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For everlasting bond of fellowship,)
Upon that day either prepare to die,
For disobedience to your father's will;
Or elfe to wed Demetrius, as he would:
Or on Diana's altar to proteft,

For aye, aufterity and fingle life.

DEM. Relent, fweet Hermia ;-And, Lyfander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

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

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

Lrs. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
As well poffefs'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 profecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her foul; and fhe, fweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THE. I must confefs, that I have heard fo much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;

9 You have her father's love, Demetrius;

Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.] I fufpect that Shak speare wrote:

"Let me have Hermia; do you marry him."

TYRWHITT.

Spotted] As Spotless is innocent, fo fpotted is wicked.

But, being over-full of felf-affairs,

My mind did lofe it.-But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you fhall go with me,
I have fome private schooling for you both.-
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourselt
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or elfe the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate,)
To death, or to a vow of fingle life.—
Come, my Hippolyta; What cheer, my love?—
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along:

I must employ you in fome bufinefs
Againft our nuptial; and confer with you
Of fomething nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGE. With duty, and defire, we follow you.

[Exeunt THES. HIP. EGE. DEM. and train. Lrs. How now, my love? Why is your check fo pale?

How chance the rofes there do fade fo faft?

HER. Belike, for want of rain; which I could well

Beteem them from the tempeft of mine eyes.

Lrs. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love3 never did run smooth:

Beteem them] Give them, bestow upon them. The word is ufed by Spenfer. JOHNSON.

"So would I, faid th' enchanter, glad and fain

"Beteem to you his fword, you to defend." Faery Queen. Again, in The Cafe is Altered. How? Afk Dalio and Milo, 1605: "I could beteeme her a better match."

But I rather think that to beteem, in this place, fignifies (as in the northern counties) to pour out; from tommer, Danith.

STEEVENS.

3 The courfe of true love. -] This paffage feems to have been imitated by Milton. Paradife Loft, B. X.-896. & feqq.

MALONE,

But, either it was different in blood;

HER. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low! + Lrs. Or elfe mifgraffed, in refpect of years; HER. O fpite! too old to be engag'd to young! Lrs. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends: HER. O hell! to choose love by another's eye! Lrs. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or fickness did lay fiege to it; Making it momentany as a found,

Swift as a fhadow, fhort as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,"

— too high to be enthrall'd to low!] Love-poffeffes all the editions, but carries no juft meaning in it. Nor was Hermia difpleas'd at being in love; but regrets the inconveniences that generally attend the paffion; either, the parties are difproportioned, in degree of blood and quality; or unequal, in refpect of years; or brought together by the appointment of friends, and not by their own choice. Thefe are the complaints reprefented by Lyfander; and Hermia, to answer to the firft, as she has done to the other two, muft neceffarily fay:

"O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!

So the antithefis is kept up in the terms; and fo fhe is made to condole the disproportion of blood and quality in lovers.

THEOBALD.

The emendation is fully fupported, not only by the tenour of the preceding lines, but by a paffage in our author's Venus and Adonis, in which the former predicts that the course of love never fhall run fmooth:

"Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend,

"Ne'er fettled equally, too high, or low," &c. MALONE. momentany as a found,] Thus the quartos. The first folio reads-momentary. Momentany (fays Dr. Johnson) is the old proper word. STEEVENS.

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that fhort momentany rage,"-is an expreffion of Dryden. HENLEY.

6 Brief as the lightning in the collied night,] Collied, i. e. black, fmutted with coal, a word ftill ufed in the midland counties. . So, in Ben Jonfon's Poetafter:

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Thou hait not collied thy face enough." STEEVENS.

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to fay,-Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up :'
So quick bright things come to confufion.

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 fighs, Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers.

Lrs. A good perfuafion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and fhe hath no child:
From Athens is her house remote feven leagues; ?
And the refpects me as her only fon.

7 That, in a fpleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man bath power to fay,-Behold!

The jaws of darkness do devour it up :] Though the word Spleen be here employed oddly enough, yet I believe it right. Shakspeare, always hurried on by the grandeur and multitude of his ideas, affumes every now and then, an uncommon licence in the use of his words. Particularly in complex moral modes it is ufual with him to employ one, only to exprefs a very few ideas of that number of which it is compofed. Thus wanting here to exprefs the ideas

of a fudden, or-in a trice, he ufes the word Spleen; which, partially confidered, fignifying a hafty fudden fit, is enough for him, and he never troubles himself about the further or fuller fignification of the word. Here, he ufes the word pleen for a Judden bafty fit; fo juft the contrary, in The Two Gentlemen of Ve rona, he ufes fudden for fplenetic: "fudden quips." And it muft be owned this fort of converfation adds a force to the diction. WARBURTON.

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fancy's followers.] Fancy is love. So afterwards in this

Fair Helena in fancy following me." STEEVENS. 9 From Athens is her house remote feven leagues;] Remote is the reading of both the quartos; the folio has remov'd.

--

STEEVENS.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot purfue us: If thou lov'ft 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 obfervance to a morn of May,

There will I stay for thee.

HER.

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

By that which knitteth fouls, and profpers loves;
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,'
When the falfe Trojan under fail was feen;
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke ;-
In that fame place thou haft appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

2

Lrs. Keep promife, love: Look, here comes Helena.

Enter HELENA.

HER. God fpeed, fair Helena! Whither away? HEL. Call you me fair? that fair again unfay.

his beft arrow with the golden head;] So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book II:

3

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-arrowes two, and tipt with gold or lead: "Some hurt, accufe a third with horny head."

STEEVENS.

by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,] Shakspeare had forgot that Thefeus performed his exploits before the Trojan war, and confequently long before the death of Dido.

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