Let her shine as gloriously Re-enter PUCK. Puck. Captain of our fairy band, And the youth, mistook by me, Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! Obe. Stand aside: the noise they make, Will cause Demetrius to awake. Puck. Then will two at once, woo one; And those things do best please me, That befal preposterously. Enter LYSANDER and HELENA. Lys. Why should you think, that I should woo in scorn? Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, How can these things in me seem scorn to you, Hel. You do advance your cunning more and more. Lys. I had no judgment, when to her I swore. To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? 5 Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?] This is said in allusion to the badges (i. e. family crests) anciently worn on the sleeves of servants and retainers. So, in The Tempest: "Mark the badges of these men, and then say if they be true." Steevens. E e Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow! 6 9 Taurus' snow,] Taurus is the name of a range of mountains in Asia. Johnson. 7 This princess of pure white,] Thus all the editions, as low as Sir Thomas Hanmer's. He reads: This pureness of pure white; and Dr. Warburton follows him. The old reading may be justified from a passage in Sir Walter Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, where the pine-apple is called The princess of fruits. Again, in Wyat's Poems: "Of beauty princesse chief." Steevens. 8 image: · seal of bliss!] He has in Measure for Measure, the same "But my kisses bring again, "Seals of love, but scal'd in vain.” Johnson. More appositely, in Antony and Cleopatra: "My play-fellow, your hand; this kingly seal, 9 join, in souls,] i. e. join heartily, unite in the same mind. Shakspeare, in K. Henry V, uses an expression not unlike this: "For we will hear, note, and believe in heart;" i. e. heartily believe: and in Measure for Measure, he talks of electing with special soul. In Troilus and Cressida, Ulysses, relating the character of Hector, as given him by Æneas, says: with private soul 66 "Did in great Ilion, thus translate him to me." And, in All Fools, by Chapman, 1605, is the same expression as that for which I contend: Happy, in soul, only by winning her." Again, in a masque called Luminalia, or The Festival of Light, 1637: "You that are chief in souls, as in your blood." Again, in Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil, 1595; whose subversion in soul they have vow'd." If you were men, as men you are in show, You would not use a gentle lady so; To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts, A poor soul's patience,3 all to make you sport. Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. XII, ch. lxxv: "Could all, in soul, of very God say as an Ethnick said "To one that preached Hercules?". Again, in our author's Twelfth Night: "And all those swearings keep as true in soul." Sir T. Hanmer would read-in flouts; Dr. Warburton, insolents. Steevens. I rather believe the line should be read thus: "But you must join, ill souls, to mock me too?" Ill is often used for bad, wicked. So, in The Sea Voyage of Beaumont and Fletcher, Act IV, sc. i: They did begin to quarrel like ill men;" which I cite the rather, because ill had there also been changed into in, by an error of the press, which Mr. Sympson has corrected from the edition, 1647. Tyrwhitt. This is a very reasonable conjecture, though I think it hardly right. Johnson. We meet with this phrase in an old poem by Robert Dabourne: Men shift their fashions 66 "They are in souls the same." Farmer. A similar phraseology is found in Measure for Measure: 1 A trim exploit, a manly enterprise, &c.] This is written much in the manner and spirit of Juno's reproach to Venus in the fourth Book of the Eneid: 2 66 Egregiam vero laudem et spolia ampla refertis, “Tuque puerque tuus; magnum et memorabile nomen, "Una dolo divûm si fœmina victa duorum est." Steevens. •none, of noble sort,] Sort is here used for degree or quality. So, in the old ballad of Jane Shore: 3 "Long time I lived in the court, "With lords and ladies of great sort." Malone. extort A poor soul's patience,] Harass, torment. Johnson. Lys. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so; Hel. Never did mockers waste more idle breath. My heart with her but, as guest-wise, sojourn'd; There to remain. Lys. Helen, it is not so. Dem. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know, Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear. Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear. Enter HERMIA. Her. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes, The ear more quick of apprehension makes; Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense, It pays the hearing double recompense:Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found; Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound. But why unkindly didst thou leave me so? Lys. Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go? Her. What love could press Lysander from my side? Lys. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide, Fair Helena; who more engilds the night Than all yon fiery oes5 and eyes of light. 4 My heart with her but, as guest-wise, sojourn'd; And now to Helen it is home return'd,] The ancient copies read-" to her." Dr. Johnson made the correction, and exemplified the sentiment by the following passage from Prior: "No matter what beauties I saw in my way: "They were but my visits; but thou art my home." Steevens. So, in our author's 109th Sonnet: 5 "This is my home of love; if I have rang'd, "Like him that travels, I return again." Malone. all yon fiery oes-] Shakspeare uses O for a circle. So, in the prologue to King Henry V: 66 can we crowd "Within this little O, the very casques Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know, Her. You speak not as you think; it cannot be. Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd, 6 The sister's vows, the hours that we have spent, All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence? Again, in The Partheneia Sacra, 1633: 8 the purple canopy of the earth, powder'd over and beset with silver oes, or rather an azure vault," &c. Again, in John Davies of Hereford's Microcosmos, 1605, p. 233: "Which silver oes and spangles over-ran." Steevens. D'Ewes's Journal of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments, p. 650, mentions a patent to make spangles and oes of gold; and I think haberdashers call small curtain rings, O's, as being circular. Tollet. 6 The sister's vows,] We might read, more elegantly-The sister vows, and a few lines lower,-All school-day friendship. The latter emendation was made by Mr. Pope; but changes, merely for the sake of elegance, ought to be admitted with great caution. Malone. 7 For parting us,-0, and is all forgot?] The first folio omits the word-and. I have received it from the folio, 1632. Malone reads-now. Steevens. Mr. The editor of the second folio, to complete the metre, introduced the word and;-" O, and is all forgot?" It stands so aukwardly, that I am persuaded it was not our author's word. Malone. O, and is all forgot?] Mr. Gibbon observes, that in a poem of Gregory Nazianzen on his own life, are some beautiful lines, which burst from the heart, and speak the pangs of injured and lost friendship, resembling these. He adds, " Shakspeare had never read the poems of Gregory Nazianzen: he was ignorant of the Greek language; but his mother tongue, the language of nature, is the same in Cappadocia and in Britain." Gibbon's Hist. Vol. III, p. 15. Reed. 8 artificial gods,] Artificial is ingenious, artful. Steevens. |