PUCK. If we shadows have offended. Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, [Exit. VARIOUS READINGS. "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, (ACT II., Sc. 1.) Steevens, who hated variety in metre, gives us, 'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows.' For the same love of counting syllables upon the fingers, the luscious woodbine of the old copies was changed into lush woodbine. Farmer, who knew as little about the melody of verse as Steevens, would read (omitting quite), 'O'er-canopied with luscious Now, are we to abandon these lines, in their original integrity, "As sweet, as musical, As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair," having rejected the bidding of the Steevenses and the Farmers, at the command of the corrector and emendator of the second folio? But, mending the sense as well as the metre (according to these notions), is the corrector to force on us bowers instead of flowers? What have the ox-lips, and the wild thyme, and the violet done, that they are to be excluded from Titania's bed? E "What! can you do me greater harm than hate? "Hate me! wherefore? O, me! what means my love?" (ACT III., Sc. 2.) The Corrector is, we think, right. Although 'news' was not always used in the present familiar sense, and may here signify "what is this new feeling ?"-there is something harsh in the expression, and means might be safely adopted. GLOSSARY. ABRIDGMENT. Act V., Sc. 1. "Say, what abridgment have you for this evening." What pastime, what employment, have you to abridge "the lazy time." ABY IT. Act III., Sc. 2. "Thou shalt aby it." The word is also used by Demetrius in an earlier part of this ADDRESSED. Act V., Sc. 1. "So please your grace, the prologue is address'd." Address'd is ready. BARM. Act II., Sc. 1. "Sometime make the drink to bear no barm." Barm is still a provincial term for yeast. Burns has, Searching auld wives' barrels 66 Och-hon! the day! That clarty barm should stain my laurels." BERGOMASK DANCE. Act V., Sc. 1. An Italian dance, after the manner of the peasants of Bergo masco. BETEEM. Act I., Sc. 1. "Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes." "So would I; said the enchanter, glad and fain, BY 'RLAKIN. Act III., Sc. 1. little lady. CHANGELING. Act II., Sc. 1. A petty oath. By our ladykin, our "She never had so sweet a changeling." Changeling is a child procured in exchange. CHEER. Act III., Sc. 2. "All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer." Face; from the French chère. CHILDING. Act II., Sc. 2. "The childing autumn." Childing is producing. In his ninety-seventh sonnet, Shakspere has the "teeming autumn," which is the same idea. COLLIED. Act I., Sc. 1. "Brief as the lightning in the collied night." Black, smutted. The word collied is still used in this sense by the colliers of Staffordshire. Shakspere found it there, and removed it to the regions of poetry. CONTINENTS. Act II., Sc. 2. "That they have overborne their continents." Their banks. A continent is that which contains or keeps in, from the Latin continere. CURST. Act III., Sc. 2. Shrewish. DEWBERRIES. Act III., Sc. 1. "Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries." The dewberry is the fruit of a kind of bramble, the Rubus casius of botanists, and is perfectly well known to every one who has lived in the country; but one of the commentators tells us that dewberries are gooseberries, and another that they are raspberries. "While I thy amiable cheeks do coy." Do coy is here to caress. DUKE. Act I., Sc. 1. "Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke." Duke, a corruption of the Latin dux, a warlike leader, was used in a general and indefinite sense by our older writers. In the common translation of the Bible, in Chronicles, we have a list of the Dukes of Edom. Gower has Duke Spartacus; Chaucer, Duke Theseus; and Stonyhurst, in his translation of the Eneid, Duke Eneas; so that Steevens was not justified in calling it "a misapplication of a modern title." EIGHT AND SIX. Act III., Sc. 1. "It shall be written in eight and six.” That is, written in verses of eight and six syllables alternately. ERCLES. Act I., Sc. 2. "This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein." Hercules was one of the roaring heroes of the rude productions of the dramatists preceding Shakspere. FAIR. Act I., Sc. 1. "Demetrius loves your fair." Fair is here used as a substantive for beauty. In the 'Comedy of Errors' we have, 66 My decayed fair, A sunny look of his would soon repair." FALL. Act V., Sc. 1. 66 And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall." The verb is here used actively, a common practice among our older writers. "Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers." Fancy's followers are here the followers of love. Fancy is used in the same sense as in the song in the 'Merchant of Venice,' "Tell me where is fancy bred;" and it is used in a similar way in three passages of the present play. In Act II., Sc. 2, we have, "In maiden meditation, fancy free;" In Act III., Sc. 2, "All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer;" And in Act IV., Sc. 1, "Fair Helena in fancy following me." FAVOUR. Act I., Sc. 1. "Sickness is catching; O, were favour so." Favour is features, appearance, outward qualities. The word is used in the same sense in 'Cymbeline,' 'Measure for Measure,' and 'Hamlet.' We have still the expression wellfavoured with the same meaning. |