Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEME

TRIUS.

EGE. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!" THE. Thanks, good Egeus: What's the news with thee?

EGE. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia.Stand forth, Demetrius ;-My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her :Stand forth, Lysander;-and, my gracious duke, This hath bewitch'd' the bosom of my child:

6

Tale:

our renowned duke!] Thus, in Chaucer's Knight's

"Whilom as olde stories tellen us,

"There was a Duk that highte Theseus,

"Of Athenes he was lord and governour," &c.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 861. Lidgate too, the monk of Bury, in his translation of the Tragedies of John Bochas, calls him by the same title, ch. xii. l. 21: "Duke Theseus had the victorye."

Creon, in the tragedy of Jocasta, translated from Euripides in 1566, is called Duke Creon.

So likewise Skelton:

"Not like Duke Hamilcar,

"Nor like Duke Asdruball."

Stanyhurst, in his translation of Virgil, calls Æneas, Duke Eneas; and in Heywood's Iron Age, Part II. 1632, Ajax is styled Duke Ajax, Palamedes, Duke Palamedes, and Nestor, Duke Nestor, &c.

Our version of the Bible exhibits a similar misapplication of a modern title; for in Daniel iii. 2, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, sends out a summons to the Sheriffs of his provinces.

STEEVENS.

See also the 1st Book of The Chronicles, ch. i. v. 51, & seqq. a list of the Dukes of Edom. HARRIS.

7 This hath bewitch'd-] The old copies read-This man hath bewitch'd-. The emendation was made for the sake of the me tre, by the editor of the second folio. It is very probable that the compositor caught the word man from the line above. MALONE.

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang'd love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast by moon-light at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol❜n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweet-meats; messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harshness :-And, my gracious duke,
Be it so she will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens;
As she is mine, I may dispose of her:
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death; according to our law,"
Immediately provided in that case.'

8

gawds,] i. e. baubles, toys, trifles. Our author has the word frequently. See King John, Act III. sc. v.

Again, in Appius and Virginia, 1576:

"When gain is no grandsier,

"And gaudes not set by," &c.

Again, in Drayton's Mooncalf:

66

and in her lap

"A sort of paper puppets, gauds and toys."

The Rev. Mr. Lambe, in his notes on the ancient metrical history of The Battle of Flodden, observes that a gawd is a child's toy, and that the children in the North call their play-things gowdys, and their baby-house a gowdy-house. STEEVENS.

9 Or to her death; according to our law,] By a law of Solon's, parents had an absolute power of life and death over their children. So it suited the poet's purpose well enough, to suppose the Athenians had it before.-Or perhaps he neither thought nor knew any thing of the matter. WARBURTON.

Immediately provided in that case.] Shakspeare is grievously suspected of having been placed, while a boy, in an attorney's office. The line before us has an undoubted smack of legal common-place. Poetry disclaims it. STEEVENS.

THE. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair

maid:

To you your father should be as a god;
One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HER. So is Lysander.

In himself he is:

THE.
But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.

HER. I would, my father look'd but with my eyes.
THE. Rather your eyes must with his judgement
look.

HER. I do entreat your grace to pardon me. I know not by what power I am made bold; Nor how it may concern my modesty,

In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befal me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THE. Either to die the death,3 or to abjure
For ever the society of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, Know of your youth,' examine well your blood,

To leave the figure, or disfigure it.] The sense is, you owe to your father a being which he may at pleasure continue or destroy. JOHNSON.

3

to die the death,] So, in the second part of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

"We will, my liege, else let us die the death."

See notes on Measure for Measure, Act II. sc. iv. STEEVENS. • Know of your youth,] Bring your youth to the question. Consider your youth. JOHNSON.

VOL. IV.

Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun;

5

For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,

To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage :
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
HER. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke'
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

For aye-] i. e. for ever. So, in K. Edward II. by Marlowe, 1622:

"And sit for aye enthronized in heaven." STEEvens. But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,] Thus all the copies: yet earthlier is so harsh a word, and earthlier happy, for happier earthly, a mode of speech so unusual, that I wonder none of the editors have proposed earlier happy. JOHNSON.

It has since been observed, that Mr. Pope did propose earlier. We might read-earthly happy.

the rose distill'd,] So, in Lyly's Midas, 1592: "You bee all young and faire, endeavour to bee wise and vertuous; that when, like roses, you shall fall from the stalke, you may be gathered, and put to the still."

This image, however, must have been generally obvious, as in Shakspeare's time the distillation of rose water was ́a common process in all families. STEEVENS.

This is a thought in which Shakspeare seems to have much delighted. We meet with it more than once in his Sonnets. See 5th, 6th, and 54th Sonnet. MALONE.

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whose unwished yoke-] Thus both the quartos 1600, and the folio 1623. The second folio reads

-to whose unwished yoke-. STEEVENS.

Dele to, and for unwish'd r. unwished.-Though I have been in general extremely careful not to admit into my text any of

THE. Take time to pause: and, by the next new moon,

(The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,
For everlasting bond of fellowship,)
Upon that day either prepare to die,
For disobedience to your father's will;
Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would:
Or on Diana's altar to protest,

For aye, austerity and single life.

DEM. Relent, sweet Hermia ;-And, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

the innovations made by the editor of the second folio, from ignorance of our poet's language or metre, my caution was here over-watched; and I printed the above lines as exhibited by that and all the subsequent editors, of which the reader was apprized in a note. The old copies should have been adhered to, in which they appear thus:

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

i. e. to give sovereignty to. See various instances of this kind of phraseology in a note on Cymbeline, scene the last. The change was certainly made by the editor of the second folio, from his ignorance of Shakpeare's phraseology. MALONE.

I have adopted the present elliptical reading, because it not only renders the line smoother, but serves to exclude the disgusting recurrence of the preposition-to; and yet if the authority of the first folio had not been supported by the quartos, &c. I should have preferred the more regular phraseology of the folio 1632. STEEVENS.

You have her father's love, Demetrius ;

Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.] I suspect that Shakspeare wrote:

Let me have Hermia; do you marry

him. TYRWHITT.