Act IV., Scene IV., Mrs. Page, after communicating to Mrs. Ford her

plan of making the fat knight disguise himself as the ghost of Herne the hunter, adds--

Nan Page, my daughter, and my little son, And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress Like urchins, ouphes,[392] and fairies, green and white, With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads, And rattles in their hands.

* * * * *

Then let them all encircle him about, And, _fairy-like_, _to-pinch_[393] the unclean knight, And ask him why that hour of fairy revel In their so sacred paths he dares to tread In shape profane.

And

My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies, Finely attired in a robe of white.

In Act V., Scene V., the plot being all arranged, the Fairy rout appears, headed by Sir Hugh, as a Satyr, by ancient Pistol as Hobgoblin, and by Dame Quickly.

_Quick._ Fairies black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,[394] Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hob-goblin, make the fairy O-yes.

_Pist._ Elves, list your names! silence, you airy toys! _Cricket_, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap; _Where fires thou findest unraked, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen, hates sluts and sluttery_.

_Fals._ They are fairies; _he that speaks to them shall die_. I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.

_Pist._ Where's Bead?--Go you, and where you find a maid That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Raise up the organs of her fantasy, Sleep she as sound as careless infancy; But those as sleep and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.

_Quick._ About, about, Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out; _Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room_, That it may stand till the perpetual doom, In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit; Worthy the owner, and the owner it. The several chairs of order look you scour With juice of balm and every precious flower; Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest, With loyal blazon evermore be blest; _And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing_, Like to the Garter's compass, _in a ring: The expressure that it bears green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see_; And "Hony soit qui mal y pense" write, In emerald tufts, flowers, purple, blue, and white; Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee: Fairies use flowers for their charactery. Away--disperse!--but, till 'tis one o'clock, Our dance of custom, round about the oak Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

_Eva._ Pray you, lock hand in hand, yourselves in order set, And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, To guide our measure round about the tree; But stay, I smell a man of middle earth.[395]

_Fal._ Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest He transform me to a piece of cheese.

_Pist._ Vile worm! thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.

_Quick._ With trial fire touch we his finger-end: If he be chaste the flame will back descend, And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

_Pist._ A trial, come.

_Eva._ Come, will this wood take fire?

_Fal._ Oh, oh, oh!

_Quick._ Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire: About him, fairies, sing a scornful rime; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

In Romeo and Juliet the lively and gallant Mercutio mentions a fairy personage, who has since attained to great celebrity, and completely dethroned Titania, we mean Queen Mab,[396] a dame of credit and renown in Faëry.

"I dreamed a dream to-night," says Romeo.

"O then," says Mercutio:--

O then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes, In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies, Over men's noses as they lie asleep: Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; The traces, of the smallest spider's web; The collars of the moonshine's watery beams: Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film: Her waggoner, a small gray-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid: Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies' coachmakers.

* * * * *

This is that very Mab _That plats the manes of horses in the night; And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bode. This is the hag,[397] when maids lie on their backs, That presses them_.

In an exquisite and well-known passage of the Tempest, higher and more awful powers are ascribed to the Elves: Prospero declares that by their aid he has "bedimmed the noon-tide sun;" called forth the winds and thunder; set roaring war "'twixt the green sea and the azured vault;" shaken promontories, and plucked up pines and cedars. He thus invokes them:--

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;[398] And ye, that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him, When he comes back; you demi-puppets that _By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight-mushrooms_, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew.

The other dramas of Shakspeare present a few more characteristic traits of the Fairies, which should not be omitted.

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planet strikes, _No fairy takes_,[399] no witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is that time. _Hamlet_, Act. i. sc. 1.

King Henry IV. wishes it could be proved,

_That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle-clothes our children where they lay_, And called mine--Percy, his--Plantagenet!

The old shepherd in the Winter's Tale, when he finds Perdita, exclaims,

It was told me, I should be rich, by the fairies: this is some changeling.

And when his son tells him it is gold that is within the "bearing-cloth," he says,

This is fairy-gold, boy, and 'twill prove so. We are lucky, boy, and _to be so still requires nothing but secresy_.[400]

In Cymbeline, the innocent Imogen commits herself to sleep with these words:--

To your protection I commit me, gods! _From fairies and the tempters of the night, Guard me_, beseech ye!

And when the two brothers see her in their cave, one cries--

But that it eats our victuals, I should think Here were a fairy.

And thinking her to be dead, Guiderius declares--

If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed; With female fairies will his tomb be haunted, And worms will not come to thee.

* * * * *

The Maydes Metamorphosis of Lylie was acted in 1600, the year the oldest edition we possess of the Midsummer Night's Dream was printed. In Act II. of this piece, Mopso, Joculo, and Frisio are on the stage, and "Enter the Fairies singing and dancing."

By the moon we sport and play, With the night begins our day; As we dance the dew doth fall-- Trip it, little urchins all, Lightly as the little bee, Two by two, and three by three; And about go we, and about go we.

_Jo._ What mawmets are these?

_Fris._ O they be the faieries that haunt these woods.

_Mop._ O we shall be pinched most cruelly!

_1st Fai._ Will you have any music, sir?

_2d Fai._ Will you have any fine music?

_3d Fai._ Most dainty music?

_Mop._ We must set a face on it now; there is no flying. No, sir, we very much thank you.

_1st Fai._ O but you shall, sir.

_Fris._ No, I pray you, save your labour.

_2d Fai._ O, sir! it shall not cost you a penny.

_Jo._ Where be your fiddles?

_3d Fai._ You shall have most dainty instruments, sir?

_Mop._ I pray you, what might I call you?

_1st Fai._ My name is Penny.

_Mop._ I am sorry I cannot purse you.

_Fris._ I pray you, sir, what might I call you?

_2d Fai._ My name is Cricket.

_Fris._ I would I were a chimney for your sake.

_Jo._ I pray you, you pretty little fellow, what's your name?

_3d Fai._ My name is little little Prick.

_Jo._ Little little Prick? O you are a dangerous faierie! I care not whose hand I were in, so I were out of yours.

_1st Fai._ I do come about the coppes. Leaping upon flowers' toppes; Then I get upon a fly, She carries me about the sky, And trip and go.

_2d Fai._ When a dew-drop falleth down, And doth light upon my crown. Then I shake my head and skip, And about I trip.

_3d Fai._ When I feel a girl asleep, Underneath her frock I peep, There to sport, and there I play, Then I bite her like a flea, And about I skip.

_Jo._ I thought where I should have you.

_1st Fai._ Will't please you dance, sir?

_Jo._ Indeed, sir, I cannot handle my legs.

_2d Fai._ O you must needs dance and sing, Which if you refuse to do, We will pinch you black and blue; And about we go.

They all dance in a ring, and sing as followeth:--

Round about, round about, in a fine ring a, Thus we dance, thus we dance, and thus we sing a; Trip and go, to and fro, over this green a, All about, in and out, for our brave queen a.

Round about, round about, in a fine ring a, Thus we dance, thus we dance, and thus we sing a; Trip and go, to and fro, over this green a, All about, in and out, for our brave queen a.

We have danced round about, in a fine ring a, We have danced lustily, and thus we sing a, All about, in and out, over this green a, To and fro, trip and go, to our brave queen a.

The next poet, in point of time, who employs the Fairies, is worthy, long-slandered, and maligned Ben Jonson. His beautiful entertainment of the Satyr was presented in 1603, to Anne, queen of James I. and prince Henry, at Althorpe, the seat of Lord Spenser, on their way from Edinburgh to London. As the queen and prince entered the park, a Satyr came forth from a "little spinet" or copse, and having gazed the "Queen and the Prince in the face" with admiration, again retired into the thicket; then "there came tripping up the lawn a bevy of Fairies attending on Mab, their queen, who, falling into an artificial ring, began to dance a round while their mistress spake as followeth:"

_Mab._ Hail and welcome, worthiest queen! Joy had never perfect been, To the nymphs that haunt this green, Had they not this evening seen. _Now they print it on the ground With their feet, in figures round_; Marks that will be ever found To remember this glad stound.

_Satyr_ (_peeping out of the bush_). Trust her not, you bonnibell, She will forty leasings tell; I do know her pranks right well.

_Mab._ Satyr, we must have a spell, For your tongue it runs too fleet.

_Sat._ Not so nimbly as your feet, When about the cream-bowls sweet You and all your elves do meet.

(_Here he came hopping forth, and mixing himself with the Fairies, skipped in, out, and about their circle, while they made many offers to catch him._)

_This is Mab, the mistress Fairy, That doth nightly rob the dairy; And can hurt or help the churning As she please_, without discerning.

_1st Fai._ Pug, you will anon take warning.

_Sat._ _She that pinches country wenches, If they rub not clean their benches, And, with sharper nail, remembers When they rake not up their embers; But if so they chance to feast her, In a shoe she drops a tester._

_2d Fai._ Shall we strip the skipping jester?

_Sat._ _This is she that empties cradles, Takes out children, puts in ladles_; Trains forth midwives in their slumber, With a sieve the holes to number, And then leads them from her burrows, Home through ponds and water-furrows.[401]

_1st Fai._ Shall not all this mocking stir us?

_Sat._ She can start our Franklin's daughters In her sleep with shouts and laughters; And on sweet St. Anna's[402] night Feed them with a promised sight, Some of husbands, some of lovers, Which an empty dream discovers.

_1st Fai._ Satyr, vengeance near you hovers.

At length Mab is provoked, and she cries out,

Fairies, pinch him black and blue. Now you have him make him rue.

_Sat._ O hold, mistress Mab, I sue!

Mab, when about to retire, bestows a jewel on the Queen, and concludes with,

_Utter not, we you implore, Who did give it, nor wherefore._ And whenever you restore Yourself to us you shall have more. Highest, happiest queen, farewell, But, beware you do not tell.

The splendid Masque of Oberon, presented in 1610, introduces the Fays in union with the Satyrs, Sylvans, and the rural deities of classic antiquity; but the Fay is here, as one of them says, not

The coarse and country fairy, That doth haunt the hearth and dairy;

it is Oberon, the prince of Fairy-land, who, at the crowing of the cock, advances in a magnificent chariot drawn by white bears, attended by Knights and Fays. As the car advances, the Satyrs begin to leap and jump, and a Sylvan thus speaks:--

Give place, and silence; you were rude too late-- This is a night of greatness and of state; Not to be mixed with light and skipping sport-- A night of homage to the British court, And ceremony due to Arthur's chair, From our bright master, Oberon the Fair, Who with these knights, attendants here preserved In Fairy-land, for good they have deserved Of yond' high throne, are come of right to pay Their annual vows, and all their glories lay At 's feet.

Another Sylvan says,

Stand forth, bright faies and elves, and tune your lay Unto his name; then let your nimble feet Tread subtile circles, that may always meet In point to him.

In the Sad Shepherd, Alken says,

There in the stocks of trees white fays[403] do dwell, And span-long elves that dance about a pool, With each a little changeling in their arms!

The Masque of Love Restored presents us "Robin Good-fellow, he that sweeps the hearth and the house clean, riddles for the country maids, and does all their other drudgery, while they are at hot-cockles," and he appears therefore with his _broom_ and his _canles_.

In Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess we read of

A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds, By the pale moonshine; dipping oftentimes Their stolen children, so to make them free From dying flesh and dull mortality.

And in the Little French Lawyer (iii. 1), one says, "You walk like Robin Goodfellow all the house over, and every man afraid of you."

In Randolph's Pastoral of Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry, a "knavish boy," called Dorylas, makes a fool of a "fantastique sheapherd," Jocastus, by pretending to be Oberon, king of Fairy. In Act i., Scene 3, Jocastus' brother, Mopsus, "a foolish augur," thus addresses him:--

_Mop._ Jocastus, I love Thestylis abominably, The mouth of my affection waters at her.

_Jo._ Be wary, Mopsus, learn of me to scorn The mortals; choose a better match: go love Some fairy lady! Princely Oberon Shall stand thy friend, and beauteous Mab, his queen, Give thee a maid of honour.

_Mop._ How, Jocastus? Marry a puppet? Wed a mote i' the sun? Go look a wife in nutshells? Woo a gnat, That's nothing but a voice? No, no, Jocastus, I must have flesh and blood, and will have Thestylis: A fig for fairies!

Thestylis enters, and while she and Mopsus converse, Jocastus muses. At length he exclaims,

_Jo._ It cannot choose but strangely please his highness.

_The._ What are you studying of Jocastus, ha?

_Jo._ A rare device; a masque to entertain His Grace of Fairy with.

_The._ A masque! What is't?

_Jo._ An anti-masque of fleas, which I have taught To dance corrantos on a spider's thread.

* * * * *

And then a jig of pismires Is excellent.

_Enter_ DORYLAS. _He salutes_ MOPSUS, _and then_

_Dor._ Like health unto the president of the jigs. I hope King Oberon and his joyall Mab Are well.

_Jo._ They are. I never saw their Graces Eat such a meal before.

_Dor._ E'en much good do't them!

_Jo._ They're rid a hunting.

_Dor._ Hare or deer, my lord?

_Jo._ Neither. A brace of snails of the first head.