By his best arrow with the golden head; By that which knitteth fouls, and profpers loves; Lyf. Keep promife, love: Look, here comes Helena. In that fame place thou haft appointed me, Lyfander does but juft propofe her running away from her father at midnight, and straight she is at her oaths that the will meet him at the place of rendezvous. Not one doubt or hesitation, not one condition of affurance for Lyfander's conftancy. Either she was naufeoufly coming, or fhe had before jilted him, and he could not believe her without a thousand oaths. But Shakspeare obferved nature at another rate. The fpeeches are divided wrong, and must be thus rectified; when Lyfander had proposed her running away with him, the replies: Her. My good Lyjander and is going on, to afk fecurity for his fidelity. This he perceives, and interupts her with the grant of what the demands. Lyf. I fear to thee by Cupid's ftrongest bow, &c. By all the vows that ever men have broke In number more than ever woman spoke· Here the interrupts him in her turn; declares herself satisfied, and confents to meet him in the following words: Her.In that fame place thou haft appointed me, This divifion of the lines, befides preferving the character, gives the dialogue infinitely more force and fpirit. WARBURTON. This emendation is judicious, but not neceffary. I have therefore given the note without altering the text. The cenfure of men, as oftener perjured than women, feems to make that line more proper for the lady. JOHNSON. 4by that fire that burn'd the Carthage queen,] Shakspeare had forgot that Thefeus performed his exploits before the Trojan war, and confequently long before the death of Dido. STEEVENS. Enter Enter Helena. Her. God fpeed, fair Helena! Whither away? More tuneable than lark to fhepherd's ear, 5 The quarto reads--your fair. JOHNSON. The ready of the quarto is the true one, and I have restored it. Fair is ufed again as a fubftantive in the Comedy of Errors. Act. iii. f. 4. See vol. ii. p. 188: "My decayed fair, "A funny look of his would foon repair." STEEVENS. Your eyes are lode-ftars; ] This was a compliment not unfre quent among the old poets. The lode ftar is the leading or guid ing ftar, that is, the pole-ftar. The magnet is, for the fame reafon, called the lode-Acne, either because it leads iron, or because it guides the failor. Milton has the fame thought in L'Allegro: "Tow'rs and battlements he fees "Bofom'd high in tufted trees, "Where perhaps fome beauty lies, "The cynofure of neigbb'ring eyes." Davies calis Elizabeth, lode-ftone to hearts, and lode-flone to all eyes." JOHNSON. So, in the Spanish Tragedy: "Led by the loadftar of her heav'nly looks." Again, in the Battle of Alcazar, 1594: The loadftar and the honour of our line." STEEVENS. O, were favour fo!] Favour is feature, countenance So, in Twelfth Night, act ii. fc. 4: 7 thine eye "Hath ftay'd upon fome favour that it loves." STEEVENS. + 8 This emendation is taken from the Oxford edition. The old reading is, Your words Icatch. JOHNSON. The The reft I'll give to be to you tranflated. Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me ftill. Hel. Oh, that your frowns would teach my smiles fuch skill! Her. I give him curfes, yet he gives me love. Hel. Oh, that my prayers could fuch affection move! Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me. 2 Hel. None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were mine! Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face; O then, what graces in my love do dwell, Lyf. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grafs, 9-to be to you tranflated.] To tranflate, in our author, fometimes fignifies to change, to transform. So, in Timon: to prefent flaves and fervants "Tranflates his rivals.". STEEVENS. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.] The folio and one of the quartos read, His folly, Helena, is none of mine. JOHNSON. 2 None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!] 1 would point this line thus: None. But your beauty; -Would that fault were mine! 3 Perhaps every reader may not difcover the propriety of thefe lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all ap pearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to con fider the power of pleafing, as an advantage to be much envied or or much defired, fince Hermia, whom the confiders as poffeffing it in the fupreme degree, has found no other effect it than the lofs of happiness. JOHNSON. (A time 1 (A time that lovers, flights doth ftill conceal) 3 Emptying our bofoms of their counsels fwell'd; To feek new friends, and frange companions.] This whole scene is strictly in rhyme; and that it deviates in these two couplets, I am perfuaded, is owing to the ignorance of the first, and the inaccuracy of the later editors: I have therefore ventured to restore the rhimes, as I make no doubt but the poet first gave them. Saveet was eafily corrupted into fell'd, because that made an antithefis to emptying: and frange companions our editors thought was plain English; but franger companies, a little quaint and unintelligible. Our author very often uses the fubFantive, Stranger adjectively; and companies to fignify companions: as Rich. II. act i: "To tread the stranger paths of banishment.” And Hen. V: "His companies unlettered, rude and shallow." THEOBALD. Dr. Warburton retains the old reading, and perhaps justifiably for a bofom fwell'd with fecrets does not appear as an expreflion unlikely to have been used by our author, who speaks of a fluff'd bofom in Macbeth. In Lylly's Midas, 1592, is a fomewhat fimilar expreffion: "I am one of thofe whofe tongues are favell'd with filence." Again, in our author's K. Richard II. 66 the unfeen grief "That fells in filence in the tortur'd foul." In the scenes of K. Richard II. there is likewife a mixture of rhime and blank verfe. I have therefore restored the old reading, -ftrange companions. Mr. Tyrwhitt concurs with Theobald. STEEVENS. I think, Sweet, the reading propofed by Theobald is right. Counfels relates in conftruction to emptying-and not to the last word in the line, as it is now made to do by reading fwell'd. A fimilar phrafeology is ufed by a writer contemporary with Shakspeare: "So ran the poor girls filling the air with fhrieks, Heywood's Apology for Actors, Sig. B. 4. 1610. The adjective all here added to colour, exactly answers, in conftruction, to fweet in the text, as regulated by Theobald. MALONE. There There my Lyfander and myself shall meet : Things bafe and vile, holding no ''quantity, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; -when Phabe doth behold, &c. deep midnight. } Shakspeare has a little forgotten himself. It appears from page 4. that to-morrow night would be within three nights of the new moon, when there is no moonshine at all, much lefs at deep midnight. The fame overfight occurs in page 59. BLACKSTONE. S no quantity,] Quality feems a word more fuitable to the fenfe than quantity, but either may ferve. JOHNSON. 6 in game] Game here fignifies not contentious play, but Sport, jeft. So Spenfer : " 'twixt carneft and 'twixt game." JOHNSON. For |