DEM. Follow? nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole. [Exeunt Lys. and DEM. HER. You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you: Nay, go not back.

HEL.

I will not truft you, I;

Nor longer stay in your curft company.
Your hands, than mine, are quicker for a fray;
My legs are longer though, to run away.

[Exit. HER. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.

[Exit, purfuing HELENA. OBE. This is thy negligence: ftill thou mistak'ft, Or else commit'ft thy knaveries wilfully.

PUCK. Believe me, king of fhadows, I miftook. Did not you tell me, I should know the man By the Athenian garments he had on? And fo far blameless proves my enterprize, That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes: And fo far am I glad it fo did fort, As this their jangling I efteem a sport.

OBE. Thou feeft, these lovers feek a place to fight:

Hie therefore, Robin, overcaft the night;

The starry welkin cover thou anon

With drooping fog, as black as Acheron;
And lead these testy rivals so astray,
As one come not within another's way.
Like to Lyfander fometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And fometime rail thou like Demetrius;
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
'Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting fleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:

8-fo did fort,] So happen in the iffue. JOHNSON. So, in Monfieur D'Olive, 16c6:

45

never look to have any aftion fort to your honour."

Then crush this herb into Lyfander's eye;
Whofe liquor hath this virtuous property,"
To take from thence all error, with his might,
And make his eye-balls roll with wonted fight.
When they next wake, all this derifion
Shall seem a dream, and fruitless vision;
And back to Athens fhall the lovers wend,$
With league, whofe date till death fhall never end.
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,

I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;
And then I will her charmed eye release

From monster's view, and all things fhall be peace.
Puck. My fairy lord, this must be done with

hafte;

For night's fwift dragons cut the clouds full faft,
And yonder fhines Aurora's harbinger;

At whofe approach, ghofts, wandering here and
there,

Troop home to church-yards: damned spirits all,
That in cross-ways and floods have burial,1

7-virtuous property,] Salutiferous. So he calls, in The Tempest, poisonous dew, wicked dew. JOHNSON.

—wend,] i. e. go. So, in The Comedy of Errors:

Hopeless and helplefs doth Egeon end." STEEVENS. 9 For night's fwift dragons, &c.] So, in Cymbeline, A&t II. fc. ii : "Swift, fwift, ye dragons of the night!"

See my note on this paffage, concerning the vigilance imputed to the ferpent tribe. STEEVENS.

This circumftance Shakspeare might have learned from a paffage in Golding's Tranflation of Ovid, which he has imitated in The Tempest:

Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal war did fet, "And brought afleep the dragon fell, whofe eyes were never fbet." MALONE.

damned fpirits all,

That in cross-ways and floods have burial,] i. e. The ghosts of felf-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads; and of those who being drowned, were condemned (according to the opinion of the

Already to their wormy beds are gone;
For fear left day fhould look their fhames upon,
They wilfully themselves exile from light,
And muft for aye confort with black-brow'd night.
OBE. But we are spirits of another fort:

I with the morning's love have oft made sport;

ancients) to wander for a hundred years, as the rites of fepulture had never been regularly beftowed on their bodies. That the waters were fometimes the place of refidence for damned spirits, we learn from the ancient bl. 1. Romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no

date :

3

"Let fome preeft a gospel faye

"For doute of fendes in the flode."

STEEVENS.

to their wormy beds-] This periphrafis for the grave has been borrowed by Milton, in his Ode on the death of a fair Infant: "Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed." STEEVENS.

4-black-brow'd night.] So, in King John:

Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night.”

STEEVENS.

5 I with the morning's love have oft made fport;] Thus all the old copies, and I think, rightly. Tithonus was the husband of Aurora, and Tithonus was no young deity.

Thus, in Aurora, a collection of fonnets, by lord Sterline, 1604: "And why should Tithon thus, whofe day grows late, Enjoy the morning's love?"

Again, in The Parafitafter, by J. Marston, 1606:

"Aurora yet keeps chafte old Tithon's bed;
"Yet blufhes at it when the rifes."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. III. c. iii:
"As faire Aurora rifing haftily,

"Doth by her blufhing tell that she did lye
"AH night in old Tithonus' frozen bed."

Again, in The Faithful Shepherdefs of Fletcher:
-O, lend me all thy red,

"Thou fhame-fac'd morning, when from Tithon's bed
"Thou rifelt ever-maiden!"

How fuch a waggifh fpirit as the King of the Fairies might make fport with an antiquated lover, or his miftrefs in his abfence, may be easily understood. Dr. Johnfon reads with all the modern edítors, “I with the morning light," &c. STEEVENS.

Will not this paffage bear a different explanation? By the morning's love I apprehend Cephalus, the mighty hunter and paramour

And, like a forefter, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair bleffed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his falt-green streams.
But, notwithstanding, hafte; make no delay:
We may effect this business yet ere day. [Exit OBE.
PUCK. Up and down, up and down;

I will lead them up and down:

I am fear'd in field and town;

Goblin, lead them up and down. Here comes one.

Enter LYSANder.

Lrs. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now.

Puck. Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where

art thou?

Lrs. I will be with thee ftraight.

PUCK.

To plainer ground.

DEM.

Follow me then

[Exit Lys. as following the voice.

Enter DEMETRIUS.

Lyfander! fpeak again.

Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
Speak. In fome bufh? Where doft thou hide thy

head?

of Aurora, is intended. The context, " And, like a forefter," &c. feems to fhow that the chace was the sport which Oberon boasts he partook with the morning's love. HOLT WHITE.

5 Even till the eastern gate, &c.] What the fairy Monarch means to inform Puck of, is this. That he was not compelled, like meaner fpirits, to vanish at the first appearance of the dawn.

STEEVENS.

PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the
ftars,

Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou

child;

I'll whip thee with a rod: He is defil'd,
That draws a fword on thee.

DEM.

Yea; art thou there?

Puck. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood

here.

Re-enter LYSANDER.

[Exeunt.

Lrs. He goes before me, and still dares me on; When I come where he calls, then he is gone. The villain is much lighter-heel'd, than I: I follow'd faft, but fafter he did fly; That fallen am I in dark uneven way, And here will reft me. Come, thou gentle day!

[Lies down. For if but once thou show me thy grey light, I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this fpite.

Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS.

PUCK. Ho, ho! ho, ho!" Coward, why com'ft thou not?

DEM. Abide me, if thou dar'ft; for well I wot,

6 Puck. Ho, ho! ho, ho! Coward, why com'ft thou not?] This exclamation would have been uttered by Puck with greater propriety, if he were not now playing an affumed character, which he, in the prefent inftance, feems to forget. In the old fong printed by Peck and Percy, in which all his gambols are related, he concludes every stanza with Ho, ho, ho! So, in Grim the Collier of Croydon : "Ho, ho, ho, my mafters! No good fellowship! "Is Robin Goodfellow a bug-bear grown, "That he is not worthy to be bid fit down ?”