you owe to your father a being which he may at pleasure continue or destroy. JOHNSON. Line 71. -to die the death,] I meet with this expression, in the second part of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601. "We will, my liege, else let us die the death." STeevens. Line 74. Know of your youth,] Bring your youth to the question. Consider your youth. JOHNSON. Line 77. For aye-] i. e. For ever. 82. 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. JOHNSON. Line 82. the rose distill'd.] This is one of our author's favourite images, it is frequently to be met with in his sonnets. Line 118.-spotted---] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked. Line 141. JOHNSON. Beteem them- -] Give them, bestow upon them. The word is used by Spenser. Line 146. JOHNSON. -too high to be enthrall'd to low!] Love possesses all the editions, but carries no just meaning in it. Nor was Hermia displeas'd at being in love; but regrets the inconveniencies that generally attend the passion: either, the parties are disproportioned, in degree of blood and quality; or unequal, in respect of years; or brought together by the appointment of friends, and not by their own choice. These are the complaints represented by Lysander; and Hermia, to answer to the first, as she has done to the other two, must necessarily say; O cross!-too high to be inthrall'd to low! So the antithesis is kept up in the terms; and so she is made to condole the disproportion of blood and quality in lovers. THEOBALD. Line 153. -momentany as a sound,] The old editions read momentany, which is the old and proper word. The modern editors, momentary. JOHNSON. Line 155. Brief as the lightning in the collied night,] Collied, i. e. black, smutted with coal, a word still used in the midland counties. STEEVENS. Line 156. That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,] Here our author uses the word spleen for a sudden hasty fit: so just the contrary, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, he uses sudden for splenetic―sudden quips. And it must be owned this sort of conversation adds a force to the diction. WARBURTON. -] Remote is the reading of both the quartos; the folio reads, remov'd. STEEVENS. Line 196. Your eyes are lode-stars.] 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. Davies calls queen Elizabeth, lode-stone to hearts, and lode-stone to all eyes. Line 200. tion. JOHNSON. favour-] Means, countenance, or disposi Line 205. translated] Signifies transformed. 219. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face; Lysander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lysander see,] 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 gree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness. supreme de JOHNSON. Line 249. holding no quantity,] Quality seems a word more suitable to the sense than quantity, but either may serve. "While flashing beams do dare his feeble eyen." STEEVENS. ACT I. SCENE II. In this scene Shakspeare 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. JOHNSON. Line 271. the scrip.] A scrip, Fr. escript, now written ecrit. So Chaucer, Troilus and Cressida, 1. 2. 1130: Line 278. 66 Scripe nor bil." STEEVENS. -grow to a point.] Dr. Warburton read go on; but grow is used, in allusion to his name, Quince. JOHNSON. Line 278. And so grow to a point.] The sense, in my opinion, hath been hitherto mistaken; and instead of a point, a substantive, I would read appoint, a verb, that is, appoint what parts each actor is to perform, which is the real case. Quince first tells them the name of the play, then calls the actors by their names, and after that, tells each of them what part is set down for him to act. WARNER. Line 284. -spread yourselves.] i. e. Stand individually apart. Line 299. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in.] In the old comedy of The Roaring Girl, 1611, there is a character called Tear-cat, who says, "I am called, by those who have seen my valour, Tear-cat." In an anonymous piece called Histriomastix, or the Player whipt, 1610, in six acts, a parcel of soldiers drag a company of players on the stage, and the captain says, Sirrah, this is you that would rend and tear a cat upon a stage," &c. Again, In The Isle of Gulls, a comedy by J. Day, 1606. "I had rather "hear two such jests, than a whole play of such Tear-cat thun"derclaps." STEEVENS. Line 320. -as small, &c.] 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 a 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 woman 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. JOHNSON. Line 337. for learning a part. Line 344. 365. slow of study.] To study, is the theatrical term an -] i. e. As if. -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. JOHNSON, Line 366. -French crowns, &c.] That is, a head from which the hair has fallen in one of the last stages of the lues venerea, called the corona veneris. To this our poet has frequent allusions. Line 374. STEEVENS. -properties,] Properties are whatever little articles are wanted in a play for the actors, according to their respective parts, dresses excepted. The person who delivers them out is to this day called the property-man. STEEVENS. Line 380. At the duke's oak we meet. hold, or cut bow-strings.] This proverbial phrase came originally from the camp. When a rendezvous was appointed, the militia soldiers would frequently make excuse for not keeping word, that their bowstrings were broke, i. e. their arms unserviceable. Hence when one would give another absolute assurance of meeting him, he would say proverbially-hold or cut bow-strings-i e. whether the bow-string held or broke. For cut is used as a neuter, like the verb frets. As when we say, the string frets, the silk frets, for the passive, it is cut or fretted. ACT II. SCENE I. WARBURTON. Line 2. Fairy, Over hill, over dale, &c.] So Drayton in his Court of Thorough brake, thorough brier, Thorough muck, thorough mire, Thorough water, thorough fire. JOHNSON. Line 9. To dew her orbs upon the green:] 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, Line 10. The cowslips tall her pensioners be;] Drayton. JOHNSON. 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. JOHNSON. Line 11. In their gold coats spots you see;] Shakspeare, in Cymbeline, refers to the same red spots. A mole cinque-spotted like the crimson drops PERCY. Line 16. lob of spirits.] Lob, lubber, looby, lobcock, all denote both inactivity of body and dulness of mind. JOHNSON. Line 23. changeling:] Changeling is commonly used for the child supposed to be left by the fairies, but here for the child Line 29.sheen.] Shining, bright, gay. JOHNSON. JOHNSON. 30. But they do square.] To square here is to quarrel. JOHNSON. |