Bot. Good Master Mustard-seed, I know your patience well: 24 that same cowardly, giant-like oxbeef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seed.

Tita. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.

The moon methinks looks with a watʼry eye; And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting some enforced chastity.

Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently. [Exeunt.

Tita. Be kind and courteous to this gentle

man:

Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,2
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
Peas. Hail, mortal!

SCENE II.-Another part of the wood.
Enter OBERON.

Obe. I wonder if Titania be awak'd; Then, what it was that next came in her eye, Which she must dote on in extremity.— Here comes my messenger.

Enter PUCK.

How now, mad spirit! What night-rule 25 now about this haunted grove? Puck. My mistress with a monster is in love.

Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,

A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,

Cob. Cobweb.

Bot. I shall desire you of more acquaintance," good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.-Your name, honest gentle

man ?

Peas. Peas-blossom.

Bot. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash,23 your mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peas-blossom, I shall

21. Dewberries. A delicate fruit that grows on a bramble, named rubus cæsius; and being covered by a white, dewylooking secretion, the berries have obtained this name.

22. I shall desire you of more acquaintance. A form of expression then in use.

23. Squash. Shakespeare uses this word here, and elsewhere, for a young or unformed pod of peas. "Peascod" is another name for 'peaspod,' or 'peashell."

24. I know your patience well. This compliment upon the resignation with which Mustard-seed beholds his relations "devoured" through fault of "Ox-beef," is rendered doubly pointed by the ironical allusion to the so-called 'hot' properties of mustard.

25. Night-rule. Night-revel. Douce points out how the old spelling of revel (reuel) became corrupted into "rule;" thence

Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.
The shallowest thick-skin 27 of that barren sort,as
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
Forsook his scene, and enter'd in a brake:
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's nowl 30 I fixed on his head:
Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
And forth my mimic comes, When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,

32

Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky;
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;

And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;
He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.
Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus
strong,

Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
Some, sleeves,-some, hats,-from yielders all
things catch.

I led them on in this distracted fear,

And left sweet Pyramus translated 3 there :
When in that moment (so it came to pass),
Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.

Obe. This falls out better than I could devise. But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?

Puck. I took him sleeping,-that is finish'd too,

And the Athenian woman by his side;

That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.

Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA.

Obe. Stand close: this is the same Athenian. Puck. This is the woman, but not this the man. Dem. Oh, why rebuke you him that loves you so?

Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

Her.

Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse,

For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
And kill me too.

The sun was not so true unto the day
As he to me: would he have stol'n away
From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
This whole earth may be bor'd; and that the moon
May through the centre creep, and so displease
Her brother's noontide with the Antipodes.
It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;

37. Choughs. Sea-side crows. See Note 24, Act ii., "Tempest." In this line "sort" is used in the same sense as in the previous passage, explained in Note 28, Act iii. Here it means 'flock."

33. Translated. Transformed.

34 Latch'd. Smeared, anointed; from the French lecher, to lick. The antique spelling of the Folio, lacht,' brings the word nearer to the source whence it is derived. A 'lick' was an old term for a wash or cosmetic, something smeared over the face; as we find from the sentence-"My face, which you behold so flaming red, is done over with ladies' licks."-Translation of Boccalini, 1626.

35 Touch. Sometimes used in Shakespeare's time for trick, or stroke of mischief.

Doubler. Used in a twofold sense. See Note 58, Act ii. 37. You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood. "Mispris'd" is mistaken.' "Mood" is here used for fit of anger,'

36

Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
Dem. You spend your passion on a mispris'd
mood: 37

I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.

Her. I pray thee, tell me, then, that he is well. Dem. An if I could, what should I get therefore?

Her. A privilege, never to see me more:-
And from thy hated presence part I so:
See me no more, whether he be dead or no.

[Exit.

Dem. There is no following her in this fierce vein:

Here therefore for awhile I will remain.
So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow 38
For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;
Which now in some slight measure it will pay,
If for his tender 39 here I make some stay.

[Lies down and sleeps. Obe. What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite,

And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:

'wrathful emotion.' Demetrius means that Hermia vents her passion in a resentment that is mistaken in its ground of reproach.

38. So sorrow's heaviness doth, &c. There is a drowsy beauty about these lines, as the foiled lover lays him down on the ground and yields to slumber, that is in fine poetic keeping with the dreaminess shed over the scenes in this Midsummer Night play. The way in which the human wanderers drop asleep, and seek rest no less for their dazed thoughts than for their tired limbs, is even extended to the fairy folk, where Titania, with a kind of irrelevance, says "The moon, methinks, locks with a watery eye; " as if the fairy queen herself were but half awake, and saw all things through a misty halo of dubious light. Thus does Shakespeare's dramatic art make his productions harmonise in their every portion, the one with the other. 39 Tender. Used here substantively for offer,' 'advance towards being accepted.' "His" refers to sleep."

66

Lys. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so; For you love Hermia ;-this you know I know: And here, with all good will, with all my heart, In Hermia's love I yield you up my part; And yours of Helena to me bequeath, Whom I do love, and will do to my death.

Hel. Never did mockers waste more idle breath. Dem. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none: If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone. My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,50 And now to Helen is it home return'd, There to remain.

Act III. Scene II.

Dem. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,

Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.31_
Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.

Re-enter HERMIA.

Her. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,

The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.—
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

in Shakespeare's time. Elsewhere he has "sojourned with," and "sojourned at."

51. Aby it dear. Pay dearly for it.' To "aby" is to compensate for, or purchase by suffering for; and has been derived from the same origin as 'buy.'

VOL. I.

44

Lys. Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?

Her. What love could press Lysander from my side?

Fair Helena; who more engilds the night 'I'han all yon fiery oes 52 and eyes of light.

Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,

The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?

Her.

You speak not as you think: it cannot be.
Hel. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv’d
To bait me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us,-oh, is all forgot?
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial 3 gods,
Have with our neelds created both one flower
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.

Her. I am amazed at your passionate words.
I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.
Hel. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
To follow me, and praise my eyes and face?
And made your other love, Demetrius
(Who even but now did spurn me with his foot),

52. Oes. Shakespeare uses this word to express things circular. See Note 58, Act v., "Love's Labour's Lost." There is reason to believe, also, from Bacon's employment of the word, and from its occurrence in D'Ewes's 'Journal of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments' (where both the writers use it in connection with the word spangs' or 'spangles'), that it meant some bright round orna

ment.

The reference to the stars in the present passage-" all yon fiery oes and eyes of light "-affords an instance of Shakespeare's dramatic art in marking time and place; just as previously he makes Demetrius say-"As bright, as clear, as yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere." These allusions to the planet and the stars beaming overhead bring constantly present to the imagination that the speakers are in the open air, and in the warm summer night, with the blue and star-gemmed sky above the full-leaved trees,

But by your setting on, by your consent?
What though I be not so in grace as you,
So hung upon with love, so fortunate;
But miserable most, to love unlov'd?
This you should pity rather than despise.

Her. I understand not what you mean by this.
Hel. Ay, do, perséver, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.56
But, fare ye well: 'tis partly mine own fault;
Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.

Lys. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:
My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!
Hel. Oh, excellent!

Her.
Sweet, do not scorn her so.
Dem. If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
Lys. Thou canst compel no more than she

entreat:

53. Artificial. Here used for 'creative;' deriving the word from its original source, Latin, artifex, an artist, a maker, a creator. Shakespeare, in his special and accurately-distinctive employment of words derived from classical sources, himself refutes the absurd allegation that he had shallow knowledge of Greek and Latin.

54. Two of the first, like coats, &c. These lines have reference to an heraldic technicality; Helena meaning that their two bodies having but one heart between them, are like the coats of arms of a married couple, which are emblazoned as two, yet are surmounted but by one

crest.

55. Rent. Often used formerly for 'rend.'

56. Argument. Subject for mockery. See Note 37, Act i., "Much Ado about Nothing."