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.' 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

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, 10 rant violently. Steevens refers to Middleton's Roaring Girl, v. I (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.

43. all one, all the same, no matter.

See note on As You Like It,

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. I. 49: She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman.' And Chaucer, C. T. 3360:

'He syngeth in his voys gentil and smal.'

45. An, if. Printed And' in the old copies.

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'

is given in Wright's Provincial Dictionary as equivalent to 'in this manner'; and thissens' is so used in Norfolk.

54. Theobald has pointed out that the father and mother of Thisbe and the father of Pyramus do not appear in the interlude.

74. aggravate. Bottom of course means the very opposite, like Mrs. Quickly in 2 Henry IV, ii. 4. 175: 'I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.'

75. roar you. For this superfluous use of the pronoun see Abbott, § 221. Ib. an 'twere, as if it were. Compare Troilus and Cressida, i. 2. 189, ‘He will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April.'

Ib. sucking dove. Oddly enough Bottom's blunder of 'sucking dove' for 'sucking lamb' has crept into Mrs. Cowden Clarke's Concordance to Shakespeare, where 2 Henry VI, iii. 1. 71 is quoted As is the sucking dove or &c.'

78. as one shall see in a summer's day. So Henry V, iii. 6. 67: 'I'll assure you, a' uttered as brave words at the bridge as you shall see in a summer's day.' And again in the same play iv. 8. 23.

84. discharge, perform. See iv. 2. 8; Coriolanus, iii. 2. 106:

'You have put me now to such a part which never

I shall discharge to the life.'

It appears to have been a technical word belonging to the stage, and occurs in this connexion in The Tempest, ii. 1. 254:

To perform an act

Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come

In yours and my discharge.'

85. orange-tawny, reddish yellow. See iii. 1. 115. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives, Orangé: m. ée: f. Orange-tawnie. orange-coloured.'

Ib. purple-in-grain, the dye obtained from the kermes (whence Fr. cramoisi, and English crimson), an insect which attached itself to the leaves of the Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera), a tree found in the south of Europe, especially in Spain, and also in India and Persia. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) has, Migraine: f. . . . Scarlet, or Purple in graine.' An interesting discussion

of the etymology of grain' in the sense of dye will be found in Marsh's Lectures on the English Language, 66–75.

<

86. French-crown-colour, the colour of the gold coin of that name. There are many equivocal references in Shakespeare to the French crown,' which was a name for baldness produced by a certain disease.

85. I am to entreat you. See iv. 2. 29.

90. to con them, to study them, learn them by heart. See v. 1. 80, and As You Like It, iii. 2. 289. ‘Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them out of rings?'

91. a mile. In i. 1. 165 it is a league.

94. properties, a theatrical term for all the adjuncts of a play except the

scenery and the dresses of the actors. Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 4. 78:

97.

Go get us properties

And tricking for our fairies.'

obscenely. Misused by Bottom as by Costard in Love's Labour's Lost, iv. I. 145:

.

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.' 99. hold or cut bowstrings. Capell seems to have hit upon the true explanation of this expression. 'When a party was made at butts, assurance of meeting was given in the words of that phrase: the sense of the person using them being, that he would "hold," or keep promise, or they might cut his bowstrings," demolish him for an archer.' Keep the appointment, or give up shooting. Malone explains it, To meet, whether bowstrings hold or are cut, is to meet in all events.' To break one's bowstrings' was a phrase denoting the giving up of anything that was in hand. Steevens quotes from The Ball, a play by Chapman and Shirley: Have you devices to jeer the rest?

Luc. All the regiment of 'em, or I'll break my bowstrings.' In this case the bowstrings are the strings of the bow of a musical instrument. For an illustration of Capell's note, see Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 2. II: He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring,' and so disabled him.

ACT II.

Scene I.

In the early copies Puck is called Robin good-fellow. See Preface. 3. Thorough. The spelling of the first quarto. The second quarto and the folios have ‘Through.' Drayton imitates this passage in his Nymphidia, 309-311:

Thorough Brake, thorough Brier,
Thorough Mucke, thorough Mier,
Thorough Water, thorough Fier!'

7. moon's, a disyllable, as 'Earth's' in The Tempest, iv. I. IIO:

'Earth's increase, foison plenty.'

Steevens quotes from Spenser, Fairy Queen, iii. 1. 15:

'And eke through fear as white as whales bone.'

Compare also iv. I. IOI of the present play, where the true reading is that of the first quarto:

'Trip we after night's shade.'

The second quarto and the folios read the night's,' in which modern editors have followed them; but this disturbs the accent of the verse.

G

Ib. sphere, orbit. See l. 153, and The Tempest, ii. 1. 183: 'You would lift the moon out of her sphere.' Also Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (Works ed. Dyce, 1862), p. 83:

'Be it to make the moon drop from her sphere.' 9. dew, bedew, water. Compare Venus and Adonis, 66: Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers, So they were dew'd with such distilling showers.'

And Romeo and Juliet, v. 3. 14:

'Which with sweet water nightly I will dew.'

Ib. orbs, the circles in the grass called fairy rings, popularly believed to be caused by the fairies dancing. See line 86, and compare The Tempest, v. I. 37:

'You demi-puppets that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make.'

And Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5. 69, 70 :

‘And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring.'

10. her pensioners, her body-guard. Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth both had such a band of attendants. Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 2. 79; of Mrs. Ford's suitors says Mrs. Quickly, and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners.' They were young gentlemen of rank and fortune who were selected for their handsome faces and figures. See Osborne's Traditional Memoirs of Queene Elizabeth (in Secret History of the Court of James the First, i. 55). Tyrwhitt quotes from Holles's Life of the first Earl of Clare: 'I have heard the Earl of Clare say, that when he was pensioner to the Queen, he did not know a worse man of the whole band than himself: and that all the world knew he had then an inheritance of £4000 a year.' From the present passage it may be inferred that their dress was splendid. When Queen Elizabeth visited Cambridge in 1564 she was present at a performance of the Aulularia of Plautus in the ante-chapel of King's College, on which occasion her gentlemen pensioners kept the stage, holding staff torches in their hands. (Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. 193.) II. spots. Compare Cymbeline, ii. 2. 38, 39 :

A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops

I' the bottom of a cowslip.'

12. favours, love-tokens. See iv. 1. 47, and Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 130:

'Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,

And then the king will court thee for his dear.'

14. go seek. See i. 1. 246.

15. a pearl in every cowslip's ear. There are numberless allusions to the wearing of jewels in the ear both by men and women, in Shakespeare and in contemporary writers. Compare Romeo and Juliet, i. 5. 48;