That I fleeping here was found, With thefe mortals on the ground. [Sleepers lie ftill. [Exeunt. [Wind borns within. Enter Thefeus, Egeus, Hippolita, and all his Train. The. Go one of you, find out the forester, For now our observation is perform'd, Of hounds and echo in conjunction. Hip. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, (27) The kies, the fountains, ev'ry region near, Seem'd all one mutual cry.] It has been propos'd to me, that the Author probably wrote mountains, from whence an echo rather proceeds than from fountains: but as we have the authority of the ancients for lakes, rivers, and fountains returning a found, I have been diffident to disturb the text. To give a few instances that occur at prefent. Ovid. Metam. 1. 3. ver. 500. Ultima vox folitam fuit bæc fpectantis in undam, "Heu fruftra dilecte puer !" totidemque remifit For fo Burmann has corrected it: the common editions have locus. Tam vero exoritur clamor, ripæque lacufque Refponfant circà, & cælum tonat omne tumultu. Aufon. in Mofellâ. verf. 167. adftrepit ollis Et rupes, & fylva tremens, & concavus amnis. And again, verf. 296. Refonantia utrimque Propert. lib. 1. Eleg. 20. verf. 49. Cui procul Alcides iterat refponfa; fed illi Seem Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard Thef. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind. Was never hallo'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, Judge when you hear. But foft, what nymphs are these? This Helenä, old Nedar's Helena; I wonder at their being here together. Thef. No doubt, they rofe up early to obferv The rite of May; and hearing our intent, That Hermia fhould give answer of her choice? Thef. Go bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. Horns and fhout within; Demetrius, Lyfander, Hermia and Helena, wake and start up. Thef. Good morrow, friends; Saint Valentine is past. Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Ly. Pardon, my Lord. Thef. I pray you all, ftand up: I know, you two are rival enemies. How comes this gentle concord in the world. To fleep by hate, and fear no enmity? Half fleep, half waking. But as yet, I fwear, I came with Hermia hither. Our intent Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be Ege. Enough, enough; my Lord, you have enough; I beg the law, the law upon his head: 'They would have ftol'n away, they would, Demetrius, You, of your wife; and me, of my confent; Dem. My Lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, But, my good Lord, I wot not by what power, Thef. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met Come, Hippolita. [Exe. Duke, Hippol. and Train. Dem. Thefe things feem fmall and undiftinguishable, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. Her. Methinks, I fee these things with parted eye; When every thing feems double. Hel. So, methinks; And And I have found Demetrius like a gemell, (28) Dem. It feems to me, That yet we fleep, we dream. Do not you think, Her. Yea, and my father. Hel. And Hippolita. (28) And I bave found Demetrius like a jewel, Ac Mine own, and not mine own.] Hermia had faid, things appeared double to her. Helena fays, So, methinks; and then fubjoins, Demetrius was like a jewel, her own and not her own. cording to common fenfe and conftruction, Demetrius is here compared to fomething that has the property of appearing the fame, and yet not being the fame: and this was a thought natural enough, upon her declaring her approbation of what Hermia had faid, that every thing feems double. But now, how has a jewel, or any precious thing, the property, rather than a more worthlefs one, of appearing to be the fame and yet not the fame? This I believe, won't be eafily found out. I make no doubt therefore, but the true reading is ;. And I have found Demetrius like a gemell, Mine own, and not mine own. from gemellus, a twin. For Demetrius acted that night two such different parts, that fhe could hardly think him one and the fame Demetrius; but that there were two Twin Demetriufes to the acting this farce, like the two Socia's. This makes good and pertinent sense of the whole; and the corruption from gemell to jewel was so easy from the fimilar trace of the letters, and the difficulty of the tranfcribers understanding the true word, that, I think, it is not to be queftion'd. Mr. Warburton. If fome over-nice fpirits fhould object to gemell wanting its authorities as an English word, I think fit to obferve, in aid of my friend's fine conjecture, that it is no new thing with Shakespeare to coin and enfranchize words fairly derived; and fome fuch as have by the grammarians been called ära A32óusva, or words ufed but once. Again, though gemell be not adopted either by Chaucer or Spenfer; nor acknowledged by the dictionaries; yet both Blount in his Gloffography, and Philips, in his World of Words, have geminels, which they interpret twins. And lastly, in two or three other paffages, Shakespeare uses the fame manner of thought. In the Comedy of Errors, where Adriana fees her husband and his twin-brother, the fays; I fee two busbands, or my eyes deceive me. One of them, therefore, feem'd to be her own, but was not. And in his twelfth-night, when Viola and Sebaftian, who were twins, appear together, they bear fo ftrict a resemblance, that the Duke cries: One face, one voice, one habit, and two perfons; A nat'ral perspective, that is, and is not. Lyf Lyf. And he did bid us follow to the temple. As they go out, Bottom wakes. [Exeunt, Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and I will anfwer. My next is, moft fair Pyramus- hey, ho, Peter Quince, Flute the bellows-mender! Snowt the tinker! Star-veling! god's my life! ftolen hence, and left me afleep? I have had a moft rare vifion. 1 had a dream, paft the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an afs, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was, there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had,But man is but a patch'd fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream; it shall be call'd Bot tom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will fing it in the latter end of a play before the duke; (29) peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I fhall fing it after death. [Exit. (29) Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I fall fing it at her death. At her death? At whose? In all Bottom's speech there is not the least mention of any the-creature, to whom this relative can be coupled. I make not the leaft fcrupie, but Bottom, for the fake of ajcft, and to render his voluntary, as we may call it, the more gracious and extraordinary, faid;-I fall fing it after death. He, as Pyramus, is killed upon the feene; and fo might promise to rise again at the conclufion of the Interlude, and give the Duke his dream by way of fong. -The fource of the corruption of the text is very obvious. The fin after being funk by the vulgar pronounciation, the copyift might write it from the found, -a'ter: which the wife editors not understanding, concluded, two words were erroneously got together; fo splitting them, and clapping in an b, produced the prefent reading at ber. SCENS |