MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Athens. A Room in the Palace of Thefeus.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants.

THE. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon: but, oh, methinks, how flow This old moon wanes! fhe lingers my defires, Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man's revenue.2

HIP. Four days will quickly fteep themselves in nights ;3

2 Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man's revenue.] The authenticity of this reading having been queftioned by Dr. Warburton, I fhall exemplify it from Chapman's tranflation of the 4th Book of Homer:

-there the goodly plant lies withering out his grace."

Ut piget annus

STEEVENS.

Pupillis, quos dura premit cuftodia matrum, "Sic mihi tarda fluunt ingrataque tempora." Hor.

MALONE.

Reep themselves in nights ;] So, in Cymbeline, A& V.

neither deserve,

"And yet are steep'd in favours." STEEVENS.

Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a filver bow
New bent in heaven, fhall behold the night
Of our folemnities.

THE.

Go, Philoftrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals,
The pale companion is not for our pomp.-
[Exit PHILOSTRATE.
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my fword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.5

New bent-] The old copies read-Now bent. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

5 With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.] By triumph, as Mr. Warton has obferved in his late edition of Milton's Poems, p. 56, we are to understand shows, fuch as masks, revels, &c. So, again in King Henry VI. P. III :

"And now what refts, but that we spend the time
"With stately triumphs, mirthful comick fhows,
"Such as befit the pleasures of the court?"

Again, in the preface to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1624: "Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, trophies, triumphs, revels, fports, playes." Jonfon, as the fame gentleman obferves, in the title of his mafque called Love's Triumph through Callipolis, by triumph seems to have meant a grand proceffion; and in one of the stage-directions, it is faid, "the triumph is feen far off." MALONE.

Thus alfo, (and more fatisfactorily,) in the Duke of Anjou's Entertainment at Antwerp, 1581: "Yet notwithstanding, their triumphes [those of the Romans] have fo borne the bell above all the reft, that the word triumphing, which commeth thereof, hath beene applied to all high, great, and statelie dooings."

STEEVENS.

Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANder, and Deme

TRIUS.

EGE. Happy be Thefeus, 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 confent to marry her :Stand forth, Lyfander;-and, my gracious duke, This hath bewitch'd' the bofom of my child:

6 our renowned duke !] Thus, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale:

"Whilom as olde ftories tellen us,

"There was a Duk that highte Thefeus,

"Of Athenes he was lord and governour," &c.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 861. Lidgate too, the monk of Bury, in his tranflation of the Tragedies of John Bochas, calls him by the fame title, ch. xii. 1. 21: "Duke Thefeus had the victorye."

Creon, in the tragedy of Jocafta, tranflated from Euripides in 1566, is called Duke Creon.

So likewife Skelton:

"Not like Duke Hamilcar,

"Nor like Duke Afdruball."

Stanyhurft, in his Tranflation of Virgil, calls Æneas, Duke Æneas; and in Heywood's Iron Age, Part II. 1632, Ajax is ftyled Duke Ajax, Palamedes, Duke Palamedes, and Neftor, Duke Neftor, &c.

Our verfion of the Bible exhibits a similar mifapplication of a modern title; for in Daniel iii. 2, Nebuchadonozar, King of Babylon, fends out a fummons to the Sheriffs of his provinces. STEEVENS.

See also the 1ft Book of The Chronicles, ch. i. v. 51, & feqq. a lift of the Dukes of Edom. HARRIS.

7 This hath bewitch'd-] The old copies read-This man hath bewitch'd. The emendation was made for the fake of the metre, by the editor of the second folio. It is very probable that the compofitor caught the word man from the line above. MALONE,

Thou, thou, Lyfander, thou haft given her rhymes,
And interchang'd love-tokens with my child:
Thou haft by moon-light at her window fung,
With feigning voice, verfes of feigning love;
And ftol'n the impreffion of her fantasy

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nofegays, fweet-meats; meffengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning haft thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harfhnefs:-And, my gracious duke,
Be it fo fhe will not here before your grace
Confent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens;
As the is mine, I may difpofe of her:
Which fhall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death; according to our law,9
Immediately provided in that cafe.1

―gawds,] i. e. baubles, toys, trifles. Our author has the word frequently. See King John, A&t III. fc. v. Again, in Appius and Virginia, 1576:

"When gain is no grandfier,

"And gaudes not fet by," &c.

Again, in Drayton's Mooncalf:

and in her lap

"A fort of paper puppets, gauds and toys."

The Rev. Mr. Lambe, in his notes on the ancient metrical hiftory of The Battle of Flodden, obferves that a gawd is a child's toy, and that the children in the North call their play-things gowdys, and their baby-house a gowdy-houfe. STEEVENS.

9 Or to her death; according to our law,] By a law of Solon's, parents had an abfolute power of life and death over their children. So it fuited the poet's purpose well enough, to suppose the Athenians had it before. Or perhaps he neither thought nor knew any thing of the matter. WARBURTON.

1 Immediately provided in that cafe.] Shakspeare is grievously fufpected of having been placed, while a boy, in an attorney's office. The line before us has an undoubted fmack of legal common-place. Poetry difclaims it. STEEVENS.

THE. What fay 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.2
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HER. So is Lyfander.

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 judgement 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 modefty.

In fuch a prefence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befal me in this cafe,
If I refufe to wed Demetrius.

THE. Either to die the death,3 or to abjure
For ever the fociety of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, queftion your defires,
Know of your youth,+ examine well your blood,

2 To leave the figure, or disfigure it.] The fenfe is, you owe to your father a being which he may at pleasure continue or deftroy. JOHNSON.

3 to die the death,] So, in the fecond part of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

"We will, my liege, elfe let us die the death."

See notes on Meafure for Measure, A& II. fc. iv. STEEVENS. Know of your youth,] Bring your youth to the question. Confider your youth. JOHNSON.