This was lofty!-Now name the rest of the players.— This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling.

Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.d

Flu. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. You must take Thisby on you.

Flu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

Flu. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

Quin. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you

will.

Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;-Thisne, Thisne,— Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear. Quin. No, no; you must play Pyramus, and, Flute, you Thisby.

Bot. Well, proceed.

Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor.

Star. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker.

Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father;-Snug, the joiner, you the lion's part :—and, I hope, here is the play fitted.

Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bot. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again, Let him roar again.

Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

bellows-mender.] One who had the care of organs and of regals, which were instruments like organs, but small and portable. The name Flute is appropriate to his trade.-STEEVENS.

All. That would hang us every mother's son.

Bot. I grant you, friends, that if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.

Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus: for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

Bot. Well, I will undertake it.

best to play it in ?®

Quin. Why, what you will.

What beard were I

Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.

Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced.-But, masters; here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse for if we meet in the city, we shall be dog'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties,' such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely, and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.

Quin. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bot. Enough; Hold, or cut bow-strings.

the beard.

[Exeunt.

What beard were I best play it in?] Alluding to the practice of dying

properties,] Properties are whatever little articles are wanted in a play for the actors, according to their respective parts, dresses and scenes excepted. The person who delivers them out is to this day called the propertyman.-STEEVENS.

At the duke's oak we meet.

Hold, or cut bow-strings.] To meet, whether bow-strings hold or are cut, is to meet in all events. To cut the bow-string, when bows were in use, was probably a common practice of those who bore enmity to the archer.MALONE.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-A Wood near Athens.

Enter a Fairy at one door, and PUCK at another.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Our

Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones sphere,
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green :
The cowslips tall her pensioners be!
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,

queen

In those freckles live their savours :
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone :
and all our elves come here anon.
Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night;
Take heed, the queen come not within his sight.
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling :'
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:

To dew her orbs upon the green :] The orbs here mentioned are circles supposed to be made by the fairies on the ground, whose verdure proceeds from the fairies' care to water them.-JOHNSON.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be!] This was said in consequence of Queen Elizabeth's fashionable establishment of a band of military courtiers, by the name of pensioners. They were some of the handsomest and tallest young men, of the best families and fortune, that could be found. They gave the mode in dress and diversions.-T. WARTON.

k

lob of spirits,] Lob, lubber, looby, lobcock, all denote both inactivity of body and dulness of mind.-JOHNSON.

changeling]-is generally used for the child left by the fairies, but here for the child taken away.-JOHNSON.

But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy :
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen,"
But they do square ;" that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he,
That fright the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,"
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm ;a
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,'
You do their work, and they shall have good luck :
Are not you he?

Puck.

Thou speak'st aright;

I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal :
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me:

D

sheen,] Bright.-JOHNSON.
square;] Quarrel.

Robin Goodfellow:] "Your grandame's maids were wont to set a bowl of milk for him, for his pains in grinding malt and mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight-this white bread and bread and milk was his standing fee."-Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 66.—He is mentioned by Cartwright (Ordinary, act 3. sc. 1.) as a spirit particularly fond of disconcerting and disturbing domestic peace and economy.-T. WARTON. in the quern,] Quern is a hand-mill: kuerna, mola.

P

no barm;] Barme is a name for yeast, in some parts of England, and universally in Ireland. STEEVENS.

Sweet Puck,] The epithet is by no means superfluous; as Puck alone was far from being an endearing appellation. It signified nothing better than fiend or devil.-TYRWITT. In the fairy mythology, Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trusty servant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues, of Queen Mab, called by Shakspeare, Titania.-JOHNSON.

Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe
And waxen" in their mirth, and neeze and swear

A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But room, Faery, here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my mistress:-'Would that he were gone!

SCENE II.

Enter OBERON,* at one door, with his train, and TITANIA, at another, with hers.

Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Tita. What jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence;

I have forsworn his bed and company.

Obe. Tarry, rash wanton; Am not I thy lord?
Tita. Then I must be thy lady: But I know
When thou hast stol'n away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress, and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Obe. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,

And tailor cries,] The custom of crying tailor at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair, falls as a tailor squats upon his board.-JOHNSON.

loffe ;] i. e. Laugh.

awaxen in their mirth,] Increase in their mirth, as the moon waxes.JOHNSON.

x Oberon and Titania, are supposed by Tyrwhitt to be derived from the Pluto and Proserpina in the Merchant's Tale of Chaucer.

Full often time he Pluto and his quene
Proserpina and all her fairie

Disporten hem and maken melodie."-
"Pluto, that is the king of Fairie,

And many a ladie in his companie

Folwing his wif, the quene Proserpine."

Oberon, or Auberon is derived from L'aube du jour." and Mab his queen from Amabilis, so that lucidity and amiability, their characteristics as delineated by Shakspeare, may be traced in their names.-DRAKE.