'It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear.'

Marlowe, Tamburlaine, First Part, i. I:

'With costly jewels hanging at their ears.'

In Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, iv. 7, Matthew says: 'O yes, I'll pawn this jewel in my ear.' Again, Every Man out of his Humour, Induction:

'Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words

As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears.'

16. thou lob. 'Lob' is equivalent to lubber, lout, and like them is used contemptuously. Other synonyms are given by Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) s. v. Lourdaut, which he defines by the following equivalents: 'A sot, dunce, dullard, grotnoll, iobernoll, blockhead; a lowt, lob, luske, boore, clowne, churle, clusterfist; a proud, ignorant, and vnmannerlie swaine.'

17. elues, fairies; A. S. alf. The singular occurs in v. I. 400: 'Every elf and fairy sprite.'

See notes on King Lear, ii. 3. 10, and The Tempest, v. I. 33.

20. fell, fierce; from Old French, fel, Italian fello, with which felon is connected. Compare Othello, v. 2. 362:

More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!'

Ib. wrath, wroth, angry. So written for the sake of the rhyme. In Anglo-Saxon wráð is both the substantive 'wrath,' and the adjective 'wroth.'

23. changeling, usually a child ieft by the speaker, it denotes the one taken by them.

fairies: here, as a fairy is the See Winter's Tale, iii. 3. 122:

'It was told me I should be rich by the fairies. This is some changeling: open't.'

(25.) to trace, to traverse, wander through. So Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 1. 16:

'As we do trace this alley up and down.'

Spenser uses it as equivalent to 'walk, travel.' See Fairy Queen, iv. 8. 34: 'How all the way the Prince on footpace traced.'

And vi. 3. 29:

'Not wont on foote with heavy armes to trace.' Holt White quotes from Milton, Comus, 423:

And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen,
May trace huge forests, and unharboured heaths."

29. sheen, shining, brightness. As in Hamlet, iii. 2. 167:

'And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen.'

Johnson takes it as an adjective, and renders it shining, bright, gay'; but Milton, with the passage in his mind, uses it as a substantive. See Comus, 1003:

But far above, in spangled sheen,

Celestial Cupid her famed son advanced.'

30. square, quarrel. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) has, 'Rioter. To chide, brabble, scould, brawle; iangle; debate, square, contend, fall out, in words.' Compare Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13. 41:

'Mine honesty and I begin to square.'

Again, Titus Andronicus, ii. I. 100:

And are you such fools

To square for this?'

Hence 'squarer'=quarreler; see Much Ado about Nothing, i. 1. 82: 'Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?' In his description of the singing in the church at Augsburg, Ascham uses the word 'square' in the sense of jar or discord: The præcentor begins the psalm, all the church follows without any square, none behind, none before, but there doth appear one sound of voice and heart amongst them all.' (Works, ed. Giles, i. 270.)

Ib. that, so that.

32. Either, used as a monosyllable. See ii. 2. 156, Macbeth, v. 7. 18, and Richard III, iv. 4. 182:

'Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance.'

So also 'neither,' 'whether,' are frequently metrical monosyllables.

-33. shrewd, mischievous. See note on As You Like It, v. 4. 165 (Clar. Press ed.).

рафа

Ib. sprite, the spelling of the first quarto, and in consequence of the rhyme the pronunciation of the other copies, although they read spirit.' See Macbeth, ii. 3. 84:

'As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites.'

34. Robin Goodfellow. See Preface.

35. That frights. The later folios read fright,' so as to agree with 'skim' &c., that follow. Others rectify the irregularity by reading skims,' labours,' and so on. But it is not necessary to correct what Shakespeare may very well have written. The first verb 'frights' is of course governed by 'he' which immediately precedes. The others are in agreement with 'you.' We have in English both constructions. For instance in Exodus vi. 7: And ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.' And in 2 Samuel v. 2: ‘Thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel.'

Ib. villagery, village population, and so peasantry. Johnson defines it as a district of villages, but it denotes rather a collection of villagers than a collection of villages. The first quarto reads 'Villageree'; the other old copies 'villagree' or 'vilagree.' No other instance of the word is recorded.

36. quern, a hand-mill.

A. S. cweorn or cwýrn; Gothic kwairnus. Compare Chaucer, Moukes Tale, 1. 14080 (ed. Tyrwhitt) of Samson:

'But now is he in prison in a cave,

Wheras they made him at the querne grinde.'

Johnson imagined a difficulty. The mention of the mill,' he says, 'seems out of place, for she is not now telling the good but the evil he does.' He suggested the transposition of lines 36 and 37, or the reading

And sometimes make the breathless housewife churn

Skim milk, and bootless labour in the quern.'

But the fairy is enumerating all Robin Goodfellow's pranks, and among them when he was in a good humour the old song makes him say (Percy's Reliques, vol. iii.):

'I grind at mill
Their malt up still.'

See the quotation from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy in the Preface. The only alternative is with Delius to regard 'quern' as equivalent to 'churn' for which there appears to be no authority.

√38. sometime, sometimes. Compare 'beside' and 'besides'; 'while' and 'whiles'; 'toward' and 'towards'; and see iii. 1. 98; iii. 2. 360.

Ib. barm, yeast; so called in many provincial dialects still: A. S. beorma. Cotgrave has, Leveton: m. Yeast, or Barme.'

39. night-wanderers. Milton had probably this passage in his mind when he described the Will o' the wisp (Paradise Lost, ix. 640) which

'Hovering and blazing with delusive light,

Misleads the amazed night wanderer from his way.'

Ib. harm, misfortune. Compare As You Like It, iii. 2. 80: Glad of other men's good, content with my harm.'

40. Hobgoblin. So Drayton, Nymphidia, 283:

'He meeteth Pucke, which most men call
Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall.'

47. a gossip's bowl, originally a christening cup; for a gossip or godsib was properly a sponsor. Hence, from signifying those who were associated in the festivities of a christening, it came to denote generally those who were accustomed to make merry together. Archbishop Trench mentions that the word retains its original signification among the peasantry of Hampshire. He adds, Gossips are, first, the sponsors, brought by the act of a common sponsorship into affinity and near familiarity with one another; secondly, these sponsors, who being thus brought together, allow themselves one with the other in familiar, and then in trivial and idle, talk; thirdly, any who allow themselves in this trivial and idle talk,-called in French "commérage," from the fact that "commère" has run through exactly the same stages as its English equivalent.' (English Past and Present, pp. 204-5, 4th ed.). Warton, in his note on Milton's L'Allegro, 100, identifies the spicy

nut-brown ale' with the gossip's bowl of Shakespeare. The composition was ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs or apples. It was called Lambs-wool.' See Breton's Fantastickes, January: An Apple and a Nutmeg make a Gossips cup.' Compare Comedy of Errors, v. I. 405:

'Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me.'

And Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5. 175:

'Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl.'

48. crab, crab apple. See King Lear, i. 5. 16: For though she's as like this as a crab's like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.'

50. dewlap, spelt 'dewlop' in the quartos and folios, is properly the loose skin which hangs from the throat of cattle. See iv. I. 121, and The Tempest, iii. 3. 45: 'Dewlapp'd like bulls.' Baret (Alvearie, s. v.) has: 'the Dewlap of a rudder beast, hanging downe vnder the necke. Palear.'

51. aunt, a familiar name for an old woman. Compare 'nuncle' in King Lear, i. 4. 117. It is elsewhere used in a bad sense, but not in this passage or in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, ii. I; where Justice Overdo in the habit of a fool says, 'Ale for thine aunt, boy.' Mr. Grant White remarks that 'In New England villages good-natured old people are still called "aunt" and "uncle" by the whole community.' In Cornwall, according to Pegge (Grose's Glossary), the same usage prevails.

Ib, saddest tale, most grave or serious story. Compare Merchant of Venice, ii. 2. 205:

Like one well studied in a sad ostent
To please his grandam';

where sad ostent' means an assumed appearance of gravity. In the present passage 'sad' may possibly be understood in its ordinary sense.

54. tailor. Johnson says, 'The custom of crying tailor at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair, falls as a tailor squats upon his board.' If this be not the true explanation it is at least the only one which has been proposed.

54-55. cough... laugh. The old copies for the sake of the rhyme print 'coffe loffe.'

56. waxen in their mirth, grow merrier and merrier. Farmer conjectured 'yoxen' or 'yexen, to hiccup; the latter was adopted by Singer. The old plural waxen' probably survived in the country dialects of Shakespeare's time.

Ib. neeze, sneeze; A. S. niesan, Germ. niesen. Similarly we find the two forms of the same word 'knap' and 'snap'; 'top' and 'stop,' 'cratch' and 'scratch'; 'lightly' and 'slightly'; 'quinsy' and 'squinancy.' In 2 Kings iv. 35 the text originally stood, ' And the child neesed seven times'; but the word has been altered in modern editions to sneezed.' In Job xli. 18 however ́neesings' still holds its place. Compare Homilies (ed. Griffiths, 1859), P, 227: ‘Using these sayings: such as learn, God and St. Nicholas

be my speed; such as neese, God help and St John; to the horse, God and St. Loy save thee.' Palsgrave (Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse) has, I nese, le esterne.' And Cotgrave gives both forms, Esternuer.

neeze, or sneeze.'

C

To

58. Johnson on account of the metre would read 'fairy' as a trisyllable. Dr. Abbott, for the same reason, would prolong room (Shakesperian Grammar, § 484). The metre is scarcely mended in either way. Pope read 'make room.' Dyce in his second edition read 'room, now.' Dr. Nicholson suggests 'roomer,' a sea term, which is applied to a ship when going from

the wind.

59. In the stage direction as it appears in the quartos and folios Oberon is called the King of Fairies,' and Titania 'the Queen.'

61. Fairies, skip hence. The old copies have Fairy,' which Capell understands of the leading fairy, her gentleman-usher, and therefore considers Theobald's change to Fairies' unnecessary. See however l. 144.

C

67. pipes of corn, made of oat straw. Ritson quotes from Chaucer [House of Fame, iii. 134]:

'And many a floyte and litling horne,

And pipes made of greene corne.'

Compare Cotgrave, ‘Sampongne: f. A bagpipe, or oaten pipe.' And Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 913:

'When shepherds pipe on oaten straws.'

Also Milton, Lycidas, 33:

• Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to the oaten flute.'

And Comus, 345:

'Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops.'

Ib. versing love, making love in verse.

69. steppe. So the first quarto. The second, followed by the folios, reads 'steepe'; and this was apparently in Milton's mind when he wrote Comus, 139:

'Ere the blabbing eastern scout,

The nice morn on the Indian steep
From her cabin'd loop-hole peep.'

To the reading' steppe' it is objected that the word in the sense in which it is applied to the vast plains of Central Asia was not known in Shakespeare's day, but it is dangerous to assert a proposition which may be disproved by a single instance of the contrary. There is certainly no a priori reason why the present passage should not furnish that instance, inasmuch as a word of similar origin, 'horde,' was perfectly well known in England at the beginning of the 17th century. On the other hand, too much weight must not be attached to the spelling of the first quarto, for in iii. 2. 85 'sleep' is misprinted' slippe.'