The Plays of William Shakspeare

But, being over-full of self-affairs,

My mind did lofe it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you fhall go with me,
I have fome private fchooling for you both.-
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or elfe the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate,)
To death, or to a vow of fingle life. —
Come, my Hippolyta; What cheer, my love?-
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along:

I must employ you in fome business
Against our nuptial; and confer with you
Of fomething nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGE. With duty, and defire, we follow you.
[Exeunt THES. HIP. EGE. DEM. and train.
Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek

fo pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HER. Belike, for want of rain; which I could

well

Beteem them from the tempeft of mine eyes.

Lys. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or hiftory,

The courfe of true love never did run fmooth:

is ufed by Spenfer. JOHNSON.

“So would I, said th' enchanter, glad and fain

"Beteem to you his fword, you to defend." Faery Queen. Again, in The Cafe is Altered. How? Afk Dalio and Milo, 1605: "I could beteeme her a better match."

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

STEEVENS. 3 The courfe of true love ]This paffage feems to have been imitated by Milton. Paradife Loft, B. X. 896. & feqq.

MALONE.

But, either it was different in blood;

HER. Ocross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!*
Lys. Or elfe mifgraffed, in respect of years;
HER. O fpite! 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 fympathy in choice,
War, death, or fickness did lay siege to it;
Making it momentany as a found,

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

too high to be enthrall'd to low!] Love - poffeffes all the editions, but carries no juft meaning in it. Nor was Hermia difpleas'd at being in love; but regrets the inconveniences that generally attend the paffion; either, the parties are disproportioned, in degree of blood and quality; or unequal, in refped of years; or brought together by the appointment of friends, and not by their own choice. These are the complaints reprefented by Lyfander; and Hermia, to answer to the firft, as fhe has done to the other two, muft neceffarily say:

"O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!

So the antithefis is kept up in the terms; and fo fhe is made to condole the difproportion of blood and quality in lovers.

THEOBALD.

The emendation is fully supported, not only by the tenour of the preceding lines, but by a paffage in our author's Venus and Adonis, in which the former predicts that the courfe of love never fhall run fmooth :

"Sorrow on love hereafter fhall attend,

"Ne'er fettled equally, too high, or low," &c. MALONE.. — momentany as a found,] Thus the quartos. The fift folio reads - momentary. Momentany (lays Dr. Johnfon) is the old and proper word. STEEVENS.

แ

that short moméntany rage,” — is an expreffion of Dryden. HENLEY,

6 Brief as the lightning in the collied night, ] Collied, i. e. black, fmutted with coal, a word ftill used in the midland counties. So, in Ben Jonson's Poetafler:

66 Thou haft not collied thy face enough." STEEVENS

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to fay, - Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:7
So quick bright things come to confufion.

HER. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It flands as an edict in defliny:

Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a cuftomary cross;

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

Lys. A good perfuafion; therefore, hear me, Herinia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and fhe hath no child:
From Athens is her houfe remote feven leagues; 9
And the refpecs me as her only fon.

The jaws of darkness do devour it up: ] 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, affumes every now and then, an uncommon licence in the ufe of his words. Particularly in complex moral modes it is ufual with him to employ one, only to exprefs a very few ideas of that number of which it is compofed, Thus wanting here to express the ideas of a fudden, or in a trice, he ufes the word Spleen; which, partially confidered, fignifying a hafly fudden fit, is enough for him, and he never troubles himself about the further or fullèr fignification of the word. Here, he ufes the word Spleen for a fudden hafty fit; so just the contrary, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, he ufes fudden for fplenetic: "fudden quips." And it must be owned this fort of converfation adds a force to the diction.

play

WARBURTON.

fancy's followers. ] Fancy is love. So afterwards in this

"Fair Helena in fancy following me." STEEVENS.

9 From Athens is her house remote feven leagues, Remote is the reading of both the quartos; the folio has remov'd.

STEEVENS.

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

HER.

My good Lyfander!
I swear to thee, by Cupid's frongest bow;
By his best arrow with the golden head;
By the fimplicity of Venus' doves;.

By that which knitteth fouls, and profpers loves;
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
When the falfe Trojan under fail was feen;
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke; -
In that fame place thou haft appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

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

Enter HELENA.

HER. God speed, fair Helena! Whither away?
HEL. Call you me fair? that fair again unfay.

his bet arrow with the golden head; ] So, in Sidney's

Arcadia, Book II:

arrowes two, and tint with gold or lead:

"Some hurt, accufe a third with horny head."

STEEVENS.

by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,] Shakspeare had forgot that Thefeus performed his exploits before the Trojan war, and confequently long before the death of Dido.

STEEVENS.

Demetrius loves your fair: 3 O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-flars; and your tongue's fweet

air

More tuneable than lark to fhepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O, were favour fo!'
Your's would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;

3 Demetrius loves your fair:] Fair is used again as a substantive in The Comedy of Errors, A& III. fc. iv:

My decayed fair,

"A funny look of his would foon repair."

Again, in The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

"But what foul hand hath harm'd Matilda's fair?" Again, in A Looking-Glafs for London and England 1598: "And fold in me the riches of thy fair.

Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

"Then tell me, love, fhall I have all thy fair?" Again, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "Though fhe were falfe to Menelaus, yet her fair made him brook her follies." Again :

"Flora in tawny hid up all her flowers,

"And would not diaper the meads with fair." STEEVENS. 4 Your eyes are lode-ftars; ] This was a compliment not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode ftar is the leading or guiding ftar, that is, the pole-ftar. The magnet is, for the fame reafon, called the lode-ftone, either because it leads iron, or because itguides the failor. Milton has the fame thought in L'Allegro :

"Towers and battlements it fees