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132. True gentleness. "What, in modern language, we should call the spirit of a gentleman" (Percy).

133. Of. By; as in Macb. iii. 6. 27: "Received of the most pious Edward," etc. So in 134, 140, and 142 just below. Gr. 170. Cf. Acts, xxiii. 10, 27.

147. Ay me. 149. Eat.

See on i. I. 132.

Ate; which is substituted by many editors, though never found in the early eds. For the participle S. uses both eat and eaten. See Macb. p. 204.

150. You. The folios have "yet."

153. An if. See Gr. 105.

154. Of all loves. For all the love between us; for love's sake. Cf. M. W. ii. 2. 119: "Mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves." In Oth. iii. 1. 13, the quarto of 1622 has "of all loves;" the folio, "for love's sake." Halliwell remarks that the literal signification of the phrase is perhaps seen in the words addressed by Queen Katherine on her trial to Henry VIII.: "Sir, I beseech you for all the loves that hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right" (Cavendish's Life of Wolsey). Cf. also A Woman Killed with Kindness (1617): "Of all the loves betwixt thee and me, tell me what thou thinkest of this?" The phrase occurs in Gammer Gurton's Needle in the form, "for al the loves on earth.”

For of in adjurations, see Gr. 169.

I swoon almost. I almost swoon.

one. See Gr. 29.

The transposition is a common

156. Either. Metrically a monosyllable, as in ii. 1. 32, etc. Gr. 466.

A SEA-NYMPH (ii. 1. 147).

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SCENE I.-2. Pat, pat. Exactly. Cf. v. 1. 183 below; also Hen. VIII. ii. 3. 84, Lear, i. 2. 146, etc.

4. Tiring-house. Dressing-room. See quotation in note on i. 2. 91. S. uses the word only here.

7. Bully Bottom. Cf. M. W. i. 3. 6: "bully Hercules;" Id. ii. 3. 18: "bully doctor;" Id. iv. 5. 17: "Bully knight! Bully Sir John!" etc.

12. By 'r lakin. A colloquial contraction of By our ladykin, referring to the Virgin Mary. S. uses it only here and in Temp. iii. 3. 1. By'r lady occurs frequently; as in M. W. i. 1. 28, etc.

Parlous. A popular corruption of perilous. It came to be used as a mere intensive excessive, or sometimes wonderful (Halliwell). Cf. A. Y. L. iii. 2. 45: "a parlous state;" Rich. III. ii. 4. 35: "a parlous boy." See Gr. 461.

18. More better.

See Gr. II.

22. Eight and six. That is, in alternate verses of eight and six sylla

bles.

25. Afeard. Not a vulgarism, but used by S. interchangeably with afraid. Cf. Macb. i. 7. 39:

"Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire?"

and see note in our ed., p. 163.

30. Your lion. A common colloquial use of your. See Gr. 221. Howell, in his Instructions for Forraine Travel (1642), says: "There is an odd kind of Anglicism, wherein some do frequently express themselves, as to say-Your Boores of Holland, sir; Your Jesuits of Spain, sir; Your Courtesans of Venice, sir; whereunto one answered (not impertinently) My Courtesans, sir? Pox on them all for me! they are none of my Courtesans."

39. Pity of my life. For the of, see Gr. 174,

41. Tell them plainly, etc. As Malone remarks, it is not improbable that this was suggested by an incident related in a collection of jests in MS. Harl. 6395: "There was a spectacle presented to Queen Elizabeth on the water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to represent Arion upon the dolphin's backe; but finding his voice to be very hoarse and unpleasant, when he came to performe it, he teares off his disguise, and sweares he was none of Arion, not he, but eene honest Harry Goldingham; which blunt discoverie pleas'd the Queene better than if it had gone through in the right way; yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well.' Scott has made good use of the incident in Kenilworth.

42. There is two, etc. See Gr. 335.

48. It doth shine.

On the anachronism, see above, p. 122.

50. The great chamber. "The state-room" (Halliwell).

52. A bush of thorns. An old superstition identified the man in the moon with the man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath day (Numb. xv. 32). Cf. The Testament of Creseide:

"Next after him come lady Cynthia,

54. Present.

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And on her brest a chorle painted ful even

Bering a bushe of thornis on his bake,

Which for his theft might clime no ner the heven."

Represent; not a vulgarism.

"when I presented Ceres;" Hen. VIII. prol. 5:

Cf. Temp. iv. I. 167:

"Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow
We now present;"

Milton, Il Pens. 99: "Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line," etc.

67. Cue. Still used as a stage term for the ending of a speech, as the catch-word given to the actor who is to speak next. Cf. M. W. iii. 3. 39: "remember you your cue," etc. It is used figuratively in Hen. V. iii. 6. 130, Oth. i. 2. 83, etc.

70. A play toward. That is, "in preparation, near at hand" (Schmidt). Cf. T. of S. i. 1. 68: "here's some good pastime toward;" Ham. i. 1. 77:

"What might be toward?" Lear, iii. 3. 21: "There is some strange thing toward," etc. Halliwell cites many instances from other writers of the

time.

73. Savours. Abbott (Gr. 333) makes this a verb, Schmidt a noun. The Coll. MS. changes of to "have." In the next line Pope substituted "doth" for hath; but, as Halliwell remarks, "it is scarcely requisite to correct the sense of a speech which is probably intended to be ignorantly formed."

77. A while. Theo. suggested "a whit," for the sake of the rhyme. 79. A stranger Pyramus, etc. The quartos assign this speech to Quince; the folios, to Puck, to whom it evidently belongs. Here, as Steevens suggests, probably means in the theatre where the play is being acted.

85. Brisky is of course burlesque for brisk. Juvenal (=youth) is used only here, and by Armado (L. L. L. i. 2. 8, iii. 1. 67) and Falstaff in jesting (2 Hen. IV. i. 2. 22). Eke, then obsolescent, S. puts into the mouth of no other character except Pistol and the Host (M. W. i. 3. 105, ii. 3. 77).

92. Bottom with an ass's head. Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, gives the following recipe for such a transformation: "Cut off the head of a horsse or an ass (before they be dead), otherwise the vertue or strength thereof will be the lesse effectuall, and make an earthen vessell of fit capacitie to conteine the same, and let it be filled with the oile and fat thereof; cover it close, and dawbe it over with lome: let it boile over a soft fier three daies continuallie, that the flesh boiled may run into oile, so as the bare bones may be seen: beate the haire into powder, and mingle the same with the oile; and annoint the heads of the standers by, and they shall seeme to have horsses or asses heads."

66

93. If I were fair, etc. Perhaps we ought to point thus: If I were, [that is, as true, etc.] fair Thisby, I were only thine" (Malone).

97. Through bog, etc. As two syllables are wanting, Johnson suggested "Through bog, through mire ;" and Ritson (to preserve the alliteration) "Through bog, through burn," etc.

98. Sometime a horse, etc. Cf. Ben Jonson's ballad, quoted above (on ii. 1. 3):

"Sometimes I meete them like a man,

Sometimes an ox, sometimes an hound;
And to a horse I turn me can,

And trip and trot them round and round," etc.

See also the ballad of The Merry Pranks of Robin Good-fellow:

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Sometimes a kirne, in Irish shape,
to leape ore mire or bog:
Sometime he'd counterfeit a voyce,
and travellers call astray,
Sometimes a walking fire he'd be,

and lead them from their way."

The fire, both here and in the play, is of course the ignis fatuus, or Will-of-the-wisp.

100, 101. And neigh, and bark, etc. Cf. Ham. iii. i. 151: "The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;" Macb. i. 3. 60:

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106. An ass-head of your own. Johnson inferred from this that Snout had mentioned an ass's head, and therefore wanted to read: "Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee? an ass's head ?" But this is unnecessary, "the phrase being a vernacular one of the day (Halliwell). The fact that Bottom is unconscious of his transformation makes its introduction here very comical. So with "this is to make an ass of me," just below.

108. Translated.

Transformed. See on i. I. 191.

114. The ousel cock. The ousel, oosel, or woosel (as it is spelled in the early eds.) was the blackbird. Halliwell quotes Barnefield, The Affectionate Shepherd (1594):

"House-doves are white, and oozels blackebirdes bee,
Yet what a difference in the taste we see;"

Castell of Health (1595): "Blacke-birds or ousyls among wild-foule have the chief praise for lightnes of digestion," etc. The name is now applied to a species which is larger than the ordinary English blackbird, and has a white crescent on the breast.

116. The throstle. The thrush, Turdus musicus (Schmidt); also mentioned in M. of V. i. 2. 65. Cf. Gower, Conf. Am. (1554): “The throstel with the nightingale ;" Drayton, Shepherd's Garland (1593):

"The throstlecock, by breaking of the day,

Chants to his swete full many a lovely lay," etc.

117. Quill. Probably-pipe; not wing-feather, as Schmidt explains it. Cf. Milton, Lycidas, 188: "He touch'd the tender stops of various quills."

118. What angel, etc. Malone says: "Perhaps a parody on a line in The Spanish Tragedy, often ridiculed by the poets of our author's time: 'What outcry calls me from my naked bed?""*

120. Plain-song. A musical term, meaning "the simple melody without any variations." Cf. Chaucer, The Cuckow and the Nightingale, 118,

It could hardly have been the " naked bed" that was ridiculed, for that was a common phrase. Cf. V. and A. 397: "in her naked bed;" and see other examples in Nares.

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