Chapter 9

V.ii.69 (434,9) [None are so surely caught when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool] These are observation worthy of a man who has surveyed human nature with the closest attention.

V.ii.87 (434,1) [Saint Dennis to St. Cupid!] The Princess of France invokes, with too much levity, the patron of her country, to oppose his power to that of Cupid.

V.ii.117 (435,2) [spleen ridiculous] is, a ridiculous _fit_.

V.ii.205 (439,5) [Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars] When queen Elizabeth asked an ambassadour how he liked her ladies, _It is hard,_ said he, _to judge of stars in the presence of the sun._

V.ii.235 (440,6) [Since you can cog] To _cog_ signifies _to falsify the dice,_ and _to falsify a narrative,_ or _to lye._

V.ii.281 (442,7) [better wits have worn plain statute-caps] This line is not universally understood, because every reader does not know that a statute cap is part of the academical habit. Lady Rosaline declares that her expectation was disappointed by these courtly students, and that _better wits_ might be found in the common places of education. [Gray had offered a different explanation] I think my own interpretation of this passage right. (see 1765, II,197,3)

V.ii.295 (443,8)

[Fair ladies, mask'd, are roses in their bud; Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shewn, Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown]

[Hammer: angels vailing clouds] [Warburton exercised his sarcasm on this] I know not why Sir T. Hanmer's explanation should be treated with so much contempt, or why _vailing clouds_ should be _capping the sun. Ladies unmask'd,_ says Boyet, _are_ like _angels vailing clouds,_ or letting those clouds which obscured their brightness, sink from before them. What is there in this absurd or contemptible?

V.ii.309 (444,1) [_Exeunt ladies_] Mr. Theobald ends the fourth act here.

V.ii.337 (447,4) [--behaviour, what wert thou, 'Till this mad man shew'd thee? and what art thou now?] [These are two wonderfully fine lines, intimating that what courts call _manners,_ and value themselves so much upon teaching, as a thing no where else to be learnt, is a modest silent accomplishment under the direction of nature and common sense, which does its office in promoting social life without being taken notice of. But that when it degerates into shew and parade, it becomes an unmanly contemptible quality. Warburton.] What is told in this note is undoubtedly true, but is not comprised in the quotation.

V.ii.348 (448,5) [The virtue of your eye must break my oath] I believe the author means that the _virtue,_ in which word _goodness_ and _power_ are both comprised, _must dissolve_ the obligation of the oath. The Princess, in her answer, takes the most invidious part of the ambiguity.

V.ii.374 (449,6)

[when we greet With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye, By light we lose light: your capacity Is of that nature, as to your huge store Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor]

This is a very lofty and elegant compliment.

V.ii.419 (450,7) [Write, _Lord have mercy on us_, on those three] This was the inscription put upon the door of the houses infected with the plague, to which Biron compares the love of himself and his companions; and pursuing the metaphor finds the _tokens_ likewise on the ladies. The _tokens_ of the plague are the first spots or discolorations, by which the infection is known to be received.

V.ii.426 (451,8) [how can this be true, That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?] That is, how can those be liable to forfeiture that begin the process. The jest lies in the ambiguity of _sue_, which signifies _to prosecute by law_, or to _offer a petition_.

V.ii.440 (451,9) [you force not to forswear] _You force not_ is the same with _you make no difficulty_. This is a very just observation. The crime which has been once committed, is committed again with less reluctance.

V.ii.471 (452,2) [in will and error. Much upon this it is:--And might not you] I, believe this passage should be read thus,

--_in will and error_. Boyet. _Much upon this it is_. Biron. _And might not you_, &c.

V.ii.490 (453,5) [You cannot beg us] That is, we are not fools, our next relations cannot _beg_ the wardship of our persons and fortunes. One of the legal tests of a _natural_ is to try whether he can number.

V.ii.517 (454,6)

[That sport best pleases, that doth least know how. Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dies in the zeal of that which it presents]

The third line may be read better thus,

--_the contents_ _Die in the zeal of_ him _which_ them _presents_.

This sentiment of the Princess is very natural, but less generous than that of the Amazonian Queen, who says, on a like occasion, in Midsummer-Night's Dream,

_I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd_, _Nor duty in his service perishing_.

V.ii.547 (455,8) [A bare throw at novum] This passage I do not understand. I fancy that _novum_ should be _novem_, and that some allusion is intended between the play of _nine pins_ and the play of the _nine_ worthies, but it lies too deep for my investigation.

V.ii.581 (457,2) [A-jax] There is a conceit of _Ajax_ and _a jakes_.

V.ii.694 (461,4) [more Ates] That is, more instigation. Ate was the mischievous goddess that incited bloodshed.

V.ii.702 (461,5) [my arms] The weapons and armour which he wore in the character of Pompey.

V.ii.744 (463,8) [In the converse of breath] Perhaps _converse_ may, in this line, mean _interchange_.

V.ii.755 (464,2) [which fain it would convince] We must read,

--_which fain_ would it _convince_;

that is, the entreaties of love which would fain _over-power_ grief. So Lady Macbeth declares, _That she will_ convince _the chamberlain with wine_.

V.ii.762 (464,3) [Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief] As it seems not very proper for Biron to court the princess for the king in the king's presence, at this critical moment, I believe the speech is given to a wrong person. I read thus,

Prin. _I understand you not, my griefs are double: Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief._ King. _And by these badges_, &c.

V.ii.779 (465,4) [Suggested us] That is, _tempted_ us.

V.ii.790 (465,5) [As bombast, and as lining to the time] This line is obscure. _Bombast_ was a kind of loose texture not unlike what is now called wadding, used to give the dresses of that time bulk and protruberance, without much increase of weight; whence the same name is given a tumour of words unsupported by solid sentiment. The Princess, therefore, says, that they considered this courtship as but _bombast_, as something to fill out life, which not being closely united with it, might be thrown away at pleasure.

V.ii.795 (466,7) [We did not quote them so] [We should read, _quote_, esteem, reckon. Warburton] though our old writers spelling by the ear, probably wrote _cote_, as it was pronounced. (see 1765, II,218,5)

V.ii.823 (467,8) [To flatter up these powers of mine with rest] Dr. Warburton would read _fetter_, but _flatter_ or _sooth_ is, in my opinion, more apposite to the king's purpose than _fetter_. Perhaps we may read,

_To flatter_ on _these_ hours of time _with rest_;

That is, I would not deny to live in the hermitage, to make the year of delay pass in quiet.

V.ii.873 (469,2) [dear groans] _Dear_ should here, as in many other places, be _dere_, sad, odious.

V.ii.904 (470,3) [_When daisies pied, and violets blue_] The first lines of this song that were transposed, have been replaced by Mr. Theobald.

V.ii.907 (470,5) [_Do paint the meadows with delight_] [W: much bedight] Much less elegant than the present reading.

(472,7) General Observation. In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of him.

Vol. III

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM

I.i.6 (4,2) [Long withering out a young man's revenue] [W: wintering] That the common reading is not good English, I cannot perceive, and therefore find in myself no temptation to change it.

I.i.47 (5,6) [To leave the figure, or disfigure it] [W: 'leve] I know not why so harsh a word should be admitted with so little need, a word that, spoken, could not be understood, and of which no example can be shown. The sense is plain, _you owe to your father a being which he may at pleasure continue or destroy_.

I.i.68 (6,8) [Know of your youth] Bring your youth to the question. Consider your youth. (1773)

I.i.76 (7,9) [But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd] Thus all the copies, yet _earthlier_ is so harsh a word, and _earthlier happy_ for _happier earthly_, a mode of speech so unusual, that I wonder none of the editors have proposed _earlier happy_.

I.i.110 (8,2) [spotted] As _spotless_ is innocent, so _spotted_ is wicked. (1773)

I.i.131 (9,3) [Beteem them] give them, bestow upon then. The word is used by Spenser.

I.i.157 (10,8) [I have a widow aunt, a dowager] These lines perhaps might more properly be regulated thus:

_I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child, And she respects me as her only son; Her house from Athens is remov'd seven leagues, There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee, And to that place--_

I.i.169-178 (11,1) [Warburton had reassigned speeches here] This emendation is judicious, but not necessary. I have therefore given the note without altering the text. The censure of men, as oftner perjured than women, seems to make that line more proper for the lady.

I.i.183 (12,3) [Your eyes are lode-stars] This was a complement 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 became it leads iron, or because it guides the sailor. Milton has the same thought in L'Allegro:

_Tow'rs and battlements he sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some beauty lies, The_ Cynosure _of neighb'ring eyes._

Davies calls Elizabeth, _lode-stone_ to hearts, and _lode-stone_ to all eyes, (see 1765, 1,97,9)

I.i.204 (13,6)

[Before the time I did Lysander see, Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me]

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 advantage to be much envied or much desired, since Hermia, whom she considers as possessing it in the supreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness.

I.i.232 (15,8) [Things base and vile, holding no quantity] _quality_ seems a word more suitable to the sense than quantity, but either may serve. (1773)

I.i.240 (15,9) [in game] _Game_ here signifies not contentious play, but _sport, jest_. So Spenser,

_'Twixt earnest and 'twixt_ game.

I.ii (16,2) [_Enter Quince the carpenter, Snug the joiner. Bottom the weaver. Flute the bellows-mender. Snout the tinker, and Starveling the taylor_] In this scene Shakespeare takes advantage of his knowledge of the theatre, to ridicule the prejudices and competitions of the players. Bottom, who is generally acknowledged the principal actor, declares his inclination to be for a tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man pants to perform when he first steps upon the stage. The same Bottom, who seems bred in a tiring-room, has another histrionical passion. He is for engrossing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all possibility of distinction. He is therefore desirous to play Pyramus, Thisbe, and the Lyon at the same time.

I.ii.10 (17,4) [grow on to a point] Dr. Warburton read _go on_; but _grow_ is used, in allusion to his name, Quince. (see 1765, I,100,8)

I.ii.52 (18,6)

[_Flu._ Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming. _Quin._ That's all one, you shall play it in a masque; and you may speak as small as you will]

This passage shews how the want of women on the old stage was supplied. If they had not a young man who could perform the part with a face that might pass for feminine, the character was acted in a mask, which was at that time part of a lady's dress so much in use that it did not give any unusual appearance to the scene: and he that could modulate his voice in a female tone might play the women very successfully. It is observed in Downes's Memoirs of the Playhouse, that one of these counterfeit heroines moved the passions more strongly than the women that have since been brought upon the stage. Some of the catastrophes of the old comedies, which make lovers marry the wrong women, are, by recollection of the common use of masks, brought nearer to probability.

I.ii.98 (20,8) [_Bot_. I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange tawny beard, your purple-in grain beard, or your French crown-coloured beard; your perfect yellow] Here Bottom again discovers a true genius for the stage by his solicitude for propriety of dress, and his deliberation which beard to chuse among many beards, all unnatural.

II.i.2 (21,3) [Over hill, over dale] So Drayton in his Court of Fairy,

_Thorough brake_, _thorough brier_. _Thorough muck_, _thorough mire_. _Thorough water_, _thorough fire_.

II.i.9 (22,4) [To dew her orbs upon the green] For _orbs_ Dr. Gray is inclined to substitute _herbs_. The orbs here mentioned are the circles supposed to be made by the Fairies on the ground, whose verdure proceeds from the fairy's care to water them.

_They in their courses make that_ round, _In meadows and in marshes found_, _Of then so called the fairy ground_. Drayton.

II.i.10 (22,5) [The cowslips tall her pensioners be] The cowslip was a favourite among the fairies. There is a hint in Drayton of their attention to May morning.

--_for the queen a fitting tow'r_, _Quoth he, is that fair_ cowslip flow'r.-- _In all your train there's not a fay_ _That ever went_ to gather May, _But she hath made it in her way_, _The_ tallest _there that groweth_.

II.i.16 (22,7) [lob of spirits] _Lob_, _lubber_, _looby_, _lobcock_, all denote both inactivity of body and dulness of mind.

II.i.23 (23,8) [changeling] _Changeling_ is commonly used for the child supposed to be left by the fairies, but here for the child taken away.

II.i.29 (23,9) [sheen] Shining, bright, gay.

II.i.30 (23,1) [But they do square] [To _square_ here is to quarrel. _And now you are such fools to_ square _for this_? Gray.]

The French word _contrecarrer_ has the same import.

II.i.36 (24,4)

[Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless huswife churn]

The sense of these lines is confused. _Are not you he_, says the fairy, _that fright the country girls_. _that skim milk_, _work in the hand-mill_, _and make the tired dairy-woman churn without effect_? The mention of the mill seem out of place, for she is not now telling the good but the evil that he does. I would regulate the lines thus:

_And sometimes make the breathless housewife churn Skim milk, and bootless labour in the quern._

Or by a simple transposition of the lines;

_And bootless, make the breathless housewife churn Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern._

Yet there is no necessity of alteration. (see 1765, I,106,1)

II.i.40 (24,6) [Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work] To those traditionary opinions Milton has reference in L'Allegro,

_Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat. How Fairy Mab the junkets eat; She was pinch'd and pull'd she said. And he by Frier's lapthorp led; Tells how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night ere glimpse of morn His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn Which ten day-labourers could not end. Then lies him down the_ lubber _fiend_.

A like account of Puck is given by Drayton,

_He meeteth Puck, which most men call Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall.-- This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, And oft out of a bed doth bolt, Of purpose to deceive us; And leading us makes us to stray. Long winter's nights out of the way. And when we stick in mire and clay. He doth with laughter leave us._

It will be apparent to him that shall compare Drayton's poem with this play, that either one of the poets copied the other, or, as I rather believe, that there was then some system of the fairy empire generally received, which they both represented as accurately as they could. Whether Drayton or Shakespeare wrote first, I cannot discover.

II.i.42 (25,7) [_Puck_. Thou speak'st aright] I have filled up the verse which I suppose the author left complete,

It seems that in the Fairy mythology Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trusty servant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakespeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nynphidia, the same fairies are engaged in the sane business. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen; Oberon being jealous, sends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a spell.

II.i.54 (26,8) [And _tailor_ cries] The custom of crying _tailor_ at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He

that slips beside his chair falls as a taylor squats upon his board. The Oxford editor and Dr. Warburton after him, read _and rails or cries_, plausibly, but I believe not rightly. Besides, the trick of the fairy is represented as producing rather merriment than anger.

II.i.56 (26,9) [And waxen] And _encrease_, as the _moon waxes_.

II.i.58 (26,1) [But room, Faery] All the old copies read--_But room Fairy_. The word Fairy or Faery, was sometimes of three syllables, as often in Spenser.

II.i.84 (28,5) [paved fountain] A fountain laid round the edge with stone.

II.i.88 (28,6) [the winds, piping] So Milton,

_While rocking winds are piping loud._

II.i.91 (28,7) [pelting river] Thus the quarto's: the folio reads _petty_.

Shakespeare has in Lear the same word, _low pelting farms_. The meaning is plainly, _despicable, mean, sorry, wretched_; but as it is a word without any reasonable etymology, I should be glad to dismiss it for _petty_, yet it is undoubtedly right. We have _petty pelting officer_ in Measure for Measure.

II.i.92 (28,8) [over-born their continents] Born down the banks that contained then. So in Lear,

_Close pent guilts Rive their concealing_ continents.

II.i.98 (29,1) [The nine-men's morris] This was some kind of rural game played in a marked ground. But what it was more I have not found.

II.i.100 (29,2) [The human mortals want their winter here] After all the endeavours of the editors, this passage still remains to me unintelligible. I cannot see why winter is, in the general confusion of the year now described, more wanted than any other season. Dr. Warburton observes that he alludes to our practice of singing carols in December; but though Shakespeare is no great chronologer in his dramas, I think he has never so mingled true and false religion, as to give us reason for believing that he would make the moon incensed for the omission of our carols. I therefore imagine him to have meant heathen rites of adoration. This is not all the difficulty. Titania's account of this calamity is not sufficiently consequential. _Men find no winter_, therefore they sing no hymns; the moon provoked by this omission, alters the seasons: that is, the alteration of the seasons produces the alteration of the seasons. I am far from supposing that Shakespeare might not sometimes think confusedly, and therefore am not sure that the passage is corrupted. If we should read,

_And human mortals want their_ wonted year,

yet will not this licence of alteration much mend the narrative;

the cause and the effect are still confounded. Let us carry critical temerity a little further. Scaliger transposed the lines of Virgil's Gallus. Why may not the same experiment be ventured upon Shakespeare.

_The human mortals want_ their wonted year, _The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose; And on old_ Hyems' _chin, and icy crown, An od'rous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mock'ry set. The spring, the summer, The chiding autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which. No night is now with hymn or carol blest; Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air; And thorough this distemperature, we see That rheumatick diseases do abound. And this same progeny of evil comes From our debate, from our dissension._

I know not what credit the reader will give to this emendation, which I do not much credit myself.

II.i.114 (31,4) [By their increase] That is, _By their produce._

II.i.130 (32,6) [Which she, with pretty and with swimming gate, Following] [cf: follying] The foregoing note is very ingenious, but since _follying_ is a word of which I know not any example, and the Fairy's favourite might, without much licentiousness of language, be said to _follow_ a ship that sailed in the direction of the coast; I think there is no sufficient reason for adopting it. The coinage of new words is a violent remedy, not to be used but in the last necessity.

II.i.157 (35,8) [Cupid all-arm'd] _All-armed_, does not signify _dressed in panoply_, but only enforces the word _armed_, as we might say _all-booted_. I am afraid that the general sense of _alarmed_, by which it is used for _put into fear or care by whatever cause_, is later than our authour.

II.i.220 (38,4) [For that It is not night when I do see your face] This passage is paraphrased from two lines of an ancient poet,

--_Tu nocte vel atra Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis_.

(see 1765, I,118,6)

II.i.251 (39,5) [over-canopy'd with the luscious woodbine] All the old editions have,

Quite _over-canopied with luscious woodbine_.

On the margin of one of my folio's an unknown hand has written _lush_ woodbine, which, I think, is right.

This hand I have since discovered to be Theobald's, (see 1765, I,119,4)

II.ii. (41,9) [quaint spirits] For this Dr. Warburton reads against all authority,

----_quaint_ sports.----

But Prospero, in _The Tempest,_ applies _quaint_ to Ariel.

II.ii.30 (42.2) [Be it ounce] The ounce is a snail tiger, or tiger-cat. (1773)

II.ii.45 (43,3)

[O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence; Love takes the meaning in love's conference]

[Warburton wished to transpose "innocence" and "conference"] I am by no means convinced of the necessity of this alteration. Lysander in the language of love professes, that as they have one heart, they shall have one bed; this Hernia thinks rather too much, and intreats him to _lye further off_. Lysander answers,

_O take the sense, sweet, of my_ innocence.

understand _the meaning of my innocence_, or _my innocent meaning._ Let no suspicion of ill enter thy mind.

_Love takes the meaning, in love's_ conference.

In the conversation of those who are assured of each other's kindness, not _suspicion_, but _love takes the meaning_. No malevolent interpretation is to be made, but all is to be received in the sense which _love_ can find, and which _love_ can dictate.

II.ii.89 (45,6) [my grace] My acceptableness, the favour that I can gain. (1773)

II.ii.120 (46,7) [Reason becomes the marshal to my will] That is, My will now follows reason.

III.i (48,3) In the time of Shakespeare, there were many companies of players, sometimes five at the same time, contending for the favour of the publick. Of these some were undoubtedly very unskilful and very poor, and it is probable that the design of this scene was to ridicule their ignorance, and the odd expedients to which they might be driven by the want of proper decorations. Bottom was perhaps the head of a rival house, and is therefore honoured with an ass's head.