And tailor cries, and falls into a cough, And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe; 8 But room, Faery, here comes Oberon. Fai. And here my miftrefs :-'Would that he were gone! SCENE II. Enter OBERON,9 at one door, with his train, and TITANIA, at another, with hers. Obe. Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania. Tita. 6 The cuftom of crying tailor at a fudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have obferved. He that flips befide his chair, falls as a tailor fquats upon his board. The Oxford editor, and Dr. Warburton after him, read and rails or cries, plaufibly, but I believe not rightly. Befides, the trick of the fairy is reprefented as producing rather merriment than anger. JOHNSON. This phrafe perhaps originated in a pun. Your tail is now in the ground. See Camden's Remaines, 1614. PROVERBS. "Between two ftools the tayle goeth to the ground." MALONE. 7 And encreafe, as the moon waxes. JOHNSON, A feeble fente may be extracted from the foregoing words as they ftand; but Dr. Farmer obferves to me that saxen is probably corrupted from yoxen, or yexen. Yoxe, Saxon, to biccup. Yyxyn, Singultia. Prompt. Parv. That yex, however, was a familiar word fo late as the time of Ainfworth the lexicographer, is clear from his having produced it as a translation of the Latin fubftantive-fingultus. The meaning of the paffage before us will then be, that the objects of Puck's waggery laughed till their laughter ended in a yex or hiccup. It should be remembered, in fupport of this conjecture, that Puck is at present speaking with an affectation of ancient phraseology. STEEVENS. 9 Thus the old copies. Some of our modern editors read-"But make room, Fairy." The word Fairy, or Faery, was fometimes of three fyllables, as often in Spenfer. JOHNSON. 9 Oberen had been introduced on the stage in 1594, by fome other author. In the Stationers' books is entered "The Scottishe story of James the fourthe, flain at Flodden, intermixed with a pleasant comedie prefented by Oberon, King of Fairies." STEEVENS. 2 As to the Fairy Queen, (fays Mr. Warton in his Obfervations on Spenfer,) confidered apart from the race of fairies, the notion of such an ima ginary perfonage was very common. STEEVENS. Tita. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence; Obe. Tarry, rash wanton; Am not I thy lord? Obe. How canft thou thus, for fhame, Titania, Knowing I know thy love to Thefeus? Didft thou not lead him through the glimmering night 3 And make him with fair Æglé break his faith,. With Ariadne, and Antiopa? Tita. Thefe are the forgeries of jealoufy: And never, fince the middle fummer's fpring,s G 4 Met 3 The glimmering night is the night faintly illuminated by stars. Ima Macbeth our author fays: "The weft yet glimmers with fome streaks of day." STEEVENS. 4 Thus all the editors, but our author who diligently perus'd Plutarch, and glean'd from him, where his fubject would admit, knew, from the life of Thefeus that her name was Perygine, (or Perigune,) by whom Thefeus had his fon Melanippus. She was the daughter of Sinnis, a cruel robber, and tormenter of paffengers in the Ifthmus. Plutarch and Athenæus are both exprefs in the circumftance of Thefeus ravishing her. THEOBALD. In North's tranflation of Plutarch (Life of Thefeus) this lady is called Perigouna. The alteration was probably intentional, for the fake of harmony. Her real name was Perigune. MALONE. 5 By the middle fummer's spring, our author seems to mean the beginning of middle or mid. fummer. STEEVENS. The middle fummer's Spring, is, I apprehend, the feafon when trees put forth their fecond, or as they are frequently called their midfummer boots. Thus, Evelyn in his Silva: "Cut off all the fide boughs, and especially at midfummer, if you spy them breaking out." And again, Where the rows and brush lie longer than midfummer, unbound, or made up, yɔu endanger the lofs of the fecond spring." HENLEY. Met we on hill, in dale, foreft, or mead. And 6 A fountain laid round the edge with stone. JOHNSON, Perhaps paved at the bottom. So, Lord Bacon in his Effay on Gardens: "As for the other kind of fountaine, which we may call a bathing poole, it may admit much curiofity and beauty.... As that the bottom be finely paved the fides likewife," &c. STEEVENS. The epithet feems here intended to mean no more than that the beds of thefe fountains were covered with pebbles in oppofition to those of the rufhy brooks which are oozy. HENLEY. 7 Thus the quartos: the folio reads-petty. Shakspeare has in Lear the fame word, low pelting farms. The meaning is plainly, defpicable, mean, forry, wretched, but as it is a word without any reasonable etymology, Í fhould be glad to difmifs it for petty: yet it is undoubtedly right. We have petty pelting officer" in Measure for Measure. JoHNSON. 8 Born down the banks that contain them. MALONE. 9 The murrain is the plague in cattle. It is here ufed by Shakspeare as an adjective: as a fubftantive by others. STEEVENS. 2 In that part of Warwickshire where Skakspeare was educated, and the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives to reprefent a fort of imperfect chefs-board. It confifts of a fquare, fometimes only a' foot diameter, fometimes three or four yards. Within this is another fquare, every fide of which is parallel to the external fquare; and thefe fquares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both fquares, and the middle of each line. One party, or player, has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in fuch a manner as to take up each other's men as they are called, and the area of the inner fquare is called the Pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. Thefe figures are by the country people And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,3 G 5 No people called Nine Men's Morris, or Merrils; and are fo called, because each party has nine men. Thefe figures are always cut upon the green turf or leys, as they are called, or upon the grafs at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be choaked up with mud. JAMES. Nine mens' morris is a game still play'd by the fhepherds, cow-keepers, &c. in the midland counties, as follows: A figure is made on the ground (like this which I have drawn) by cutting out the turf; and two perfons take each nine ftones, which they place by turns in the angles, and afterwards move alternately, as at chefs or draughts. He who can place three in a ftraight line, may then take eff any one of his adversary's, where he pleases, till one, having lost all his men, lofes the game. ALCHORNE. 3 This alludes to a fport fill followed by boys; i, e, what is now called running the figure of eight. STEEVENS. 4 Shakspeare might have employed this epithet, which, at first fight, appears redundant, to mark the difference between men and fairies. Fairies were not buman, but they were yet fubject to mortality. It appears from the Romance of Sir Huon of Bordeaux, that Oberon himself was mortal. STEEVENS.. No night is now with hymn or carol bleft: 5→→→ The "This however (fays Mr. Ritfon,) does not by any means appear to be the cafe. Oberon, Titania, and Puck, never dye; the inferior agents must nec farily be supposed to enjoy the fame privilege; and the ingenious Commentator may rely upon it, that the oldest woman in England never heard of the death of a Fairy. Human mortals is, notwithstanding, evidently put in oppofition to fairies who partook of a middle nature between men and fpirits." It is a misfortune as well to the commentators, as to the readers of Shakspeare, that fo much of their time is obliged to be employed in explaining and contradicting unfounded conjectures and affertions. Spenfer, in his Faery Queen, B. II. c x. fays, (I use the words of Mr. Warton; Obfervations on Spenfer, Vol. I. p. 55.) "That man was firft made by Prometheus, was called Elfe, who wandering over the world, at length arrived at the gardens of Adonis, where he found a female whom he called Fay.-The iffue of Elfe and Fay were called Fairies, who foon grew to be a mighty people, and conquered all nations. Their eldest fon Elfin governed America, and the next to him, named Elfinan, founded the city of Cleopolis, which was enclosed with a golden wall by Elfinine. His fon Elfin overcame the Gobbelines; but of all fairies, Elfant was the most renowned, who built Panthea of chrystal. To thefe fucceeded Elfar, who flew two brethren giants; and to him Elfinor, who built a bridge of glafs over-the fea, the found of which was like thunder. At length Elficleos ruled the Fairy-land with much wisdom, and highly advanced its p wer and honour: he left two fons, the eldest of which, fair Elferon, died a premature death, his place being fupplied by the mighty Oberon; a prince, whofe wide memorial' still remains; who dying left Tanaquil to fucceed him by will, fhe being alfo called Glorian or Glori ana. I tranfcribe this pedigree, merely to prove that in Shakspeare's time the notion of Fairies dying was generally known. REED. 5 Since the coming of Chriftianity, this feafon, [winter] in commemoration of the birth of Chrift, has been particularly devoted to feftivity. And to this cuftom, notwithstanding the impropriety, bymn or carol bleft certainly alludes. WARBURTON. Hymns and carols, in the time of Shakspeare, during the feafon of Christmas, were fung every night about the streets, as a pretext for col lecting money from houfe to houfe. STEEVENS. 6 Rbeumatick difeases, fignified in Shakspeare's time, not what we now call rheumatism, but distillations from the head, catarrhs, &c. MALONE. 7 This perturbation of the elements. STEEVENS. By d fun perature, I imagine is meant in this place, the perturbed state in which the king and queen had lived for fome time past. MALONE. |