EGE. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke! THE. Thanks, good Egeus. What's the news with thee?

EGE. Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia:
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.—
Stand forth, Lysander :-and, my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child:
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang'd love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweet-meats; messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's
heart;

Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harshness.-And, my gracious duke,
Be it so, she will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,
As she is mine, I may dispose of her :
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death; according to our law,
Immediately provided in that case.

THE. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair
maid:

To you your father should be as a god;
One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HER. So is Lysander.

THE.
In himself he is :
But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.

HER. I would my father look'd but with my
eyes!

THE. Rather, your eyes must with his judgment
look.

HER. I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty,
In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befal me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THE. Either to die the death, or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth," examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun;
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage:
But earthly happier* is the rose distill'd,
Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.

HER. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
THE. Take time to pause; and, by the next

new moon,

d

(The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,
For everlasting bond of fellowship,)
Upon that day either prepare to die,
For disobedience to your father's will;
Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would;
Or on Diana's altar to protest,
For aye, austerity and single life.

DEM. Relent, sweet Hermia ;-and, Lysander, vield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius ; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

EGE. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him ;
And she is mine; and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
If not with vantage, as Demetrius';

And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia :
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THE. I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof, But, being over-full of self-affairs,

My mind did lose it.-But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along:
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial; and confer with you.
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

a

EGE. With duty and desire, we follow you. [Exeunt THES., HIP., EGE., DEM., and Train. Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?

which I could well Beteem them-]

Allow them. In this sense the word occurs in "Hamlet," Act I. Sc. 2:

so loving to my mother

That he might not befeem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly."

And in Spenser's "Faerie Queen," II. viii. 19:

"So would I, said the enchanter, glad and faine
Beteeme to you this sword you to defend."

b The course of true love never did run smooth:] This sentiment is not uncommon, but it has never been so beautifully expressed. It occurs in Milton's "Paradise Lost," Book x. 896, et seqq., and we meet with it in Middleton's " Blurt, Master Constable," Act III. Sc. 1:

I never heard

Of any true affection, but 't was nipt With care."

e Making it momentany-] So the two quartos; the folio, 1623,

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HER. Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes.

Lys. Ay me!* for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth: b But, either it was different in blood ;

HER. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!‡ Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years; HER. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young! Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends; § HER. O hell! to choose love by another's eye! Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it; Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied" night, That, in a spleen,(2) unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say,-Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

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So quick bright things come to confusion.

HER. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross;

As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs,
Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers.

Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me,
Hermia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child;
From Athens is her house remote || seven leagues ;
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us.
If thou lov'st me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,(3)
There will I stay for thee.

HER.

My good Lysander!
I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow;
By his best arrow with the golden head;
By the simplicity of Venus' doves;

By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves; "
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
When the false Trojan under sail was seen;
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke ;-
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

Lys. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes
Helena.

Enter HELENA.

HER. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
HEL. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars ;(4) and your tongue's
sweet air

More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,
Your words I'd catch, fair Hermia, ere I go,d
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet
melody.

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'll give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

HER. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. HEL. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

HER. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. HEL. O that my prayers could such affection move!

And prospers loves;] This is the reading of the quarto published by Fisher; that by Roberts, and the folio, have love.

b Your fair:] That is, your beauty. See "Love's Labour's Lost," note (a), p. 69, and the "Comedy of Errors," note (b), p. 121. The folio reads, you fair.

c O, were favour so,-] Favour, in Shakespeare sometimes means countenance, features, and occasionally, as here, good graces generally.

d Your words I'd catch, fair Hermia, ere I go,-] The old copies read, "Your words I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go." The very slight alteration, which gives intelligibility to the line, was first made in the folio, 1632. Helena would catch not only the beauty of her rival's aspect, and the melody of her tones, but her language also. If the lection here proposed is inadmissible, we must adopt that of Hanmer,-"Yours would I catch," for the old text will never be accepted as the author's.

e His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.] Thus, Fisher's quarto;

Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me:
O then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a* hell!
Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,)
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.

HER. And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, 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. Farewell, sweet playfellow, pray thou for us, And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius !-Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight.

Exit HERMIA. Lys. I will, my Hermia.-Helena, adieu : As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

[Exit LYSANDER.

HEL. How happy some o'er other-some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste,
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste;
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft‡ beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjur'd everywhere:
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths, that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:

that by Roberts, and the folio, have, "none of mine." f And stranger companies.] In the old text the passage runs as follows:

"And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel swell'd, There my Lysander and myself shall meet, And thence from Athens turn away our eyes To seek new friends and strange companions." The restoration of "counsel sweet," and "stranger companies," is due to Theobald, and as the rest of the scene from the entrance of Helena is in rhyme, there can be no reasonable doubt that these four lines were originally in rhyme also.

a It is a dear expense:] Steevens supposes this to mean "it will cost him much (be a severe constraint on his feelings), to make even so slight a return for my communication." Is not the meaning rather, that, as to gratify her lover with this intelligence she makes the most painful sacrifice of her feelings, his thanks, even if obtained, are dearly bought? Mr. Collier's MS. annotator

SCENE II.-The same. A Room in Quince's house. Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING."(5)

QUIN. Is all our company here?

"If I have thanks, it is dear recompense;" which cannot be right, since Helena expressly tells us her recompense will be,

"To have his sight thither and back again."

b Enter QUINCE, &c.] In the old stage direction, "Enter Quince the Carpenter, Snug the Joyner, Bottom the Weaver, Flute the Bellows-mender, Snout the Tinker, and Starveling the Taylor."

345

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BOT. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest yet," my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split the raging rocks; and shivering shocks shall break the locks of prison-gates, and Phibbus' car shall shine from far, and make and mar the foolish fates. This was lofty!-Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling.

QUIN. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLU. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
FLU. What is Thisbe? a wandering knight?
QUIN. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

(*) First folio, grow on.

(+) First folio, gallantly. (1) First folio omits Flute. And so grow to a point.] And so to business. A common colloquial phrase formerly:

"Our reasons will be infinite I trow, Unless unto some other point we grow." The Arraignment of Paris, 1584. b To the rest yet,-] So the old copies. The modern editors place a colon after rest, "To the rest: yet my chief humour," &c.; a deviation which originated perhaps in unconsciousness of one of the senses Shakespeare attributes to the word yet. "To the rest yet," is simply "To the rest now," or, as he shortly after repeats it, "Now, name the rest of the players."

e I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in,-] Hercules and his labours formed a popular subject of entertainment on the early English stage. The player in Greene's "Groat'sworth of Wit," 1592, recounts to Roberto how he had "terribly thundered" the Twelve Labours of Hercules. He could probably, too, have enumerated among his performances a part to tear a cat in, for this allusion was evidently to an incident familiar to

FLU. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.

QUIN. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. Bor. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice; Thisne, Thisne,· Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear;-thy Thisbe dear! and-lady dear! QUIN. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisbe.

Bor. Well, proceed.

QUIN. Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STAR. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe's mother.-Tom Snout, the tinker.

SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisbe's father;-Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:and, I hope, here* is a play fitted.

SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. QUIN. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bor. Let me play the lion too: I will oar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again, let him roar again.

QUIN. Ant you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

son.

ALL. That would hang us, every mother's

the auditory. In "Histriomastix, or the Player Whipt," an anonymous production published in 1610, some soldiers drag in a company of players; and the captain addresses one of them with,Sirrah, this is you that would rend and tear a cat upon the stage," &c. And in "The Roaring Girl," 1611, one of the characters is called Tear-cat.

The expression, to make all split, is thought to be of nautical extraction; it is met with in many of the old dramas :—“ Two roaring boys of Rome, that made all split."-Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady," Act II. Sc. 3. Again in Chapman's play of "The Widow's Tears: "-"Her wit I must employ upon this business to prepare my next encounter, but in such a fashion as shall make all split."

d The foolish fates.] The chief humour of Bottom's "lofty" rant consists in the speaker's barbarous disregard of sense and rhythm; yet, notwithstanding this, and that the whole is printed as prose, carefully punctuated to be unintelligible in all the oid copies, modern editors will persist in presenting it in good set doggrel rhyme.