Quin. Well, it fhall be fo. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moon-light into a chamber: for you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moon-light. Snug. Doth the moon fhine that night we play our play? Bot. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanack; find out moon-fhine, find out moon-shine. Quin. Yes, it doth shine that night. Bot. Why, then you may leave à cafement of the great chamber window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement. Quin. Ay; or elfe one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and fay, he comes to disfigure, or to prefent, the perfon of moon-fhine. Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the ftory, did talk through the chink of a wall. Snug. You can never bring in a wall.-What fay you, Bottom? Bot. Some man or other must present wall; and let him have fome plaifter, or some lome, or fome rough caft about him, to fignify wall; or let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny fhall Pyramus and Thisby whisper. indeed, let bim name bis name; and tell them plainly, be is Snug the joiner.] There are probably many temporary allufions to particular incidents and characters scattered through our author's plays, which gave a poignancy to certain paffages, while the events were recent, and the perfons pointed at, yet living.-In the fpeech before us, I think it not improbable that he meant to allude to a fact which happened in his time, at an entertainment exhibited before queen Elizabeth. It is recorded in a manufcript collection of anecdotes, ftories, &c. entitled, Merry Pajages and Jeafts, M. Harl. 6395: "There was a fpectacle prefented to queen Elizabeth upon the water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to reprefent Arion upon the dolphin's backe; but finding his voice to be very hoarfe and unpleafant, when he came to perform it, he tears off his disguise, and fwears be was none of Arion, not be, but even boneft Harry Goldingbam; which blunt difcoverie pleafed the queen better than if it had gone through in the right way:-yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well." The collector of thefe Merry Passages appears to have been nephew to Sir Roger L'Eftrange. MALONE. Quin. If that may be, then all is well. Come, fit down, every mother's fon, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brakes; and fo every one according to his cue. Enter PUCK behind. Puck. What hempen home-fpuns have we fwaggering here, ? So near the cradle of the fairy queen Quin. Speak, Pyramus:-Thisby, stand forth. Pyr. odours favours fweet: So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.But, bark, a voice! ftay thou but here a while, And by and by I will to thee appear. [Exit. Puck. A ftranger Pyramus than e'er play'd here! [afide.-Exit. Thif. Muft I speak now? goes Moft brifky juvenal*, and eke most lovely Jew, 5 that brake;] Brake anciently fignified a thicket or bush. STEEV. Brake in the weft of England is used to exprefs a large extent of ground overgrown with furze, and appears both here and in the next fcene to convey the fame idea. HENLEY. 6 So hath thy breath,-] Mr. Pope reads-So dotb, inftead of So bath, but nothing, I think, is got by the change. I fufpect two lines to have been lost; the first of which rhymed with "favours sweet," and the other with "here a while". The line before us appears to me to refer to fome thing that has been loft. MALONE. 7a while,] Thus the old copies. Mr. Theobald reads a whit, but this is no rhyme to fweet. The corruption arofe, I believe, from a different caufe. See the last note. MALONE. 8tban e'er play'd here!] I fuppofe he means in that theatre where the piece was acting. STEEVENS. juvenal,] i. e. a young man. So, Falstaff, "the juvenal thy mafter." STEEVENS. I i 2 I'll I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb. Quin. Ninus' tomb, man: Why you must not speak that yet; that you anfwer to Pyramus: you speak all your part at once, cues and all 9.-Pyramus enter; your cue is paft; it is, never tire. Re-enter PUCK, and Воттом with an afs's head. Thif. O,-As true as trueft horse, that yet would never tire. Pyr. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine:— Quin. O monftrous! O ftrange! we are haunted. mafters! fly, mafters! help! Pray [Exeunt Clowns. Puck. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bufh, through brake, through brier 2; Sometime a horse I'll be, fometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, fometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar and burn: Like horfe, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. [Exit. Bot. Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them, to make me afeard 3. Re-enter SNOUT. Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I fee on thee +? Bot. What do you fee? you see an ass' head of your own; Do you? 9-cues and all.] A cue, in ftage cant, is the laft words of the preceding fpeech, and ferves as a hint to him who is to speak next. STEEVENS. I If I were fair, &c.] Perhaps we ought to point thus: If I were, [i. e. as true, &c.] fair Thisby, I were only thine. MALONE. 2 Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier ;] Here are two fyllables wanting. Perhaps it was written:-Through bog, through mire. JOHNSON. 3-to make me afcard.] Afeard is from to fear, by the old form of the language, as an bungered, from to bunger. So adry, for thirty. JOHNSON. 4 0 Bottom, thou art changed! what do I fee on thee?] It is plain by Bottom's answer, that Snout mentioned an afs's bead. Therefore we fhould read: Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I fee on thee? An afs's head? JOHNSON. Re-enter Re-enter QUINCE. Quin. Blefs thee, Bottom! blefs thee! thou art tranflated. [Exit. Bot. I fee their knavery: this is to make an afs of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not ftir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will fing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. [fings. The oufel-cock, fo black of hue 5, With orange-tawny bill, The throftle with his note fo true, The wren with little quill; Tita. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?? Bot. The finch, the Sparrow, and the lark, The plain-fong cuckoo gray, Whofe note full many a man doth mark, [waking. for 5 The oufel cock, fo black of bue, &c.] In The Arbor of Amorous Dewifes, 4to. bl. 1. are the following lines: "The chattering pie, the jay, and eke the quaile, "The thruftle-cock that was so black of bewe.” The former leaf and the title-page being torn out of the copy I confulted, I am unable either to give the two preceding lines of the stanza, or to afcertaine the date of the book. The ouzel-cock is generally understood to be the cock blackbird. P. Holland, however, in his tranflation of Pliny's Nat. Hift. b. x. ch. 24. reprefents the ouzel and the blackbird, as different birds. See alfo Mr. Lever's Museum. STEEVENS. The throftle-] It appears from the following paffage in Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587, that the throfile is a distinct bird from the thrush: "There is alfo another forte of myrte or myrtle, which is wild; whofe berries the mavifes, tbroffels, owfells, and thrushes delite much to eate." STEEVENS. 7 What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?] Perhaps a parody on a line in the Spanish Tragedy, often ridiculed by the poets of our author's time : "What outcry calls me from my naked bed ?" The Spanish Tragedy was entered on the Stationers' books in 1592. MALONE. 8 plain-fong cuckoo, &c.] That is, the cuckoo, who, having no variety of trains, fings in plain song, or in plano cantu; by which ex 1i3 preflion for indeed, who would fet his wit to fo foolish a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry, cuckoo, never fo. Tita. I pray thee, gentle mortal, fing again: And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, Bot, Methinks, miftrefs, you should have little reason for that: And yet to fay the truth, reafon and love keep little company together now-a-days: The more the pity, that fome honeft neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek 9, upon occafion. Tita. Thou art as wife as thou art beautiful. Bot. Not fo, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to ferve mine own turn. Tita. Out of this wood do not defire to go; Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no. The fummer ftill doth tend upon my state, And I do love thee: therefore, go with me; I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee; And they fhall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And fing, while thou on preffed flowers doft fleep: preffion the uniform modulation or fimplicity of the chaunt was anciently distinguished, in oppofition to prick-fong or variegated mufic fung by note. Skelton introduces the birds finging the different parts of the fervice at the funeral of his favourite fparrow: among the reft is the cuckoo. p. 227. edit. Lond. 1736: But with a large and a long "To kepe just playne jonge, "Our chanter fhall be your cuckoue." T. WARTON. 9-gleek,] Joke or fcoff. POPE. Gleek was originally a game at cards. The word is often used by our ancient comick writers in the fame fenfe as by our author. Mr. Lambe obferves in his notes on the ancient metrical hiftory of the Battle of Floddon, that in the North to gleek is to deceive, or beguile; and that the reply made by the queen of the fairies, proves this to be the meaning of it. STEEVENS. Peafe |
