'Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,
Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye.'

And Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 2059:

Ther saugh I how woful Calystope,
Whan that Dyane was agreved with here,
Was turned from a womman to a bere,

And after was sche maad the loode sterre.'

So also in Maundevile's Travels, ed. Halliwell, p. 180: 'In that Lond, ne in many othere bezonde that, no man may see the Sterre transmontane, that is clept the Sterre of the See, that is unmevable, and that is toward the Northe, that we clepen the Lode Sterre.' In the alliterative poem Morte Arthur (ed. Brock), l. 751, the word occurs in the form 'lade sterne ': 'Lukkes to be lade-sterne, whene pe lyghte faillez.'

It is the cynosure' of Milton's L'Allegro, 80:

'Where perhaps some beauty lies,

The cynosure of neighbouring eyes';

Kuvóσovρa being the Greek name for the constellation Ursa Minor, in which is the pole-star.

186. favour, outward appearance, aspect; with a play upon the other meaning of the word. Compare As You Like It, iv. 3. 87:

Of female favour.'

The boy is fair,

It is generally applied to the face. See Macbeth, i. 5. 73; Hamlet, v. 1. 214; and Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 363:

'Ant. You do mistake

me, sir.

First Off. No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well.'

Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost (v. 2. 33) plays upon the word as Helena does here:

'An if my face were but as fair as yours
My favour were as great.'

187. Yours would I catch. Hanmer's reading. The quartos and first folio have Your words I catch'; the later folios Your words Ide catch.' This Staunton approves, remarking, 'Helena would catch not only the beauty of her rival's aspect, and the melody of her tones, but her language also.' But Hanmer's correction gives a better sense.

190. bated, excepted. So The Tempest, ii. 1. 100: 'Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.'

191. translated, transformed. See iii. 1. 107. Compare Coriolanus, ii. 3. 196:

'So his gracious nature Would think upon you for your voices and Translate his malice towards you into love.'

And Sonnet xcvi. 10:

How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate !'

200. no fault. So the first quarto. The second quarto and the folios

read 'none.'

209. To-morrow night.

There is a discrepancy here in point of time. At the opening of the play there are four days before the new moon. 211. liquid pearl. See ii. 1. 15. Ib. bladed, with fresh green shoots.

Compare Macbeth, iv. I. 55:

'Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down.' 212. still, constantly. See iii. I. 158; The Tempest, i. 2. 229; iii. 3. 64; and Two Gentlemen, iv. 3. 31:

'To keep me from a most unholy match,

Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.'

215. faint primrose-beds, on which those rest who are faint and weary. This proleptic use of the adjective is common in Shakespeare. Compare Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 147:

'With him Patroclus

Upon a lazy bed the livelong day
Breaks scurril jests.'

And As You Like It, ii. 7. 132:

'Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger."

216. sweet. Theobald's correction. The quartos and folios read 'sweld,' or 'swell'd,' which some have defended, although the rhyme is decisive in favour of Theobald's conjecture. In support of this Heath quotes Psalm lv. 14, 'We took sweet counsel together,' which Shakespeare may have had in his mind.

219. stranger companies. Another emendation of Theobald's for 'strange companions' which is the reading of the quartos and folios. He justifies the use of 'stranger' as an adjective by referring to Richard II, i. 3. 143: But tread the stranger paths of banishment';

and of companies' for companions, associates, from Henry V, i. I. 55: His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow.'

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222. Keep word. Compare Keep promise,' l. 179.

223. morrow, to-morrow. As in Romeo and Juliet, ii. 2. 186:

'Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.'

226. other some, others. Compare The Two Noble Kinsmen, iv. 3: 'Her distraction is more at some time of the moon than at other some, is it not?' And Measure for Measure, iii. 2. 94: 'Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he in Rome.' Also 2 Esdras xiii. 13: Some of them were bound, and other some brought of them that were offered.' And Acts xvii. 18,

231. admiring of. In this construction 'admiring' is a verbal noun, originally governed by a preposition 'in' or 'on,' which has disappeared, but which exists sometimes in the degraded forma,' in such words as a hunting,' a building.' See King Lear, ii. 1. 41: mumbling of wicked charms.' Also As You Like It, ii. 4. 44: searching of thy wound.'

232. holding no quantity, having no proportion to the estimate formed of them. Compare Hamlet, iii. 2. 177:

For women's fear and love holds quantity."

233. transpose, transform,

239. beguiled, deceived. So in Genesis iii. 13: The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.'

240. in game, in sport or jest.

Chaucer (C. T. 1. 9468) has Bitwix

ernest and game'; that is, between earnest and jest.

242. eyne, eyes; the Old English plural, which occurs again in ii. 2. 99; iii. 2. 138; v. I. 178. See also Venus and Adonis, 633:

Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips and crystal eyne.'

In Shakespeare it is always used on account of the rhyme, except in Lucrece 1229 and Pericles, iii. Gower, 5:

'The cat with eyne of burning coal.'

249. it is a dear expense, it will cost me dear, because it will be in return for my procuring him a sight of my rival.

251. his sight, the sight of him.

Scene 11.

Enter &c. The first folio has Enter Quince the Carpenter, Snug the Joyner, Bottome the Weauer, Flute the bellowes-mender, Snout the Tinker, and Starueling the Taylor.' Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps thinks that Bottom being a weaver takes his name from a 'bottom' of thread.

2. You were best, it were best for you. See note on The Tempest, i. 2. 367: Be quick, thou 'rt best.'

Ib. generally in Bottom's language means particularly, severally.

3. the scrip, or written document. Chaucer (C. T. 9571, ed. Tyrwhitt) uses script' in the same sense :

If I you told of every script and bond.'

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The MSS. of the Six-text edition read scrit' or 'scrite.' Compare Holland's Pliny, vii. 25: But herein appeared his true hautinesse of mind indeed, and that unmatchable spirit of his, That when upon the battell at Pharsalia, as wel the cofers and caskets with letters & other writings of

Pompey, as also those of Scipioes before Thapsus, came into his hands, he was most true unto them, & burnt al, without reading one script or scroll.' In Chaucer's Troylus and Creseyde (ii. 1130), to which Tyrwhitt in his Glossary refers s. v. Script, we find in the edition of 1542:

"Scripe nor byl

For loue of god, that toucheth such matere

Ne bring me none.'

All the forms are from Lat. scriptum, through the Fr. escript, or escrit. 6, 7. on his wedding-day at night. Compare Romeo and Juliet, i. 3. 21:

'On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.'

9, 10. grow to a point, so the quartos. The first three folios have 'grow on to a point,' and the fourth grow on to appoint.' It is not always quite safe to interpret Bottom, but he seems to mean 'come to the point.'

11. Steevens quotes the title page of Cambyses, A lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of pleasant Mirth, containing, The Life of Cambises King of Percia, &c. By Thomas Preston.' We might also refer to 'A new Tragicall Comedie of Apius and Virginia . . . By R. B. 1575.'

66

12. Warton, in his History of English Poetry (ed. 1824), iv. 243, mentions that in 1562 was licenced the boke of Perymus and Thesbye," copied perhaps in the Midsummer Night's Dream.' He adds, 'I suppose a translation from Ovid's fable of Pyramus and Thisbe.'

20. gallant. The reading of the quartos. The folios have 'gallantly.' 21. ask, require. Compare Richard II, ii. 1. 159:

'And for these great affairs do ask some charge.'

And Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. 14 (p. 85 Clar. Press ed.): 'For as it asketh some knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some sense to make a wish not absurd.'

23. condole. Bottom of course blunders, but it is impossible to say what word he intended to employ. Shakespeare only uses condole' once besides, and he then puts it into the mouth of Ancient Pistol, who in such matters is as little of an authority as Bottom. See Henry V, ii. 1. 133: 'Let us condole the knight'; that is, mourn for him. In Hamlet, i. 2. 93, condolement' signifies the expression of grief:

'To persever

In obstinate condolement.'

23, 24. To the rest; yet my &c., Theobald's reading. The early copies print 'To the rest yet, my &c.,' which may be the right punctuation: ‘yet' in this unemphatic position being used in the sense of 'however.' Compare Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life, p. 57: 'Before I departed yet I left her with child of a son.' And Measure for Measure, iii. 2. 187: The duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered.'

24. Ercles. The part of Hercules in the old play to which reference is made was like that of Herod in the mysteries, one in which the actor could

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indulge to the utmost his passion for ranting. Compare Sidney's Arcadia, B. i. p. 50 (ed. 1598): With the voyce of one that playeth Hercules in a play.' Again in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (p. 23, New Shakspere Soc. ed.), quoted by Malone: The twelue labors of Hercules haue I terribly thundred on the stage.' The verses recited by Bottom may be a quotation from such a play.

25. to tear a cat in, to rant violently. Steevens refers to Middleton's Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Works, ed. Dyce, ii. 535): I am called by those who have seen my valour Tear-cat.' Again, he quotes from the anonymous play Histriomastix (reprinted in Simpson's School of Shakspeare, ii. 73): 'Sirrah, is this you would rend and tear the cat upon a stage?'

Ib. to make all split, used to denote violent action or uproar; originally a sailor's phrase. Farmer quotes Beaumont and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, [ii. 3]:

Two roaring boys of Rome that made all split.'

So also Middleton, The Roaring Girl, iv. 2 (Works, ed. Dyce, ii. 518): 'Well, since you'll needs be clapped under hatches, if I sail not with you till all split, hang me up at the mainyard and duck me.' And Beaumont and Fletcher, The Wild-Goose Chase, v. 6:

'I love a sea-voyage, and a blustering tempest;

And let all split.'

Again Chapman, The Widdowes Tears (Works, iii. 20): 'Her wit I must imploy vpon this businesse to prepare my next encounter, but in such a fashion as shall make all split.' Compare with all this, which it illustrates, Hamlet's advice to the players, iii. 2. 9 &c.: 'O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.'

39. a wandering knight, or knight errant.

41. let not me play a woman. Women's parts were commonly played by men or boys till after the Restoration.

Epilogue, 14, 15.

See note on As You Like It,

43. all one, all the same, no matter. So As You Like It, iii. 5. 133: 'But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.'

44. you may speak as small, in as thin and clear a voice. Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 1. 49: She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman.' And Chaucer, C. T. 3360:

'He syngeth in his voys gentil and smal.'

46. Thisne, Thisne. These words are printed in italic in the old copies, as if they represented a proper name, and so 'Thisne' has been regarded as a blunder of Bottom's for Thisbe. But as he has the name right in the very next line it seems more probable that 'Thisne' signifies in this way'; and he then gives a specimen of how he would aggravate his voice. Thissen'