Select Plays; A Midsummer Night's Dream

ACT III.

Scene I.

2. Pat, pat, just, exactly. Compare King Lear, i. 2. 146: comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy.'

'And pat he

Id. marvellous. The first quarto reads 'marvailes,' as in iv. 1. 23, probably to represent the vulgar pronunciation. In the same manner wonders' is found for 'wondrous' in More's Utopia (ed. Arber), p. 136: 'And when they haue gotten it, they be wonders glad thereof.' Again, p. 141: Engines for warre they deuyse and inuent wonders wittelye.'

4. hawthorn brake, thicket of hawthorns. See ii. I. 227, and compare Milton, Comus, 147:

Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees.' Ib. our tiring-house, or dressing room.

7. bully, a term of familiarity addressed by his companions to a jolly blustering fellow. So the Host to Falstaff, in Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 3.6: Discard, bully Hercules; cashier.' Again, 1. 11; 'Said I well, bully Hector?' It occurs besides only in Henry V, and probably was a slang word which had come into use not long before 1600. Florio (Ital. Dict.) gives, 'Bullo, a swaggerer, a swash-buckler.'

12. By'r lakin, by our ladykin, or little lady. The sanie abbreviation is found in The Tempest, iii. 3. I:

'By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir.'

It occurs in a fuller form in Skelton's Magnyfycence, 1. 1830 (i. 285):
By our lakyn, syr, I haue ben a hawkyng for the wylde swan.'
In the first quarto it is spelt Berlakin': in the second and in the folios
'Berlaken.'

Ib. parlous, perilous, dangerous. See As You Like It, iii. 2. 45: Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.'

13. when all is done, after all. So Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 3. 63; Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 31: 'Excellent! why, this is the best fooling, when all is done.' And Macbeth, iii. 4. 67:

'When all's done,

You look but on a stool.'

15. Not a whit. As has been remarked in the note to As You Like It, iii. 2. 42 (Clar. Press ed.), this is a redundant expression, since 'not' itself is a contraction of nâwiht or nawhit.

16. seem to say. Venice, ii. 4. II:

signify.'

Compare Launcelot's language in The Merchant of An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem to

18. more better. This double comparative was common in Shakespeare's

time, and is suitable to Bottom as being rather exaggerated language, and not because it was thought ungrammatical. Compare the Tempest, i. 2. 19, 'Nor that I am more better

Than Prospero.'

22. in eight and six, that is, in alternate verses of eight and six syllables each; the common ballad metre.

25. afeard, afraid: though here used as a provincialism appropriate to rustics, the word was otherwise in good use. Compare The Merchant of Venice, ii. 7. 29:

'And yet to be afeard of my deserving
Were but a weak disabling of myself.'

26. I promise you, I assure you.

See line 179, and The Merchant of

Venice, iii. 5. 3: Therefore, I promise ye, I fear you.' 27. you ought to consider with yourselves. In the folios there is only a comma instead of a colon here, and the construction in this case is 'you ought to consider with yourselves (that) to bring in &c.'

28. It appears from a pamphlet quoted by Malone in his note on this passage (reprinted in Somers' Tracts, ii. 179) that at the christening of . Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I, in 1594, a triumphal chariot was brought in while the King and Queen were at dinner, drawn by 'a blackmoor.' 'This chariot, which should have been drawne in by a lyon, (but because his presence might have brought some feare to the nearest, or that the sight of the lights and torches might have commoved his tameness) it was thought meete that the Moor should supply that room.'

35. defect, for effect.' Bottom's blunders are generally very intelligible. 39. it were pity of my life, it were a sad thing for my life, that is, for me. See v. I. 221. It would seem that in this expression of my life' is either all but superfluous or else a separate exclamation, as in The Merry Wives of Windsor, i. I. 40: 'Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, this sword should end it.' The phrase occurs again in Measure for Measure, ii. 1. 77: 'It is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.' And in the same play, ii. 3. 42, compare "'Tis pity of him,' it is a sad thing for him.

41. Malone quotes from a collection of stories [made by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, according to a note of Sir F. Madden's] entitled Merry Passages and Jeasts (MS. Harl. 6395, fol, 36b); There was a spectacle presented to Q: Elizabeth vpon the water, and amongst others, Harr. Golding: was to represent Arion vpon the Dolphin's backe, but finding his voice to be very hoarse and vnpleasant when he came to performe it, he teares of his Disguise, and swears he was none of Arion not he, but eene honest Har. Goldingham; which blunt discoverie pleasd the Queene better, then if it had gone thorough in the right way; yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well,' The reader of Kenilworth will remember that Scott has transferred this story to 'honest Mike Lambourne.'

53. lanthorn. This spelling is purposely left on account of the joke in V. I. 231 This lanthorn doth the horned moon present.'

60. present, act the part of. See iii. 2. 14, and The Tempest, iv. 1. 167: 'When I presented Ceres.'

65. every mother's son. See i. 2. 80.

67. brake. See l. 4.

Ib. cue, a player's word; from Fr. queue, a tail. It technically denotes the last words of a speech which give the next speaker the hint when to begin. Hence it signifies generally the part an actor has to perform. See Othello, i. 2. 83:

'Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it,

Without a prompter.'

70. a play toward, or ready to be acted. Compare As You Like It, v. 4. 35 There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark.'

73. odious. The same blunder reversed put into Dogberry's mouth in Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 5. 18: Comparisons are odorous.'

76. awhile. Theobald reads a whit' to rhyme with 'sweet.' Malone supposes two lines to be lost, one rhyming with sweet,' the other with 'a while.'

84. juvenal. See Love's Labour's Lost, i. 2. 8: How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?' The word was affectedly used, and appears to have been designedly ridiculed by Shakespeare.

92. Malone proposed to print the line thus:

'If I were, fair Thisby, I were only thine.'

97. To make up the line Johnson proposed to read Through bog, through mire &c.'; Ritson, 'Through bog, through burn &c.'

98. Sometime, sometimes. See King Lear, ii. 3. 19:

'Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers.'

100. The folios here insert the stage direction, Enter Piramus with the Asse head,' which the quartos omit.

105. Johnson proposed to add to Snout's speech, 'An ass's head?' in order to give point to what Bottom says.

106. you see an ass-head of your own. Bottom indulges in what appears to have been a piece of familiar banter of the time, without knowing how much it affected himself. Compare Mrs. Quickly's speech in The Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 4. 134: 'You shall have an fool's head of your own.'

107. translated, transformed. See i. 1. 191.

114. The ousel cock, the male blackbird. In the quartos and folios it is spelt 'woosell,' or 'woosel,' and is probably the same as Fr. oiseau, of which the old form was oisel. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives, Merle : m. A Mearle, Owsell, Blackbird. Merle noir. The Blackbird, or ordinarie

Owsell.' Florio (Ital. Dict.) has, Merlo, an Owsell, a Blackmacke, a Merle, or Blacke-bird.' In a note written by Douce he says, on the authority of Lewin's English Birds, that the ousel differs from the blackbird by having a white crescent on the breast. This is true of what is now called the ring ousel. Willoughby (Ornithology, B. ii. ch. 16) says, 'Of Blackbirds or Ouzels England breeds and feeds three kinds, 1. The Common Blackbird; 2. The Ring-Ouzels; 3. The Water-Ouzel.' In Breton's Arbor of Amorous Devises [1587] occur the two following lines which Steevens quotes from Capell's copy in Trinity College Library :

The chattering Pie, the Iay, and eke the Quaile,

The Thrustle-Cock that was so blacke of hewe.'

115. orange-tawny. See i. 2. 85. This is descriptive of the colour of the bill of the male bird only, which is of a deep orange yellow. Compare Drayton, Polyolbion, xiii. 58:

'The Woosell neere at hand, that hath a golden bill.'

116. The throstle, or song-thrush. Compare The Merchant of Venice, i. 2. 65: If a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering.' Steevens quotes a passage from Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible (p. 200) to show that the throstle and thrush are different birds: There is also another sort of myrte or myrtle which is wilde, whose berries the mauisses, throssels, owsels, and thrushes, delite much to eate.' But it proves no more than that 'throssel,' 'mavis,' and 'thrush,' were names indiscriminately used for the same bird; for a mavis or mavish to this day is a thrush in Suffolk, and Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) has, Mauvis: f. A Mauis; a Throstle, or thrush.' In Willoughby's Ornithology (B. ii. ch. 17, § 2) is a section on The Mavis, Throstle, or Song-Thrush.' Compare Drayton's Shepherd's Gar

land, Eclogue iii. 67:

The wosell and the throstle cock, chief musick of our May.' 120. plain-song cuckoo, so called from his monotonous note. The plainsong was the simple melody on which variations were made. Warton quotes from Skelton [Works, ed. Dyce, i. 64] :

But with a large and a longe

To kepe iust playne songe

Our chanters shalbe the cuckoue,

The culuer, the stockedowue.'

123. would set his wit to so foolish a bird, would match his wit against a

cuckoo's.

fool's?'

So Troilus and Cressida, ii. 1. 94: Will you set your wit to a

127-129. In the folios and second quarto, line 129 precedes line 126. 128. thy fair virtue's force, the power of thy beauty.

134. gleek, jest, scoff. See Henry V, v. 1. 78:

'I have seen you gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice.' The substantive occurs in 1 Henry VI, iii. 2. 123:

Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his gleeks?' Staunton remarks upon this: The all-accomplished Bottom is boasting of his versatility. He has shown, by his last profound observation on the disunion of love and reason, that he possesses a pretty turn for the didactic and sententious; but he wishes Titania to understand that, upon fitting occasion, he can be as waggish as he has just been grave.' But a 'gleek' is rather a satirical than a waggish joke, and in this vein Bottom flatters himself he has just been rather successfully indulging. In Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary 'Glaik' is defined as a glance of the eye, or a reflected gleam or glance in general. Hence to fling the glaiks in one's e'en' is to dazzle the eyes, throw dust in one's eyes, and so to cheat. Similarly to play the glaiks with one' is to cheat; and to get the glaiks' is to be cheated. With the derived sense of 'glaik' compare 'glance' in this play, ii. I. 75.

140. still, ever, constantly. See iii. 2. 345, and The Merchant of Venice, i. I. 136:

'And if it stand, as you yourself still do,

Within the eye of honour.'

Ib. tend upon, wait upon. So King Lear, ii. 1. 97:

'Was he not companion with the riotous knights

That tend upon my father?'

144. jewels from the deep. Steevens quotes from Richard III [i. 4. 31]: 'Reflecting gems

Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep.'

To which may be added what occurs a few lines before:

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.'

148. Moth. Mr. R. G. White regards this as equivalent to 'Mote' and prints it accordingly. No doubt 'mote' is commonly though not uniformly spelt 'moth' in the early editions of Shakespeare. For instance in Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3. 161 the first folio has:

'You found his Moth, the King your Moth did see:

But I a Beame doe finde in each of three.'

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