The. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had play'd Pyramus and hang'd himself in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd. But, come, your Bergomask: let your epilogue alone. [A dance. The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:Lovers, to bed; 't is almost fairy time.1

371

380

Puck. Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.2
[Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe

In remembrance of a shroud.

Now it is the time of night,

That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,

In the church-way paths to glide:]
And we fairies, that do run

By the triple Hecate's team,

From the presence of the sun,

Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic: not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house:
I am sent with broom, before,

To sweep the dust behind the door.

390

Obe. Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
[To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be;

And the blots of Nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious,3 such as are
Despised in nativity,

Shall upon their children be. ]

With this field-dew consecrate,*

Every fairy take his gait;"

And each several chamber bless,

Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest

Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away; make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day.

410

420

430

[Exeunt Oberon, Titania, and Train. Puck. If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,— That you have but slumber'd here, While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream. Gentles, do not reprehend: If you pardon, we will ménd: [And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

ACT I. SCENE 1.

1. Line 1: Now, fair HIPPOLYTA.- Shakespeare followed Chaucer, who himself followed the Theseida of Boccaccio, in making Hippolyta (properly Hippolyté), and not her sister Antiope, the wife of Theseus.

2. Line 4: she lingers my desires. For the transitive use of this verb compare Richard II. ii. 2. 71, 72:

Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity.

Compare also Grim the Collier of Croydon, iii. 1:
I can no longer linger my disgrace.

-Dodsley, vol. viii. p. 440. The young man would not succeed, presumably, to the property till the life interest of the step-dame or dowager ceased.

3. Line 6: Long WITHERING OUT a young man's revenue. -This expressive phrase Warburton sought to alter by substituting wintering on. For an instance of this phrase, compare Chapman's Homer's Iliad (book iv. line 528): there the goodly plant lies with ring out his grace. -Works, vol. i. p. 100.

4. Line 10: NEW-BENT in heaven.-Qq. and Ff. read Now-bent.

5. Line 11: Philostrate.-This was the name assumed by Arcite in Chaucer's Knightes Tale (line 1430):

And Philostrate he sayde that he hight.
-Works, vol. i. p. 219.

6. Line 13: Awake the PERT and nimble spirit of mirth. --Pert formerly used in a good sense="smart." It was probably connected with the French appert. Cotgrave gives Godinet, "Prettie, dapper, feat, peart;" and Accointer he explains: “To make jolly, peart, quaint, comely."

7. Line 15: The pale COMPANION is not for our pomp.— Dr. Grey (vol. i. p. 41) gives an anonymous conjecture: "I am apt to believe the author gave it, 'That pale companion;' which has more force." If Theseus intends to personify melancholy, this conjecture seems most probable; but the meaning may be: "The pale melancholy fellow is not for our festivities." Companion appears often to have been used contemptuously, as we use fellow.

8. Line 19: With pomp, with TRIUMPH.-Triumph is explained by Schmidt as "a public festivity or exhibition of any kind, particularly a tournament." In this sense it occurs frequently. Compare III. Henry VI. v. 7. 43: With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows.

The title-page of Heywood's Londini Speculum runs thus:

Londini Speculum: or,

Londons Mirror, Exprest in sundry Triumphs, Pageants, and Showes, at the Initiation of the right Honorable Richard Fenn, into

the Mairolty of the Famous and
farre renowned City LONDON,

-Works, vol. iv. p. 301.

9. Line 27: This man hath WITCH'D the BOSOM of my child.-Qq. F. 1 read "This man hath BEWITCHD." F. 2,

F. 3, F. 4 "This hath BEWITCH'D." The reading in the text is Theobald's emendation. Bosom is used here as = heart, the seat of the affections. Compare A Lover's Complaint (line 254):

The broken bosoms that to me belong.

10. Line 32: And stol'n the impression of her FANTASY. -Various explanations of this somewhat obscure line are given. The construction is certainly difficult; but it seems clearly to mean "And stealthily impressed her imagination;" but Schmidt explains fantasy here as meaning love-thoughts. Compare As You Like It, ii. 4. 30, 31: How many actions most ridiculous

Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy! where, on examining the context, fantasy seems equivalent to "love." Indeed fantasy = fancy, which is often used for "liking."

11. Lines 44, 45:

Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.

By a law of Solon's, parents had absolute power of life and death over their children, but Shakespeare here anticipates the great lawgiver's code. The second line is surely enough to justify the belief that Shakespeare was, for some time, in an attorney's office.

12. Line 54: wanting your father's VOICE.-i.e. your father's approval. Compare All's Well, ii. 3. 58-61: this youthful parcel

Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice

I have to use.

13. Line 71: For aye to be in shady cloister MEW'D.For the meaning of mew see Romeo and Juliet (note 136). To mew meant originally "to moult" (= French muer); and a mew was a place where hawks were kept while moulting. This sense of the word survives in mews, a stable, said to be so called from the Royal mews, which were originally the buildings where the Royal falcons were kept (see Pennant's London, p. 151).

14. Lines 76-78:

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,

Than that which withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

Compare Sonnet liv. (lines 5-12):

The canker-blooms (i.e. dog-roses) have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made. Walker gives a passage from Erasmus' Colloquies (Colloq. Proci et Puellæ): "Ego rosam existimo feliciorem, quæ marescit in hominis manu, delectans interim et oculos et nares, quam quae senescit in frutice."-Edn. 1693, p. 186. ("I think the rose happier, which withers in the hand of man, meanwhile delighting both eyes and nostrils, than that which grows old in the fruit.") The similarity of idea is certainly remarkable; it is possible Shakespeare may have been acquainted with the Colloquies of Erasmus, either in the original, or in some translation.

15. Line 80: Ere I will yield my VIRGIN PATENT up.The Clarendon Press Ed. explain this phrase thus: "my privilege of virginity and the liberty that belongs to it." Compare Othello, iv. 1. 208, 209: "If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend."

16. Line 81: Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke.— So Qq. and F. 1; but F. 2 reads "to whose unwished yoke." For a similar omission of the preposition compare Winter's Tale, ii. 1. 93, 94:

even as bad as those That vulgars give bold'st titles;

ie. "give boldest titles" to.

17. Line 92: Thy CRAZED title to my certain right.-To craze meant originally "to break." Compare The Chanones Yemannes Tale:

I am right siker, that the pot was crased.

-Book iii. line 16402. Chapman uses the word in the sense of "broken," "damaged":

And Phoebus to invade it, with his shield
Recov'ring Hector's bruis'd and crased pow'rs.

-Iliad, book xv. (argument).

18. Line 98: 1 do ESTATE unto Demetrius.-This word, estate, is only used as a verb in Tempest, iv. 1 85 (followed by on), and in the following passage, in As You Like It: "all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you" (v. 2. 12, 13).

19. Line 110: Upon this SPOTTED and inconstant man. -Compare Richard II. (iii. 2. 133, 134):

terrible hell make war

Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

Compare also The Distracted Emperour (v. 3):

One that your spotted synns make odyous. -Bullen's Old Plays, vol. iii. p. 251. 20. Line 113: self-affairs.-For similar compounds of self, compare self-breath, Troilus and Cressida (ii. 3. 182); self-danger, Cymbeline (iii. 4. 149).

21. Line 125: our nuptial.-The singular number is used intentionally by Shakespeare; only F. 2, F. 3, F. 4 have nuptialls. Compare Tempest, v. 1. 308:

Where I have hope to see the nuptial; where F. 1 reads nuptiall and the later Folios nuptials.

23. Line 132: AY ME! for aught that I could ever read. -Qq. read Eigh me; F. 1 omits the words altogether; F. 2, F. 3, F. 4 read Hermia, which reading Hunter defends on the ground of its having "a point and pathos even beyond what the passage, as usually printed, possesses" (New Illustrations, vol. i. p. 288) Rolfe says: "Here as elsewhere many editors print AH me! a phrase which Shakespeare nowhere uses" (Rolfe's Edn. p. 128). In Rom. and Jul. v. 1. 10, F. 1 and Q. 2 have, certainly, Ah me! and so, apparently, have all the other copies.

24. Line 136: O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to Low. -Qq. and Ff. read "to LOVE;" the emendation is Theobald's.

25. Line 145: in the COLLIED night.-Grose in his Provincial Glossary gives "Colley, the black or soot from a kettle," as used in Gloucestershire. Compare Ben Jonson's Poetaster (iv. 3): "thou hast not collied thy face enough" (Works, vol. ii. p. 482).

26. Line 146: That, in a SPLEEN, unfolds both heaven and earth.-Spleen means a sudden outburst of some passion, generally of rage or malice: but the spleen was supposed to be also the seat of laughter (see note 174, Love's Labour's Lost). Compare King John, ii. 1. 448, 449:

With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,
The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope

And, again, in same play, v. 7. 49, 50.

27. Lines 147, 148:

And ere a man hath power to say "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour it up.
Decidedly a reminiscence of the lines in Romeo and Juliet,
ii. 2. 119, 120:

Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be,
Ere one can say, "It lightens."

28. Line 151: It stands as an EDICT in destiny.-For the accent on edict compare Love's Labour's Lost, i. 1. 11: Our late edict shall strongly stand in force.

29. Line 167: To do observance to a morn of May.—For this particular expression, To do observance, compare the following extract from Chaucer's Knightes Tale (lines 1499-1502):

And Arcite, that is in the court real
With Theseus the squier principal,
Is risen, and loketh on the mery day.
And for to don his observance to May, &c.

A full account of the various customs, partly pagan, partly early-Christian, and partly traditional, formerly observed on the first of May, will be found in Brand's Popular Antiquities (pp. 117, 118). The genial and charitable Stubbes all the yung thus alludes to them: "Against May

men and maides, olde men and wiues, run gadding ouer night to the woods, groues, hils, & mountains, where they spend all the night in plesant pastimes; & in the morning they return, bringing with them birch & branches of trees, to deck their assemblies withall" (Stubbes' Anatomy of Abuses; New Shak. Soc. Publications, Series VI. Nos. 4 and 6, p. 149). Some of the old customs yet survive, happily, in parts of the country; and the so-called "sweeps," who go about dressed up in our large towns on May-day, are the descendants, however unworthy, of the old May Morris-dancers.

30. Line 170: By his best arrow with the GOLDEN HEAD. -Cupid was supposed to have two kinds of arrows: the one, tipped with gold, caused love; the other, tipped with lead, repelled love. See Ovid. Metam. (book i. lines

469-471):

fugat hoc, facit illud amorem:
Quod facit, auratum est, et cuspide fulget acuta;
Quod fugat, obtusum est, et habet sub arundine plumbum.
So in Twelfth Night, i. 1. 35-37:

How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
That live in her.

Mr. Watkiss Lloyd (Notes and Queries, 6th Series, vol. xi. No. 271, p. 182) has a note on this passage, which is too long for quotation here; the gist of which is that he proposes to transpose lines 171, 172, holding that line 172 should follow line 170, because that refers to the arrow with the golden head.

31. Line 173: the Carthage queen.-Compare Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy, ii. 2:

32. Line 182: Demetrius loves your fair. - Compare Sonnet xvi. (line 11):

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair.

33. Line 183: Your eyes are LODE-STARS. All the poets, from Chaucer to Spenser, seer to use the word lode-star as a great compliment when applied to his mistress by a lover. Sir John Maundevile thus describes the lode-star: "In that Lond, ne in many othere bezonde 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" (Maunde vile's Travels, Halliwell's Edn. p. 180).

34. Line 191: The rest I'ld give to be to you TRANSLATED. -Compare Coriolanus, ii. 3. 195–197:

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Shakespeare uses pale and faint together more than once. Compare King John, v. 7. 21:

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan.

The pale colour of the primrose suggests the idea of faintness; the lighter coloured flowers look as if, in their struggle with the cold of early spring, they had grown weak and faint.

36. Line 216-219:

Emptying our bosoms of their counsel SWEET, There my Lysander and myself shall meet; And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, To seek new friends and STRANGER COMPANIES. In order to restore the rhyme Theobald altered the sweld of Qq. and Ff. in line 216, to sweet, and strange companions, in line 219, to stranger companies. Nearly

all editors adopt this emendation.

37. Line 226: other-some. -Written as one word in Qq. and F. 1. It means others. Compare Measure for Measure, iii. 2. 93, 94: "Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other-some, he is in Rome."

38. Line 231: ADMIRING OF his qualities.-This would now be a vulgarism; but Shakespeare uses of, not unfrequently, after the participle, e.g. Lear, ii. 1. 41: "Mumbling of wicked charms."

39. Line 249: If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.Steevens explains: "it will cost him much, (be a severe constraint on his feelings,) to make even so slight a return for my communication" (Var. Ed. vol. v. p. 191).

ACT I. SCENE 2.

40. Line 2.-Bottom, no doubt, was so called by Shakespeare from a "bottom of thread." Compare Taming of the Shrew, iv. 3. 138: "beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread." Compare also The Martyr'd Souldier (i. 1): and the good Fates,

For ought we see, may winde upon your bottome
A thred of excellent length.

-Bullen's Old Plays, vol. i. p. 175.

41. Line 3: according to the SCRIP.-' The word scrip here does not mean a bag or wallet, as it does in the wellknown passage in the Gospel of St. Luke xxii. 35: "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything?" The word in the text is written variously script, serit, scrite, scripe, and is derived from the Latin scriptum through the French escript or escrit. For an example of its use in the sense merely of a written document see Holland's Pliny, book vii. chap. xxv. p. 168 (speaking of Julius Cæsar): "But herein appeared his true hautinesse of mind indeed, and that unmatchable spirit of his, That when upon the battell at Pharsalia, as wel the coffers and caskets with letters & other writings of Pompey, as also those of Scipioes before Thapsus, came into his hands, he was most true unto them, & burnt al, without reading one script or scroll."

42. Line 4: Here is the scroll.-The close occurrence of this word after scrip seems to point to the fact, that Shake