Bot. Give me your neif", monfieur Muftard-feed. Pray you, leave your courtefy, good monfieur. Muft. What's your will? Bot. Nothing, good monfieur, but to help cavalero Cobweb to fcratch. I muft to the barber's, monfieur; for, methinks, I am marvellous hairy about the face and I am fuch a tender afs, if my hair do but tickle me, I muft fcratch. Queen. What, wilt thou hear fome mufick, my fweet love? Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in mufick: let us have the tongs' and the bones. Queen. Or, fay, fweet love, what thou defir'ft to eat. Bot. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great defire to a bottle of hay: good hay, fweet hay, hath no fellow. Queen. I have a venturous fairy that fhall feek The fquirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts. Bot. I had rather have a handful, or two, of dried pease. But, I pray you, let none of your people ftir me; I have an expofition of fleep come upon mc. Queen. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms, Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away'. 7 -ncif,] i. e. fift. Henry IV. at ii. fc. 10: "Sweet knight, 1 kifs thy neif." GREY. 8 -cavalero Cobweb] Without doubt it should be Cavalero Peafe-bloffom; as for cavalero Cobweb, he had just been dispatched upon a perilous adventure. GREY. 66 9-the tongs-] The old ruftic mufic of the tongs and key. The folio has this ftage direction. Mufiche Tongs, Rurall Muficke." STEEVENS. In the former editions-and be always away.] What! was the giving her attendants an everlasting difmiffion? No fuch thing; they were to be still upon duty. I am convinced the poet meant; and be all ways away. i. e. difperfe yourselves, and fcout out feverally, in your watch, that danger approach us from no quarter. THEOBALD. Mr. Upton reads: And be away-away. JOHNSON. Mr. Heath would read: -and be always i'th way. STEEVENS. VOL. III. H So So doth the woodbine, the fweet honey-fuckle, Gently entwift,-the female ivy3 fo So doth the woodbine the fweet honey-fuckle Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.] Enrings What does the woodbine entwiit? The honey-fuckle. But the woodbine and honey fuckle were, till now, but two names for one and the fame plant. Florio, in his Italian Dictionary, interprets Madre Selva by woodbine or hennie-fuckle. We must therefore find a fupport for the woodbine as well as for the ivy. Which is done by reading the lines thus: So doth the woodbine, the fweet honey-fuckle, Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. The corruption might happen by the first blunderer dropping the in writing the word maple, which word thence became male. A following tranfcriber, for the fake of a little fenfe and measure, thought fit to change this male into female; and then tacked it as an epithet, to ivy. WARBURTON. Mr. Upton reads: So doth the woodrine the feet honey fuckle, for bark of the wood. Shakspeare perhaps only meant, fo the leaves involve the flower, ufing woodbine for the plant, and honeyfuckle for the flower; or perhaps Shakspeare made a blunder. JOHNSON. The following paffage in The Fatal Union, 1640, in which the honey-fuckle is fpoken of as the flower, and the woodbine as the plant, fupports Dr. Johnson's interpretation : 66 As fit a gift as this* fuckle, were for a lord-a honey "The amorous woodbine's offspring." MALONE. The thought is Chaucer's. See his Troilus and Crefcide, v. 1236, lib. iii: "And as about a tre with many a twist "Bitrent and writhin is the fwete woodbine, What Shakspeare feems to mean, is this-So the woodbine, i. e. the feet honey-fuckle, doth gently entwift the barky fingers of the elm, and fo does the female ivy enring the fame fingers. It is not unfrequent in the poets, as well as other writers, to explain one word by another which is better known. The reason why Shakspeare thought woodbine wanted illuftration, perhaps is this. In fome counties, by woodbine or woodbind would have been generally understood the ivy, which he had occafion to mention in the very next line, In the following instance from Old Fortunatus, 1600, woodbind is used for ivy: Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! Oberon advances. Enter Puck. Seeft thou this Ob. Welcome, good Robin. fweet fight? Her dotage now I do begin to pity. For meeting her of late behind the wood, "And, as the running wood-bind, fpread her arms "To choak thy with'ring boughs in her embrace." And Barrett in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, enforces the fame distinction that Shakspeare thought it necessary to make : "Woodbin that beareth the honey-fuckle." STEEVENS. This paflage has given rife to various conjectures. It is cer tain, that the wood-bine and the honey-fuckle were fometimes confidered as different plants: In one of Taylor's poems, we have "The woodbine, primrofe, and the cowflip fine, "The bonifuckle, and the daffadill.” But I think Mr. Steevens's interpretation the true one. The old writers did not always carry the auxiliary verb forward, as the late editor feems to fuppofe by his alteration of enrins to caring. So bishop Lowth, in his excellent Introduction to Grammar, p. 126, has without reason corrected a fimilar passage in our tranflation of St. Matthew. FARMER. Were any change neceffary, I fhould not fcruple to read the aveedbind, i. e. fmilax: a plant that twifts round every other that grows in its way. STEEVENS. In lord Bacon's Nat. Hift. Experiment 495, it is obferved that there are two kinds of " honeysuckles, both the woodbine and the trefoil." i. e. the first is a plant that winds about trees, and the other is a three-leaved grafs. Perhaps thefe are meant in Dr. Farmer's quotation. The diftinction, however, may ferve to fhew why Shakspeare and other authors frequently added woodbine to boney-fuckle, when they mean the plant and not the grafs. TOLLET. 3 the female ivy] Shakspeare calls it female ivy, becaufe it always requires fome fupport, which is poetically called its hufband. So Milton: "To wed her elm: she spous'd about him twines "Her marriageable arms "Ulmo conjuncta marito." Platanufque cælebs "Evincet ulmos. Catull. Hor. STEEVENS, Seeking fweet favours for this hateful fool,. Be, as thou waft wont to be; [Touching her eyes See, as thou waft wont to fee: Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower with an herb. Hath fuch force and bleffed power. Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen. Queen. How came these things to pass? Oh, how mine eye doth loath his visage now! 4 feet favours,] The first edition reads favours. STEEVENS, 5 Dian's bud, or Cupid's flowver] Thus all the editions. The ingenious Dr. Thirlby gave me the correction, which I have inferted in the text. THEORALD, Ob. Ob. Silence, a while.-Robin, take off this head. Titania, mufick call; and ftrike more dead Than common fleep, of all these five the fenfe'. Queen. Mufick, ho! mufick; fuch as charmeth fleep. Pack. When thou awak'ft, with thine own fool's eyes peep. Ob. Sound, mufick. [Still mufick.] queen, take hands with me, Come my And rock the ground whereon these fleepers be. And will, to-morrow midnight, folemnly, There fhall these pairs of faithful lovers be Puck. Fairy king, attend, and mark; Ob. Then my queen, in filence fad3, Titania, mufick call, and flrike more dead Than common fleep. Of all these fine the fenfe.] This moft certainly is both corrupt.in the text and pointing. My emendation needs no juftification. The five, that lay afleep on the stage were Demetrius, Lyfander, Hermia, Helena, and Bottom.Dr. Thirlby likewife communicated this very correction. 7 Dance in duke Thefeus' boufe triumphantly, We fhould read: to all FAR pofterity. i. e. to the remoteft pofterity. WARBURTON. 8 Then, my queen, in filence fad, Trip we after the night's fhade.] THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald fays, why fad? Fairies are pleafed to follow night. He will have it fade; and fo, to mend the rhime, fpoils both the fenfe and grammar. But he mistakes the meaning of fad; it fignifies only grave, fober; and is opposed to their dances and revels, which were now ended at the finging of the morning lark, -So Winter's Tale, act iv : "My father and the gentlemen are in SAD talk." For grave or ferious. WARBURTON. |