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 Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, THE. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair To you your father should be as a god; THE. HER. I would my father look'd but with my THE. Rather, your eyes must with his judgment HER. I do entreat your grace to pardon me. THE. Either to die the death, or to abjure Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. HER. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, new moon, d (The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, 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; Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, And, which is more than all these boasts can be, 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; 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 And in Spenser's "Faerie Queen," II. viii. 19: "So would I, said the enchanter, glad and faine 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? 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: с 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, Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child; HER. My good Lysander! By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves; " Lys. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Enter HELENA. HER. God speed fair Helena! Whither away? More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, 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, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, 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! Things base and vile, holding no quantity, 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 с 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. QUIN. Flute, you must take Thisbe on you. (*) 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. 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. |