It occurs also with the accent on the penultimate, in accordance with modern usage. See I Henry IV, iv. 3. 79:

Some certain edicts and some strait decrees.'

155. fancy's, love's. See iv. 1. 162, and compare 'fancy-sick,' iii. 2. 96; fancy-free,' ii. 1. 164.

156, persuasion, opinion, conviction. Compare Cymbeline, i. 4. 125: 'You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion.' It also signifies a persuasive argument, and perhaps has that sense here.

159. remote. The reading of the quartos. The folios have 'remov'd,' which is used in the same sense in Hamlet, i. 4. 46.

160, respects, regards, considers. See ii. 1. 224, and compare Coriolanus, iii. 1. 307:

The service of the foot

Being once gangrened, is not then respected
For what before it was.'

164. forth, out of. So Coriolanus, i. 4. 23:

They fear us not but issue forth their city."

And Romeo and Juliet, i. 1. 126;

Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun

Peer'd forth the golden window of the east.'

167. To do observance to a morn of May, to observe the rites of Mayday. See iv. 1. 132, and Chaucer, Knight's Tale, 1500:

'And for to doon his observance to May.'

'It was anciently the custom for all ranks of people to go out a Maying early on the first of May. Bourne tells us that in his time, in the villages in the North of England, the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a little after midnight on the morning of that day, and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, where they broke down branches from the trees and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This done, they returned homewards with their booty about the time of sunrise, and made their doors and windows triumph in the flowery spoil.' (Brand's Popular Antiquities, i. 212; Bohn's Ant, Lib.) The early rising is referred to in Henry VIII, v. 4. 14, 15: 'Tis as much impossible.

To scatter 'em, as 'tis to make 'em sleep

On May-day morning; which will never be.'

As fit, says the clown in All's Well, ii. 2. 25, as 'a morris for May-day.' Traces of this morris-dancing still remain in the villages about Cambridge. The gathering of the whitethorn is described by Herrick in his poem on Corinna's Going a Maying (Hesperides, i. 87, ed. 1846), and scarcely an English poet from Chaucer to Tennyson is without a reference to the simple customs by which our ancestors celebrated the advent of the flowers. May-dew was held of virtue as a cosmetic. Mrs. Pepys would go to

Woolwich for air and to gather May-dew while her husband diverted himself at Vauxhall. For further information see Brand's Popular Antiquities already quoted, and Chambers's Book of Days, i. 570–582. 169. Venus swears by Cupid's bow, Venus and Adonis, 581:

'Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,

The which, by Cupid's bow she doth protest,

He carries thence incaged in his breast.'

170. with the golden head. Cupid's arrows in the old mythology were tipped either with gold or lead; the former causing, the latter repelling, love. See Ovid, Metam. i. 468–471:

Eque sagittifera promsit duo tela pharetra

Diversorum operum: fugat hoc, facit illud amorem.

Quod facit, auratum est et cuspide fulget acuta;

Quod fugat, obtusum est et habet sub arundine plumbum.'

Compare Twelfth Night, i. 1. 35:

'How will she love, when the rich golden shaft

Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else

That live in her.'

171. Venus' doves, which drew her chariot. See Venus and Adonis, 153, 1190; Lucrece, 58; Romeo and Juliet, ii. 5. 7.

173. See Virgil, Aeneid, iv. 584, &c. Steevens pointed out the anachronism of making Dido and Aeneas earlier in point of time than Theseus. But Shakespeare's Hermia lived in the latter part of the sixteenth century and was contemporary with Nick Bottom the weaver. Carthage' as an adjective occurs several times in Marlowe's Tragedy of Dido, as for instance in Act iv. (p. 269, ed. Dyce, 1862):

Ye shall no more offend the Carthage queen.'

And again in Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy, ii. 2: 'Now, a tear;

And then thou art a piece expressing fully

The Carthage queen, when from a cold sea-rock,
Full with her sorrow, she tied fast her eyes

To the fair Trojan ships.'

174. Troyan, the spelling of the quartos and first folio.

175. broke, broken. Shakespeare uses both forms. See note on Richard II, iii. 1. 13.

182. your fair, your beauty. Compare As You Like It, iii. 2. 99 (84 Clar. Press ed. and note); and Sonnet xvi. II;

'Neither in inward worth nor outward fair.'

183. lode-stars, leading or guiding stars; as the polar star is to sailors. Compare Lucrece, 179:

'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 pe 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';

Kuvóσoupa 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. I. 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.'

1

And Sonnet xcvi. 10;

6

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. 1. 55:

Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down.' 212. still, constantly. See iii. 1. 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. 1. 55; • His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow."

222. Keep word. Compare Keep promise,' 1. 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 is 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 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: 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.'

It occurs in Chaucer in the forms eien, eyen, or eizen, A. S. eúgan.

246. go tell. See ii. 1. 14. So 'go sleep,' The Tempest, ii. 1. 190; go pray,' Hamlet, i. 5. 132. See note on the latter passage for other

examples.

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 II.

Enter &c. The first folio has Enter Quince the Carpenter, Snug the Ioyner, 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. 'Be quick, thou 'rt best.'

367:

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

3. the scrip, or written document.

uses 'script' in the same sense :

Chaucer (C. T. 9571, ed. Tyrwhitt)

If I you told of every script and bond.'

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