3 But who comes here? I am invisible; 3 And I will over-hear their conference. Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.4 Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. 3 I am invisible;] I thought proper here to observe, that as Oberon, and Puck his attendant, may be frequently observed to speak, when there is no mention of their entering, they are designed by the poet to be supposed on the stage during the greatest part of the remainder of the play; and to mix, as they please, as spirits, with the other actors; and embroil the plot, by their interposition, without being seen or heard, but when to their own purpose. Theobald. 4 The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.] The old copies read— "The one I'll stay, the other stayeth me." Steevens. Dr. Thirlby ingeniously saw it must be as I have corrected in the text. Theobald. 5 and wood within this wood,] Wood, or mad, wild, raving. Pope. In the third part of the Countess of Pembroke's Ivy-Church, 1591, is the same quibble on the word: 66 Daphne goes to the woods, and vowes herself to Diana; "Phœbus grows stark wood for love and fancie to Daphne." We also find the same word in Chaucer, in the character of the Monke, Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 184: "What shulde he studie, and make himselven wood ?" Spenser also uses it, Æglogue III. March: "The elf was so wanton, and so wode." "The name Woden," says Verstegan in his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, &c. 1605: " signifies fierce or furious; and in like sense we still retain it, saying, when one is in a great rage, that he is wood, or taketh on as if he were wood." Steevens. See Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II, sc. iii. Harris. 6 You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; But yet you draw not iron,] I learn from Edward Fenton's Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature, bl. 1. 1569, that—“ there is now a dayes a kind of adamant which draweth unto it fleshe, and the same so strongly, that it hath power to knit and tie together, Is true as steel: Leave you your power to draw, Dem. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you? Hel. And even for that do I love you the more. The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: What worser place can I beg in your love, Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; For I am sick, when I do look on thee. Hel. And I am sick, when I look not on you. Into the hands of one that loves you not; Hel. Your virtue is my privilege for that." two mouthes of contrary persons, and drawe the heart of a man out of his bodie without offendyng any parte of him." Steevens. 7 impeach your modesty —] i. e. bring it into question. So, in The Merchant of Venice, Act III, sc. ii: "And doth impeach the freedom of the state, 8 - for that.] i. e. For leaving the city, &c. Tyrwhitt. 9 It is not night, when I do see your face, &c.] This passage is paraphrased from two lines of an ancient poet [Tibullus]: 66 Tu nocte vel atra "Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis." Johnson. As the works of King David might be more familiar to Shakspeare than Roman poetry, perhaps, on the present occasion, the eleventh verse of the 139th Psalm, was in his thoughts: "Yea, the darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as the day." Steevens. Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company;1 When all the world is here to look on me? Dem. I'll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes, And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts. Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.' Dem. I will not stay thy questions; 3 let me go: But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. Hel. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, [Exeunt DEM. and HEL. Obe. Fare thee well, nymph! ere he do leave this grove, Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.— 1 Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company;] The same thought occurs in King Henry VI, P. II : "A wilderness is populous enough, "So Suffolk had thy heavenly company." Malone. 2 The wildest hath not such a heart as you.] "Mitius inveni quam te genus omne ferarum." Ovid. See Timon of Athens, Act IV, sc. i: 66 where he shall find "The unkindest beasts more kinder than mankind." S. W. 3 I will not stay thy questions;] Though Helena certainly puts a few insignificant questions to Demetrius, I cannot but think our author wrote-question, i. e. discourse, conversation. So, in As you like it: "I met the duke yesterday, and had much question with him." Steevens. 4 To die upon the hand, &c.] language, I believe, means two Gentlemen of Verona: To die upon, &c. in our author's to die by the hand." So, in The "I'll die on him that says so, but yourself." Steevens. Re-enter PUCK. Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. Obe. " And there the snake throws her enamell'❜d skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, And make her full of hateful fantasies. Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: 5 whereon -] The old copy reads-where. Mr. Malone supposes where to be used as a dissyllable; but offers no example of such a pronunciation. Steevens. 6 Where ox-lips-] The oxlip is the greater cowslip. So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song XV: "To sort these flowers of showe, with other that were sweet, "The cowslip then they couch, and th' oxlip for her meet." Steevens. 7 -the nodding violet-] i. e. that declines its head, like a drowsy person. Steevens. 3 Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,] All the old editions read luscious woodbine. On the margin of one of my folios an unknown hand has written lush woodbine, which, I think, is right. This hand I have since discovered to be Theobald's. Johnson. Lush is clearly preferable in point of sense, and absolutely necessary in point of metre. Oberon is speaking in rhyme; but woodbine, as hitherto accented upon the first syllable, cannot possibly correspond with eglantine. The substitution of lush will restore the passage to its original harmony, and the author's idea. Ritson. I have inserted lush in the text, as it is a word already used by Shakspeare in The Tempest, Act II: "How lush and lusty the grass looks? how green?" Both lush and luscious (says Mr. Henley) are words of the same origin. Dr. Farmer, however, would omit the word quite, as a useless expletive, and read: 66 O'er-canopied with luscious woodbine," Steevens. With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; 9 SCENE III. Another part of the Wood. Enter TITANIA, with her train. [Exeunt. 1 Tita. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song 1 the man hath on.] I desire no surer evidence to prove that the broad Scotch pronunciation once prevailed in England, than such a rhyme as the first of these words affords to the second. Steevens. 1 a roundel, and a fairy song;] Rounds, or roundels, were like the present contra dances, and are thus described by Sir John Davies, in his Orchestra, 1622: "Then first of all he doth demonstrate plain "The motions seven that are in nature found, * * * * * * * * "Thus when at first love had them marshalled, “In a round dance for ever wheeling be." Reed. A roundell, rondill, or roundelay, is sometimes used to signify a song beginning or ending with the same sentence; redit in orbem. Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, has a chapter On the roundel, or sphere, and produces what he calls A general resemblance of the roundel to God, and the queen. Steevens. A roundel is, as I suppose, a circular dance. Ben Jonson seems to call the rings, which such dances are supposed to make in the grass, rondels. Vol. V, Tale of a Tub, p. 23: "I'll have no rondels, I, in the queen's paths." Tyrwhitt. |