I. Enter...] Enter Oberon. Cap. et seq.

folus.] and Robin Goodfellow. Qq, Om. Theob. Warb. et seq.
4. extremitie ] extreamitie Qt.
5. Om. Qq. After meffenger, line 6, Dyce.
6. fpirit ] sprite Pope + .
7. gaunted ] haunted QqFf.
dew in the moon. Macb. Ill, v : ‘ Upon the comer of the moon There hangs a vaporous drop profound.’ Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess, iv, 4, Moxon, vol. i, p. 279 : * Showers of more price, more orient, and more round Than those that hang upon the moon’s pale brow.’
209. louers] Malone: Our poet has again used ‘lover’ as a monosyllable in Twelfth N II, iv, 66 : ‘ Sad true lover never find my grave.’ — Steevens : In the passage quoted from Twelfth N. 1 true lover ’ is evidently a mistake for true love, a phrase which occurs in the next scene, line 92. How is ‘ louer ’ to be pronounced as a monosyllable? [See Walker frit, ii, 55), cited at II, ii, 81. There can be, I think, no doubt that love is the true word here. Is it insinuated that however deeply Titania may be enamoured with Bottom’s fair large ears, and her eye enthralled to his shape, she can find no corresponding charm in his talk ? There is a limit even to the powers of the magic love-juice ; Bottom’s tongue must be tied. — Ed.]
4. must] Compelled by the love-juice.
6. spirit] See II, i, 32.
7. night-rule] Steevens: This should seem to mean here, what frolic of tne night, what revelry is going forward ? — Nares : Such conduct as generally rules in the night. — Halliwell quotes from the Statutes of the Streets of London, ap. Stowe, p. 666 : ‘ No man shall, after the houre of nine at the night, keep any rale whereby any such sudden outcry be made in the still of the night,’ &c. [Dyce’s definition of ‘ rule ’ applies to this quotation from Stowe, and to other examples given by Halliwell, as well as to the present ‘ night-rule.’ After quoting Nares’s definition of ‘ rule,’ viz. that it is apparently put for behaviour or conduct ; with some allusion perhaps to the frolics called mis-rule,’ Dyce adds : ‘ I believe it is equivalent to “ revel, noisy sport ” ; Coles has “ Rule (stir), Tumultus." — Lat. and Eng. Diet.' Whereby we come round
132
A MI DS O MATER NIGHTS DREAME [act iii, sc. ii.
Puck. My Miftris with a monfter is in loue, 8
Neere to her clofe and confecrated bower,
While the was in her dull and fleeping hower, io
A crew of patches, rude Mcehanicals,
That worke for bread vpon Athenian ftals,
Were met together to rehearfe a Play,
Intended for great Thefeus nuptiall day :
The fhalloweft thick-skin of that barren fort, 15
Who Piramus prefented, in their fport,
Forfooke his Scene, and entred in a brake,
When I did him at this aduantage take,
An Affes nole I fixed on his head.
Anon his Thisbie muft be anfwered, 20
And forth my Mimmick comes : when they him fpie,
8, 9. loue,. ..bower,"] loue, ...bower. Qf. love. ...bower, Rowe et seq.