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Upon this spotted and inconstant man. 3

The. I must confess, that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,

My mind did lose it.-But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
I have some private schooling for you both.
-For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death, or to a vow of single life.

-Come, my Hippolyta ; What cheer, my love?
-Demetrius, and Egeus, go along :

I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial; and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
Ege. With duty and desire, we follow you.

[Exe. THES. HIP. EGEUS, DEM. and train. Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Her. Belike, for want of rain; which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes.

Lys. Ah me for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
(The course of true love never did run smooth
But, either it was different in blood ;-

Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low !
Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years-
Her. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young
Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends ;-
Her. O hell! to choose love by another's eye!
Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;
Making it momentary as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

[3] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked.

5

JOHNSON.

[4] Give them, bestow upon them. The word is used by Spenser, JOH. "So would I, said the enchanter, glad and fain

"Beteem to you his sword, you to defend." Fairy Queen.

But I rather think that to beteem, in this place, signifies (as in the northern counties) to pour out; from tomner, Danish, STEEVENS.

[5] Collied, i.e. black, smutted with coal, a word still used in the mid land counties. STEEVENS.

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say,-Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,

It stands as an edíct in destiny:

Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross;

As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs,
Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers.

Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child:

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;

And she respects me as her only son.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us: If thou lov'st me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee.

Her. My good Lysander!

I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow;
By his best arrow with the golden head;

By the simplicity of Venus' doves;

By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves :
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
When the false Trojan under sail was seen;
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke ;—
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow, truly will I meet with thee.

Lys. Keep promise, love: Look, here comes Helena.

[6] Though the word spleen be here employed oddly enough, yet I believe it right, Shakspeare, always hurried on by the grandeur and multitude of his ideas, assumes every now and then an uncommon license in the use of his words. Particularly in complex moral modes it is usual with him to employ one, only to express a very few ideas of that number of which it is composed. Thus, wanting here to express the ideas-of a sudden, or-in a trice, he uses the word spleen; which, partially considered, signifying a hasty sudden fit, is enough for him, and he never troubles himself about the further or fuller signification of the word. Here, he uses the word spleen for a sudden hasty fit; so just the contrary, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, he uses sudden for splenetic: " sudden quips." And it must be owned this ort of conversation adds a force to the diction. WARBURTON.

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Enter HELENA.

Her. God speed fair Helena ! Whither away?
Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair : O happy fair!

Your eyes are load-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,

When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O, were favour so ! &
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go ;

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch you tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'll give to be to you translated.9
O, teach me how you look; and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move!
Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

Hel. None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were
mine!

Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face; Lysander and myself will fly this place.—

Before the time I did Lysander see,

Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me :

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O then, what graces in my love do dwell,

That he hath turn'd a heaven unto hell!

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow-night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watry glass,

[7] This was a compliment not unfrequent among the old poets. The lodestar is the leading or guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the same reason, called the lode-stone, either because it leads iron, or be'cause it leads the sailor. Davies calls Queen Elizabeth :

JOHNSON.

STEEVENS.

"Lode-stone to hearts, and lode-stone to all eyes.". [8] Favour is feature, countenance. STEEVENS. [9] To translate, here signifies to change, to transform. [1] Perhaps every reader may not discover the propriety of these lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to consider the power of pleasing, as an advantage to be much envied or much desired, since Hermia, whom she considers as possessing it in the supreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness. JOHNSON.

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,)
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
Her. And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet :2
There my Lysander and myself shall meet :
And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius !
-Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight.
Lys. I will, my Hermia.-Helena, adieu :
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

[Exit.

[Exit.

Hel. How happy some, o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind :
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste :
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil❜d.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjur'd every where :
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, 3
He hail'd down oaths, that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he, to-morrow night,
Pursue her; and for this intelligence

If I have thanks, it is a dear expense :

[2] Mr. Heath observes, that our author seems to have had the following passage in the 55th Psalm, (v. 14, 15,) in his thoughts: "But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend. We took sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends.” MAL, [3] Eyne-This plural is common both in Chaucer and Spenser. STEEV.

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But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither, and back again.

SCENE II.

[Exit.

The same. A Room in a Cottage. Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING. 4

Quin. Is all your company here?

Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.5

Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and duchess, on his wedding-day at night.

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.

Quin. Marry, our play is-The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

6

Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.-Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll :-Masters, spread yourselves.

Quin. Answer, as I call you.-Nick Bottom, the weaver. Bot. Ready: Name what part I am for, and proceed. Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?

Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love. Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure.7 To the rest:-Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

[4] In this scene Shakspeare takes advantage of his knowledge of the theatre, to ridicule the prejudices and competitions of the players. Bottom, who is generally acknowledged the principal actor, declares his inclination to be for a tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man pants to perform when he first steps upon the stage. The same Bottom, who seems bred in the tiring-room, has another histrionical passion. He is for engrossing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all possibil ity of distinction. He is therefore desirous to play Pyramus, Thisby, and the Lion, at the same time. JOHNSON.

[5] A scrip, Fr. escript, now written ecrit.

STEEVENS.

[6] This is very probably a burlesque on the title page of Cambyses: "A lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of pleasant Mirth," &c. STEEV.

[7] When we use this verb at present, we put with before the person for whose misfortune we profess concern. Anciently it seems to have been employed without it. STEEV.

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