Ib. sphere, orbit. See 1. 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. I. 47, and Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 130:

'Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,

14. go seek.

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

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

Marlowe, Tamburlaine, First Part, i. 1:

'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. elves, 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 fairies: here, as a fairy is the speaker, it denotes the one taken by them. 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:

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:

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.).

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 re

corded.

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.'

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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:

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'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. 1. 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

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