTS D RE A ME [act i. sc. i
Seem’d Athens like a Paradife to mee. 218
O then, what graces in my Loue do dwell,
That he hath turn’d a heauen into hell. 220
Lyf Helen , to you our mindes we will vnfold,
To morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold Her flluer vifage, in the watry glaffe,
Decking with liquid pearle, the bladed graffe
(A time that Louers flights doth ftill conceale) 225
Through Athens gates, haue we deuis’d to fteale.
Her. And in the wood, where often you and I,
Vpon faint Primrofe beds, were wont to lye,
Emptying our bofomes, of their counfell fweld :
218. like a] as a Q,, Cap. Steev. Mai. ’90, Coll. Dyce, Cam. Wh. ii, Ktly.
219. do] must Coll. (MS).
220. into] QaFf, Rowe, Pope, Han. Johns. Hal. vnto a QIf Theob. Warb. Cap. Steev. Mai. Knt, Dyce, Sta. Cam.
unto Var.’c>3, ’13, ’21. into a White. 226. gates] gate F3F , Rowe + .
229. counfell fweld] QqFf, Rowe i, Hal. counsells swell d Rowe ii, Pope, Warb. counsells sweet Theob. Han. Johns. Ktly. counsel sweet Cap. et cet.
220. into] Dyce ( Rem . 44) : The context, ‘ a heaven,’ is quite enough to deter¬ mine that the reading of Fisher’s 4to [QJ, ‘unto a hell,’ is the right one, excepting that ‘ unto ’ should be ‘ into.' Compare a well-known passage of Milton : * The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ — Par. Lost, i, 254.
225. still] Constantly, always. See Shakespeare passim.
228. faint Primrose beds] Steevens: Whether the epithet ‘faint’ has reference to the colour or smell of primroses, let the reader determine. [I think it refers to the colour. Twice (in Winter's Tale, IV, iv, 122, and in Cym. IV, ii, 221) Shake¬ speare speaks of 1 pale primroses.’ — Delius supposes that ‘ faint ’ is here used pro- leptically, and refers to ‘ beds for those who are weary. Compare “ lazy bed,” Tro. Cres. 'I, iii.’ — Ed.]
229. sweld] Theobald : This whole scene is strictly in rhyme, and that it devi¬ ates [here and in line 232], I am persuaded is owing to the ignorance of the first, and the inaccuracy of the later, editors ; I have, therefore, ventured to restore the rhymes, as, I make no doubt, but the poet first gave them. Sweet was easily cor¬ rupted into ‘ sweld,’ because that made an antithesis to ‘ emptying ’ ; and ‘ strange companions ’ [line 232] our editors thought was plain English; but stranger companies a little quaint and unintelligible. Our author elsewhere uses the substantive stranger adjectively, and companies to signify ‘ companions.’ See Rich. II: I, iii, 143 ; tread the stranger paths of banishment ’ ; and in Hen. V: I, i, 53 : ‘ His companies unletter’d, rude and shallow.’ And so in a parallel word : ‘ My riots past, my wild societies,’ Merry Wives, III, iv, 8.— Heath (p. 44) : It is evident, as well from the dissonance of the rhyme as from the absurdity and false grammar of the expression, ‘ bosoms swell’ d of their counsels,’ that ‘ swell’d ’ is corrupt. Mr Theobald hath by a very happy conjecture corrected this wrong reading ; [the meaning then is] emptying *ur bosoms of those secrets upon which we were wont to consult each other with so
29
ACT I, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
There my Ly fancier, and my felfe fhall meete,
And thence From Athens turne away our eyes To feeke new friends and ftrange companions,
Farwell fweet play-fellow, pray thou for vs,
And good lucke grant thee thy Demetrius.
Keepe word Lyfander we muft ftarue our fight,
From louers foode, till morrow deepe midnight.
Exit Hermia.
■Lyf' I will itiy Hermia. Helena adieu,
As you on him, Demetrius dotes on you. Exit Lyfander.
230
235
239
232- ft range companions ] ftranger companies Theob. Han. Johns. Mai. Steev. Knt, Coll. White, Dyce, Sta. Cam. Ktly.
234- grant ] graunt Qr.
thy] thine Rowe ii.
239. dotes] dote Qq, Pope et seq.
sweet a satisfaction. The poet seems to have had in his eve Psalm lv, 14 : ‘We took sweet counsel together.’— Steevens adheres to the Folio, because ‘a bosom swell' d ■with secrets does not appear as an expression unlikely to have been used by our author who speaks of a stuff'd bosom in Macbeth. In Rich. II: IV, i, 298, we have “ the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul.” “ Of counsels swell’d ’* may mean, swell’d with counsels.’— Halliwell also defends the Folio, and pro¬ nounces Theobald’s emendation ‘ unnecessary ’ ( Introd 73) : ‘ If Shakespeare had written sweet and stranger companies , it is very improbable that these words could have been so changed either by the actors or printers.’ In his Folio edition, fifteen years later than his Introduction , Halliwell is still of the same mind: ‘Theobald in each instance sacrifices the sense to the ear, the participle « emptying ” corrobo¬ rating the old reading “ swell’d,” and the comparative, as applied to companions oi companies, being pointless.’ He then adds : ‘ In a previous speech of Hermia’s all the lines rhyme with the exception of the three commencing ones. If Theobald’s theory ' be correct, the two lines in that speech ending with the words “ lpow ” and “ head ” should be altered so as to rhyme.’— Collier (ed. ii) : The (MS) amends ‘ swell’d ’ and ‘companions’ [as Theobald amends them], though, somewhat to our surprise, no change is made in the epithet ‘ strange.’— Dyce (ed. i) : I give here Theobald’s emendations, . . . and I give them in the belief that more certain emendations were never made.— W. A. Wright: The rhyme is decisive in favour of Theobald’s con¬ jecture. [In a modernised text Theobald’s emendations should be adopted unques¬ tionably. See the following note by Walker. — Ed.]
232. strange] It is noteworthy as a corroboration of Theobald’s emendation that Walker ( Cnt . ii, 53) cites this present word among his many examples of the con¬ fusion of final e and er. See II, ii, 81.
239. dotes] A clear instance of the interpolation of the final *, early recognised by Pope as an error, and acknowledged by every subsequent editor.— Walker’s article, dealing with this final s ( Crit . i, 233), is one of the most valuable of his many valuable articles. ‘ The interpolation of an r at the end of a word— generally, but not always, a noun substantive— is remarkably frequent in the Folio. Those who are conversant with the MSS of the Elizabethan Age may perhaps be able to explain its
3°
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act i, sc. i.
Hele. How happy fome, ore otherfome can be/ 240
Through Athens I am thought as faire as the.
But what of that ? Demetrius thinkes not fo :
He will not know, what all, but he doth know,
And as hee erres, doting on Hermias eyes ;
So I, admiring of his qualities : 245
Things bafe and vilde, holding no quantity,
243. he doth) Ff, Rowe, White, hee 246. vilde ] F2F3, Knt, Hal. vile
doe Qj. he do Q2, Pope et cet. QqF4 et cet.
origin. Were it not for the different degree of frequency with which it occurs in dif¬ ferent parts of the Folio, — being comparatively rare in the Comedies (except perhaps in The Winter’s Tale), appearing more frequently in the Histories, and becoming quite common in the Tragedies, — I should be inclined to think it originated in some peculiarity of Shakespeare’s hand-writing.’ There is another example of it in this play, cited as such by Walker (IV, i, 208, ‘every things seemes double’), but which might possibly receive a different explanation. There are several examples in As You Like It, cited, in this edition, at I, iii, 60, together with instances from other plays not noticed by Walker ; I can recall no single example in The Tempest. We know that the Folio was printed at the charges of four Stationers. May not this interpolated s, which is local in its frequency, be due, not to Shakespeare’s handwriting, but to the compositors in the different printing-offices ? — Ed.
240. othersome] Hai.LIWELL : A quaint but pretty phrase of frequent occurrence in early works. It is found in the Scripture, Acts xvii, 18. — Abbott (p. 5) gives an example from Heywood, who, ‘ after dividing human diners into three classes, thus : “ Some with small fare they be not pleased, Some with much fare they be dis¬ eased, Some with mean fare be scant appeased,” adds, with truly Elizabethan free¬ dom, “ But of all sotnes none is displeased To be welcome.” ’ — W. A. Wright refers to Two Noble Kinsmen, IV, iii ; Meas. for Meas. Ill, ii, 94; also 2 Esdras xiii, 13. [See also Lily’s Love's Meta. Ill, i, p. 232, ed. Fairholt.]
245. admiring of] See Abbott, § 178, for other examples of verbal nouns.— W. A. Wright : In this construction ‘ admiring ’ is a verbal noun, originally governed by a preposition, in or on, which has disappeared, but which exists sometimes in the degraded form a, in such words as ‘a hunting,’ ‘a building.’ — Verity: I take ‘ad¬ miring ’ as a present participle, and ‘ of ’ as the redundant preposition found in Eliza¬ bethan English with many verbs; cf. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, II, xxiii, 13 : ‘ Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture.’ So, in the same work (II, xxv, 7), ‘define of’ and ‘discern of’ (II, xxi, 1).
246, 247. Green ( Emblem Writers, p. 349) finds a parallel to the sentiment in these lines in an emblem, engraved by De Passe in 1596, illustrating the apothegm: ‘ Perpolit incultum paulatim tempus amorem.’ The illustration represents Cupid watching a bear which is licking her cub into shape, and is accompanied by Latin and French stanzas. As the present is, I think, one of the happiest examples of Green’s theory, the space is well bestowed in giving these stanzas in full : ‘ Ursa novum fertur lambendo fingere foetum Paulatim et formam, quae decet, ore dare ; Sic dominam, ut valde sic cruda sit aspera Amator Blanditiis sensim mollet et obsequio.’ ‘ Peu d peu. Ceste masse de chair, que toute ourse faonne [.rcV] En la leschant se forme 4 son com-
ACT i, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
Loue can tranfpofe to forme and dignity,
Loue lookes not with the eyes, but with the minde, And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blinde.
Nor hath loues minde of any iudgement tafte : Wings and no eyes, figure, vnheedy hafte.
And therefore is Loue faid to be a childe,
Becaufe in choife he is often beguil’d,
As waggifh boyes in game themfelues forfweare j Sc the boy Loue is periur’d euery where.
For ere Demetrius lookt on Hernuas eyne,
He hail’d downe oathes that he was onely mine. And when this Haile fome heat from Hermia felt, So he diffolu’d, and fhowres of oathes did melt,
I will goe tell him of faire Hermias flight :
31
247
250
255
260
25I- figure,] figure Rowe et seq. hafie] hafi F+.
253. is often] is oft Qa. often is Ff, Rowe, Pope, Han. White, is fo oft Qt, Theob. et cet.
254. in game themfelues] themfelues in game F3F4, Rowe+.
256. eyne] Qa (Ashbee) F F . eyen
Q.Q2 (Gr>ggs)- eyn F4.
257. onely] only FaF4.
258. this] his Qa.
259- So he] Lo, he Cap. Soon it Rann. Soon he Daniel.
mencement. Par servir : par flatter, par complaire en aymant, L’ amour rude k l’abord, A la fin se fa
246. no quantity] Johnson : Quality seems a word more suitable to the sense than ‘ quantity,’ but either may serve.— Steevens :
So in Hamlet, III, ii, 177 : ‘ For women’s fear and love hold quantity.’ _ Schmidt:
That is, bearing no proportion to what they are estimated by love.
254- game] Johnson : This signifies here, not contentious play, but sport, jest.
256. eyne] W. A. Wright : This Old English plural is used by Shakespeare always on account of the rhyme, except in Lucrece, 1229, and Pericles, III, Gower, 5.
259. So] Abbott, § 66 : ‘ So ’ (like the Greek ovtu 6ij) is often used where we should use then.
260. goe tell] See Abbott, § 349. Also ‘go seeke,’ II, i, 13.
260, &c. Coleridge (p. 101): I am convinced that Shakespeare availed himself of the title of this play in his own mind, and worked upon it as a dream throughout, but especially, and perhaps unpleasingly, in this broad determination of ungrateful treachery in Helena, so undisguisedly avowed to herself, and this, too, after the witty, cool philosophising that precedes. The act itself is natural, and the resolve so to act is, I fear, likewise too true a picture of the lax hold which principles have on a woman s heart, when opposed to, or even separated from, passion and inclination. For women are less hypocrites to their own minds than men are, because in general they feel less proportionate abhorrence of moral evil in and for itself, and more of its outward consequences, as detection and loss of character, than men, — their natures being almost wholly extroitive. Still, however just in itself, the representation of this is not poetical ; we shrink from it, and cannot harmonise it with the ideal.
32
A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME [act I, sc. i.
Then to the wood will he, to morrow night Purfue her ; and for his intelligence,
If I haue thankes, it is a deere expence : But heerein meane I to enrich my paine,
To haue his fight thither, and backe againe.
261
Exit. 265
262. his'] this Qq, Rowe et seq.
262. his] This is one of Walker’s instances (IV, i, 88 is another) where, in this play, his and this have supplanted one another ( Crit. ii, 221).
263. deere expence] Steevens : That is, it will cost him much (be a severe con¬ straint on his feelings,) to make even so slight a return for my communication. — Col¬ lier (ed. ii) : This reading may be reconciled to meaning, but the alteration of the MS at once claims our acceptance ; it is dear recompense can mean nothing but the expression of great satisfaction on the part of Helena at the reward she hopes to receive for her intelligence. — Lettsom (. Blackwood , Aug. 1853) : The Old Corrector [*, e. Collier’s MS] is an old woman who, in this case, has not merely mistaken, but has directly reversed, Shakespeare’s meaning. So far from saying that Demetrius s thanks will be any 4 recompense ’ for what she proposes doing, Helena says the very reverse, that they will be a severe aggravation of her pain. 4 A dear expense ’ here means a painful purchase, a bitter bargain. 4 If I have thanks, the sacrifice which I make in giving Demetrius this information will be doubly distressing to me.’ Of course she would much rather that Demetrius, her old lover, did not thank her for setting him on the traces of his new mistress. Thanks would be a mockery in the circumstances, and this is what Helena means to say. Such is manifestly the mean¬ ing of the passage, as may be gathered both from the words themselves and from the connection with the context. The sight of Demetrius, and not his thanks , was to be Helena’s recompense. — Dyce (ed. i) : The MS Corrector was evidently in total dark¬ ness as to the meaning of the passage ; nor could Mr Collier himself have paid much attention to the context, when he recommended so foolish an alteration as a singular improvement. — Staunton : Does it not mean that, as to gratify her lover with this intelligence, she makes the most painful sacrifice of her feelings, his thanks, even if obtained, are dearly bought ? — Delius : Helena assuredly means that she purchases even the thanks of Demetrius at a high price, namely, at the price of fostering and furthering Demetrius’s love for Hermia, and therefore of her own harm. — W. A. Wright : That is, it will cost me dear, because it will be in return for my procuring him a sight of my rival.
265. In Garrick’s Version, Helena, before she departs, sings as follows : —
4 Against myself why all this art,
To glad my eyes, I grieve my heart ; To give him joy, I court my bane ! And with his sight enrich my pain.’
The Air is by 4 Mr. Burney.
ACT I, sc. ii.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME
33
| Scene //.]
Enter Quince the Carpenter, Snug the Ioyner, Bottome the Weauer, Flute the bellowes-mender, Snout the Tinker, and Starueling the Taylor.
Qian. Is all our company heere ?
Bot. You were beft to call them generally, man by man, acccuding to the fcrip.
Qui. Here is the fcrowle of euery mans name, which is thought fit through all Athens, to play in our Enter- lude before the Duke and the Dutches, on his wedding day at night.
[Scene IV. Pope + . Scene III. Fleay. Scene II. Cap. et seq. Scene changes to a Cottage. Theob. A Room in Quince’s House. Cap.
I» 2. Snug. ..Snout] and Snugge, the Ioyner, and Bottom , the Weauer, and Flute , the Bellowes mender, & Snout, Qt.
2. Snout] Snowt F3F4, Rowe, Pope. 6. to] Om. Q2.
8. Enterlude ] interlude Theob. et seq.
9. the Dutches ] Dutchess Pope ii, Theob. Warb. Johns. Steev. Mai. Var. Coll. Sing. Ktly.