8. discharge. See i. 2. 84.

14. a thing of naught. So the second and later folios. The quartos and first folio have a thing of nought.' The two words 'naught,' signifying worthlessness, good-for-nothingness, and 'nought' nothing, are etymologically the same, but the different senses they have acquired are distinguished in the spelling.

17. we had all been made men, our fortunes had all been made. Compare The Tempest, ii. 2. 31: There would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man.' And Twelfth Night, ii. 5. 168: 'Go to,

thou art made, if thou desirest to be so.'

22. sixpence a day. Steevens supposes that Shakespeare may allude to some actor, who, like Preston the author of Cambyses, was pensioned for his abilities on the stage.

Ib. in Pyramus, in the part of Pyramus.

Compare Twelfth Night, i. 5.

168: 'Tis with him in standing water, between boy and man'; that is, he is in the condition of standing water.

23. where are these hearts? these good fellows. So in Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 16: How now, my hearts!'

24. courageous. It is not worth while to guess what Quince intended to He used the first long word that occurred to him without reference to its meaning, a practice which is not yet altogether extinct.

say.

26. I am to discourse wonders. We should now say 'I have to discourse,' a form of phrase corresponding with, if not borrowed from, the French idiom. Dr. Abbott (Shakespearian Grammar, § 405) quotes from Florio's translation of Montaigne, p. 3: That ancient Painter who being to represent the griefe of the bystanders &c.,' where the original is 'ayant à représenter.' In Latin the construction would be represented by using the participle in -dus. Compare The Merchant of Venice, I. 5:

'But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.'

And Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii. 1. 59:

'I am to break with thee of some affairs.'

28. right, exactly.

30. good strings to your beards, to tie the false beards on with. Steevens thought these strings were something ornamental, but there appears to be no ground for supposing this.

34. preferred, offered for acceptance; if Bottom's words have a meaning, which is not always certain. Compare Julius Caesar, iii. 1. 28:

'Let him go,

And presently prefer his suit to Caesar.'

ACT V.

Scene I.

2. may, can. Compare The Merchant of Venice, i. 3. 7: May you stead me?' that is, can you assist me?

3. toys, trifles. Compare Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3. 170:

And critic Timon laugh at idle toys.'

4. such seething brains, such hot boiling brains, full of wild imaginations. Compare Winter's Tale, iii. 3. 64: Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather?' Delius quotes

from Macbeth, ii. I. 39:

A false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.'

5. that apprehend &c., that slightly catch at, as it were, or conceive the idea of more than reason can ever fully grasp or contain.

6

8. compact, formed, composed; literally, fastened or knit together. Compare Venus and Adonis, 149: Love is a spirit all compact of fire.' And Psalm cxxii. 3: 'Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together.' 11. a brow of Egypt, a swarthy brow, like a gipsy's. So in Othello, iii. 4. 56, Egyptian' is used for gipsy:

That handkerchief

Did an Egyptian to my mother give;

She was a charmer, and could almost read

The thoughts of people.'

14. bodies forth, gives them a bodily existence. 21. fear, cause or object of fear.

26. constancy, consistency, reality.

27. howsoever, nevertheless, in any case.

So in Troilus and Cressida, iii.

3. 297: If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will go one way or other howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.'

:

Ib. admirable, to be wondered at. So admired' is used in Macbeth, iii. 4. IIO:

'You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,

With most admired disorder.'

30. More (joy) than to us &c.

31. Wait in, unnecessarily changed to wait on' by Rowe. See note on ii. 1. 85.

34. our after supper, or rear-supper; not the time after supper, as it is usually explained, but a banquet so called which was taken after the meal. So in Richard III, iv. 3. 31:

'Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper.'

Cotgrave has 'Regoubilloner.

To make a reare supper, steale an after

supper; banquet late anights.' And Palsgrave (Lesclaircissement de la langue Francoyse) gives 'Rere supper-bancquet.'

38. Philostrate, the master of the revels. See i. 1. 11. So the quartos: the folios have Egeus.' Probably the same actor played both parts.

39. abridgement, an entertainment to make the time pass quickly. Used in Hamlet, ii. 2. 439, in a double sense, the entry of the players cutting "short Hamlet's talk: 'For look, where my abridgement comes.' Steevens quotes from Gawin Douglas's prologue to his translation of the fifth book of the Aeneid:

Ful mony myrry abaytmentis followis heir';

where 'abaitment' is clearly the same as the French 'esbatement,' which Cotgrave defines A sporting, playing, dallying, ieasting, recreation.'

41. the lazy time, which moves so slowly, and in which we are idle. 42. a brief, a short statement, containing the programme of the performance. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 138:

Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) has: 'Bref . . . A breefe, note, short writing.'

Ib. ripe, ready for representation. So the first quarto. The second quarto and folios read ' rife,' a mere misprint.

44. In the folios the reading from the brief is given to Lysander and the comments to Theseus. There is no such distinction in the quartos.

Ib. The battle with the Centaurs. Told by Nestor in the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The version by Theseus was different, for Nestor purposely omitted all mention of Hercules.

48. The death of Orpheus is told by Ovid, Metamorphoses, xi.

52. The thrice three Muses, &c. Warton suggested that Shakespeare here, perhaps, alluded to Spenser's poem, entitled The Tears of the Muses, on the neglect and contempt of learning. This piece first appeared in quarto with others, 1591.' It was supposed by Knight that the death of Greene may be here referred to, which took place in 1592.

54. critical, censorious; as Iago says of himself in Othello, ii. 1. 120: For I am nothing, if not critical.'

55. not sorting with, or agreeing with, not befitting. So 3 Henry VI, v. 5. 26:

His currish riddles sort not with this place.'

56. See note on i. 2. II.

59. Pope settled the difficulty in this line by omitting it altogether. Warburton read a wondrous strange shew.' Many other solutions have been proposed, none of them absolutely satisfactory; as 'strange black snow (Upton), 'strong snow' (Mason), 'seething snow' (Collier MS.), 'swarthy snow' (Staunton), 'staining snow' (Nicholson), 'sable snow' (Elze), ‘windrestraining snow' (Wetherell), and finally Sir Philip Perring has suggested

to me 'strange! hot snow,' or 'strange! jet snow.' From the words as they stand Steevens extracts a certain sense. He says 'The meaning of the line is-"hot ice, and snow of as strange a quality.' But there is no such antithesis between 'strange' and 'snow' as between 'hot' and 'ice,' and this is what is required.

69. Made mine eyes water. We must supply 'it' as the nominative; that is, the seeing of the play rehearsed. For this ellipsis see As You Like It, i. 1. 2, v. 4. 167, The Merchant of Venice, i. I. 98, and Abbott, § 399.

74. unbreathed, untrained, unpractised. Hamlet says (v. 2. 181), 'Tis the breathing time of day with me'; that is, the time for taking exercise. 75. nuptial. With only two exceptions Shakespeare always uses the singular form of this word. See note on i. I. 125.

79. their intents seems to be used in connexion with the following line, both for the endeavour and the object of the endeavour. Their intents or endeavours have been strained to the utmost to learn their parts which they have conned or studied with cruel pain. Delius makes 1. 79 parenthetic, and connects 1. 80 with 78; the play being 'extremely stretch'd' or spun out. 80. conn'd is the technical word for studying a part for the stage. See

i. 2. 90.

83. simpleness, simplicity, innocence. So Much Ado about Nothing, iii. I. 70:

90. to take.

'So turns she every man the wrong side out,

And never gives to truth and virtue that
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.'

See ii. 2. 46.

91, 92. And what poor duty, &c. Theobald read

And what poor willing duty cannot do,
Noble respect,' &c.

The defective metre has been amended by reading 'cannot do aright' (Seymour), 'cannot do, yet would' (Coleridge). Johnson interprets the passage thus, What the inability of duty cannot perform, regardful generosity receives as an act of ability, though not of merit'; but he thinks the contrary is rather true, and would read, 'takes not in might, but merit.' There is no need for change; the sense being, noble respect or consideration accepts the effort to please without regard to the merit of the performance. Compare Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 517:

'That sport best pleases that doth least know how,' &c. Steevens takes 'might' as an elliptical expression for 'what might have been,' but this does not seem likely.

93. clerks, scholars, learned men; learning having been at one time almost confined to the clergy. Compare Pericles v, Prologue 5: 'Deep clerks she dumbs'; that is, she puts to silence profound scholars.

96. periods, full stops.

105. to my capacity, so far as I am able to understand.

106. address'd, ready, prepared. Compare Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. 29: 'He is address'd: press near and second him.'

And 2 Henry IV, iv. 4. 5:

'Our navy is address'd, our power collected.'

107. Steevens quotes the following passage from Dekker's Guls Hornbook, c. vi. (1609) to show that the prologue was anciently ushered in by trumpets: 'Present not yourselfe on the stage (especially at a new play) until the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got cullor in his cheekes, and is ready to give the trumpets their cue that hee's upon point to enter.'

118. doth not stand upon points, is not very particular, with a reference to his not minding his stops. Compare 3 Henry VI, iv. 7. 58:

Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?'

For a similar joke compare Roister Doister's letter to Mistress Custance (Roister Doister, iii. 3).

120. the stop, a term in horsemanship; used here in a punning sense. Compare A Lover's Complaint, 109:

'What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes !' 122. a recorder, a kind of flageolet, or flute with a mouthpiece. See note on Hamlet, iii. 2. 262 (Clar. Press ed.).

123. in government. So Hamlet in giving directions for playing on the recorder (iii. 2. 372) says, 'Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb.'

125. The folios have here the stage direction 'Tawyer with a Trumpet before them,' where 'Tawyer' looks like a misprint for Players,' unless it is the name of the actor who played the part of prologue.

129. certain. A most convenient word for filling up a line and at the same time conveying no meaning. Instances of its occurrence are common, and to those given by Steevens may be added from Sir Generydes (Early Eng. Text Soc.), 4693 :

'Sir Amelok hath a doughter certayn.'

130. present. See iii. 1. 60.

136. think no scorn, not disdain. See 2 Henry VI, iv. 2. 13: The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.' And Love's Labour's Lost, i. 2. 66: 'I think scorn to sigh.'

137. Ninus' tomb. See Golding's Ovid, iv. fol. 44 a:

'They did agree at Ninus Tombe to meet without the towne.' 138. hight, was called; here used as an intentional archaism, as in Love's Labour's Lost, i. I. 171:

This child of fancy that Armado hight.'

It was in common use in old writers, and is equivalent to the Germ. heissen; A. S. hátan; Goth. haitan.