to as a guest to her.' There are other instances of 'to' in Shakespeare in a sense not far different from that in the present passage. Compare Measure for Measure, i. 2. 186:

Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy."

Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 1. 57:

'To Milan let me hear from thee by letters.'

Comedy of Errors, iv. I. 49:

"You use this dalliance to excuse

Your breach of promise to the Porpentine."

In all these cases the sense is quite clear, but there is a confusion in the construction. In the Devonshire dialect 'to' is frequently used for 'at,' and it is a common Americanism.

175. aby it, pay for it, atone for it. See below, 1. 335, and Spenser,, Fairy Queen, iv. I. 53:

'Yet thou, false squire, his fault shalt deare aby.' The folios read abide' in both passages, as does the second quarto here. There is another word aby,' in an entirely different sense, which is etymologically the same as 'abide'; but our word is from A. S. abicgan, to redeem. And abide,' which is synonymous with the former, is often confounded with the latter.

188. oes, circles, orbs. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 81: The little O, the earth.' Steevens quotes John Davies of Hereford's Microcosmus, 1605, p. 233:

• Which silver oes and spangles over-ran.'

Circular discs of metal which were used for ornaments were called 'oes.' See Bacon, Essay xxxvii. p. 157 (ed. Wright): And Oes, and Spangs, as they are of no great Cost, so they are of most Glory.'

195. Injurious, insulting.

196. contrived, plotted.

See ii. 1. 147.

Compare As You Like It, iv. 3. 135: 'Was 't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?'

.

200. chid. So in 1. 312. Shakespeare also uses 'chidden' as the participle of 'chide.' So Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 1. 12: And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.'

201. O, is all forgot? The verse is defective, as is frequently the case when there is a pause in the middle. To mend it the second and later folios read ‘O, and is all forgot?' Malone, ‘O, is all now forgot?' Reed, 'O, now is all forgot?' Mr. Spedding proposes the slightest change, ‘O, is it all forgot?' But the broken line is suitable to the hurried ejaculations of Hermia. 202. childhood innocence. Compare The Merchant of Venice, i. I. 144: 'I urge this childhood proof.'

203. two artificial gods, two gods exercising their creative skill in art; in this case the art of embroidery.

204. needles, a monosyllable; for which Steevens substituted the old form neelds.' But see Lucrece, 319:

And griping it, the needle his finger pricks."

And King John, v. 2. 157:

Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,

Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts

To fierce and bloody inclination.'

206. warbling of one song. See i. 1. 231, Abbott, Shakespeare Grammar, § 178, and note on King Lear, ii. I. 39 (Clar. Press ed.).

208. incorporate. See v. I. 399.

213. Two of the first, like coats in heraldry. The quartos and folios read 'life' for 'like,' which Theobald substituted at the suggestion of Folkes. Shakespeare borrows the language of heraldry, in which, when a tincture has been once mentioned in the description of a coat of arms, it is always afterwards referred to according to the order in which it occurs in the description; and a charge is accordingly said to be of the first,' of the second,' &c., if its tincture be the same as that of the field which is always mentioned first, or as that of the second or any other that has been specified. Hence Douce's explanation is the correct one: Helen says, we had two seeming bodies but only one heart." She then exemplifies her position by a similewe had two of the first, i. e. bodies, like the double coats in heraldry that belong to man and wife as one person, but which, like our single heart, have but one crest.'

215. rent, the old form of 'rend.' Compare A Lover's Complaint, 55: This said, in top of rage the lines she rents.'

It occurs also in several passages of the Authorised Version of the Bible, but has been modernised in later editions, and is only left in Jer. iv. 30.

220. passionate. So the folios. The quartos omit.

225. even but now, a redundant phrase, as in Hamlet, i. 1. 81.

237. Ay, do, persever. The first quarto reads 'I doe. Persever;' which Hunter maintains is the true reading, making Helena refer to what Hermia had said, 'I understand not,' &c. To which Helena replies, "I do. Persever,' &c. The reading of the second quarto and of the folios is 'I, do, persever,' which is the same as that adopted in the text, 'I' being the common form of 'Ay' in the printing of Shakespeare's time.

Ib. persever, with the accent on the second syllable, as uniformly in Shakespeare. Compare King John, ii. 1. 421 :

'Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.'

Ib. sad. See ii. 1. 51, iv. 1. 94.

I.

238. Make mouths upon me, make faces at me in scorn. See Hamlet, iv.

4.50:

Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd

Makes mouths at the invisible event.'

239. hold the sweet jest up, keep it going, carry it on. Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5. 109:

And Much

hold it up;

'I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.'

Ado about Nothing, ii. 3. 126; He hath ta'en the infection: that is, keep up the sport.

240. well carried, well managed. Compare Much Ado about Nothing,

iv. 1. 212:

6

Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
Change slander to remorse.'

242. such an argument, a subject for such merriment. For 'argument' in this sense see Much Ado about Nothing, i. I. 258: 'Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument."

250. prayers. The reading of Theobald. The quartos and folios have "praise.' Capell, at Theobald's suggestion, read 'prays,' a noun formed from the verb in accordance with Shakespeare's usage. So 'entreaties,' 'exclaims' for 'exclamations.' 252. by that, by my life.

entreats' for

257. Ethiope. Hermia, like Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost, was a brunette, as we learn from the banter that goes on with Biron, iv. 3. 266–268: 'Dum. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

Long. And since her time are colliers counted bright.
King. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.'

257, 8. No, no; he'll... Seem, &c. This is substantially the reading of the quartos; the first has

'No, no, hee'l seeme to breake loose,'

as one line. The folios, also as one line, read,
'No, no, sir, seem to break loose.'
Other readings which have been proposed are Pope's,

Unless a line has fallen out, the reading in the text gives as good a sense as

any. Demetrius first addresses Hermia, and then breaks off abruptly to taunt Lysander with not showing much eagerness to meet him. Delius follows the folios, 'No, no, Sir :-Seem,' &c., and regards the whole as addressed to Lysander, the first words being a remonstrance with him for his insulting language to Hermia.

259. you are a tame man, a spiritless, cowardly fellow. Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 5. 153: Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame.'

Ib. go, be off with you: an exclamation of impatience. See Henry V, v. 1. 73: 'Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave.'

I.

Juliet, i. 5. 88: You are a princox, go."

And Romeo and

260. thou cat, used as a term of contempt, as in Coriolanus, iv. 2. 34:

272. what news? what has happened? what is the matter? Compare i. I. 21: 'What's the news with thee?' And Hamlet, i. 2. 42:

'And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?'

Singer quite unnecessarily reads 'what means my love?'

274. erewhile, a short time since, just now. So in As You Like It, ii. 4. 89: That young swain that you saw here but erewhile.'

279. An Alexandrine. Pope reads 'doubt' for 'of doubt.'

282. juggler, a trisyllable.

Ib. cankerblossom is generally taken to mean a blossom eaten by a canker, having a show of fairness but hollow within. But it is probably a compound formed like 'kill-courtesy' (ii. 2. 77), ‘kill-joy,' and is equivalent to ‘blossomcankerer'; Hermia comparing Helena to a canker that has stealthily eaten into and destroyed Lysander's love for her.

286. touch, delicate feeling. Compare Richard III, i. 2. 71:
'No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.'

And see note on The Tempest, v. I. 21.

290. compare, comparison. So Venus and Adonis, 8:

The field's chief flower, sweet above compare.'

For examples of verbs formed from substantives see note on 'exclaims," Richard II, i. 2. 2.

292. personage, figure. See Twelfth Night, i. 5. 164: 'Of what personage and years is he?'

296. thou painted maypole. Stow, in his Survey of London (ed. Thoms, P. 54), gives an account of the great maypole in Cornhill, which when set up on the south side of the church of St. Andrew Undershaft, was higher than the church steeple. Steevens quotes from Stubbes' Anatomie of Abuses (P. 94, ed. 1585): 'But their cheefest iewell they bring from thence is their

Maie poole, whiche they bring home with greate veneration, as thus. They haue twentie, or fourtie yoke of Oxen, euery Oxe hauyng a sweete Nosegaie of flowers, tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these Oxen drawe home this Maie poole (this stinckyng Idoll rather) which is couered all ouer with Flowers, and Hearbes bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children followyng it, with greate deuotion.' 300. curst, spiteful, mischievous; used of a woman who is a scold. So in The Taming of the Shrew, i. I. 186: 'Her eldest sister is so curst and shrewd.' Also applied to animals, as in Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 1. 22: For it is said, God sends a curst cow short horns.' Cotgrave defines 'Meschant. Wicked, impious, vngracious . . . also, curst, mischieuous, harsh, froward.'

302. a right maid, a true maid. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 12. 28: 'Like a right gipsy.'

310. your stealth, your stealing away, going secretly. Compare iv. 1. 159, and Sonnet lxxvii. 7:

'Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know

Time's thievish progress to eternity.'

314. so, provided that. See The Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 197: With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.'

317. fond. See ii. 2. 88.

323. shrewd, mischievous, especially with the tongue. See ii. I. See ii. 1. 33, and Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 1. 20: Thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.'

woman,

324. vixen, properly a she-fox; hence applied to an ill-tempered spiteful The form of the word is especially interesting as being the only instance in which the feminine termination -en has been preserved. See Morris, English Accidence, c. x. § 73. It occurs in Anglo-Saxon as fixen, and in German as füchsin.

327. flout. See ii. 2. 128.

329. minimus, smallest thing.

Ib. hindering knot-grass. The common knot-grass (polygonum aviculare) was formerly believed to have the power of checking the growth of children. See Beaumont and Fletcher, the Coxcomb, ii. 2:

'We want a boy extremely for this function,

Kept under for a year with milk and knot-grass.'

And The Knight of the Burning Pestle, ii. 2: The child's a fatherless child, and say they should put him into a strait pair of gaskins, 'twere worse than knot-grass; he would never grow after it.'

330. You bead.

As beads were generally black, there is a reference here

to Hermia's complexion as well as to her size.

333. intend, pretend. Demetrius does not think Lysander in earnest.