Seem to break loose; take on, as you would follow;
But yet come not: You are a tame man, go!

Lys. Hang off, thou cat, thou bur: vile thing let loose:

Or I will shake thee from me, like a serpent.

Her. Why are you grown so rude? what change is this,

Sweet love?

Lys.

Thy love? out, tawny Tartar, out! Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence! Her. Do you not jest?

Hel.

Yes, 'sooth; and so do you. Lys. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee. Dem. I would I had your bond; for I perceive, A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word. Lys. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead? Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.

Her. What, can you do me greater harm, than hate? Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love? Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?

I am as fair now, as I was erewhile.

Since night, you lov'd me; yet, since night you left me:
Why, then you left me,-O, the gods forbid !—
In earnest, shall I say?

Lys.

Ay, by my life;

And never did desire to see thee more.

Therefore, be out of hope, of question, doubt,
Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest,

That I do hate thee, and love Helena.

66

No critical remedy is nearer at hand, than a supposition that obscure passages are sentences designedly abrupt and imperfect.-Lysander calls Hermia an Ethiop."-" No, no, sir:" replies Demetrius; i. e. she is none; and then ironically speaks to her of Lysander, as of one whose struggle to break loose is merely a pretended effort. He next addresses his provocation personally to Lysander.-I have left the text as I found it; only reading (for the sake of metre) he will, instead of he 'll. Steevens.

The only difficulty in this passage arises from the words-he will, sir, which are omitted in the second folio. In that edition it runs thus:

"No, no, sir, seeme to breake loose;

"Take on as you would follow,

"But yet come not: you are a tame man, go." This appears to me the true reading. M. Mason.

Her. O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!5 You thief of love! what, have you come by night, And stol'n my love's heart from him?

Fine i 'faith!

Hel.
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!

Her. Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures, she hath urg'd her height;
And with her personage, her tall personage,

Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.—
And are you grown so high in his esteem,
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole?" speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low,

But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

Hel. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;7

I have no gift at all in shrewishness;

50 me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!] Juggler in this line is used as a trisyllable. So again, in K. Henry VI, P. I: "She and the dauphin have been juggling.'

So also tickling, wrestler, and many more.

Malone.

you canker-blossom!] The canker-blossom is not in this place the blossom of the canker or wild rose, which our author alludes to in Much Ado about Nothing, Act I, sc. iii:

"I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace:" but a worm that preys on the leaves or buds of flowers, always beginning in the middle. So, in this play, Act II, sc. iii:

"Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds." Steevens. 6 thou painted maypole?] So, in Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 8vo. 1583: "But their cheefest iewell thei bryng from thence is their Maie pole, whiche thei bryng home with great veneration, as thus: Thei have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe hauyng a sweete nose gaie of flowers placed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie pole, (this stinckyng idoll rather) whiche is couered all ouer with flowers and hearbes bounde rounde aboute with strynges from the top to the bottome, and some tyme painted with variable colours," &c. Steevens.

7

- curst;] i. e. shrewish or mischievous.

Thus in the old proverbial saying: "Curst cows have short horns." Steevens.

I am a right maid for my cowardice;

Let her not strike me: You, perhaps, may think,
Because she's something lower than myself,
That I can match her.

Her.

Lower! hark, again.

Hel. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.

I evermore did love you, Hermia,

Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

I told him of your stealth unto this wood:
He follow'd you; for love, I follow'd him.
But he hath chid me hence; and threaten'd me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back,
And follow you no further: Let me go:

You see how simple and how fond I am.3

Her. Why, get you gone: Who is 't that hinders you?
Hel. A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.
Her. What, with Lysander?

Hel.

With Demetrius.

Lys. Be not afraid: she shall not harm thee, Helena. Dem. No, sir; she shall not, though you take her part. Hel. O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd: She was a vixen, when she went to school:9

And, though she be but little, she is fierce.

Her. Little again? nothing but low and little?— Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?

Let me come to her.

Lys.

Get you gone, you dwarf; You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;"

You bead, you acorn.

8 how fond I am.] Fond, i. e. foolish. So, in The Merchant of Venice:

66

I do wonder,

“ Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond

"To come abroad with him." Steevens.

9 She was a vixen, when she went to school;] Vixen, or fixen, primitively signifies a female fox. So, in The Boke of Hunting, that is cleped Mayster of Game; an ancient MS. in the collection of Francis Douce, Esq. Gray's Inn: "The fixen of the Foxe is assaute onys in the yer. She hath venomous biting as a wolfe."

Steevens.

Dem.

You are too officious,

In her behalf that scorns your services.
Let her alone; speak not of Helena;

Take not her part: for if thou dost intend2
Never so little show of love to her,

Thou shalt aby it.3

Lys.

Now she holds me not;

Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,
Or thine or mine, is most in Helena.4

1- of hind'ring knot-grass made;] It appears that knotgrass was anciently supposed to prevent the growth of any animal or child.

Beaumont and Fletcher mention this property of it in The Knight of the Burning Pestle:

"Should they put him into a straight pair of gaskins, 'twere worse than knot-grass, he would never grow after it." Again, in the Coxcomb:

"We want a boy extremely for this function, kept under, for a year, with milk and knot-grass." Daisy-roots were supposed to have the same effect.

That prince of verbose and pedantic coxcombs, Richard Tomlinson, apothecary, in his translation of Renodaus his Dispensatory, 1657, informs us that knot-grass "is a low reptant hearb, with exile, copious, nodose, and geniculated branches." Perhaps no hypochondriack is to be found, who might not derive his cure from the perusal of any single chapter in this work. Steevens.

2 intend—] i. e. pretend. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "Intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio."

Steevens.

3 Thou shalt aby it.] To aby is to pay dear for, to suffer. So, in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

66 Had I sword and buckler here,
"You should aby these questions."

The word has occurred before in this play. See p. 320, line 15.
Again in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

66

but thou shalt dear aby this blow." Steevens.

Thou shalt aby it.] Aby it, is abide by it; i. e. stand to it, answer to it. So, in Psalm cxxx, v. 3, in Common Prayer: "if thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss: O Lord, who may abide it?" Harris.

4 Or thine or mine, &c.] The old copies read-of thine. The emendation is Mr. Theobald's. I am not sure that the old read

ing is corrupt. If the line had run-" Of mine or thine," I should have suspected that the phrase was borrowed from the Latin: Now follow, to try whose right of property,-of meum or tuum,-is the greatest in Helena. Malone.

Dem. Follow? nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole. [Exeunt Lys. and DEM. Her. You, Mistress, all this coil is 'long of you:

Nay, go not back.
Hel.

I will not trust you, I;
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands, than mine, are quicker for a fray;
My legs are longer though, to run away.
Her. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.

[Exit.

[Exit. pursuing HEL. Obe. This is thy negligence: still thou mistak❜st, Or else commit'st thy knaveries wilfully.

Puck. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me, I should know the man
By the Athenian garments he had on?
And so far blameless proves my enterprise,
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes:
And so far am I glad it so did sort,5
As this their jangling I esteem as sport.

Obe. Thou seest, these lovers seek a place to fight: Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;

The starry welkin cover thou anon
With drooping fog, as black as Acheron;
And lead these testy rivals so astray,
As one come not within another's way.
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error, with his might,
And make his eye-balls roll with wonted sight.

5

6

so did sort,] So happen in the issue. Johnson. So, in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606:

6

66

never look to have any action sort to your honour." Steevens.

virtuous property,] Salutiferous. So he calls, in The Tempest, poisonous dew, wicked dew. Johnson. Ff