DEM.

You are too officious,

In her behalf that fcorns your fervices.
Let her alone; fpeak not of Helena;

Take not her part: for if thou doft intend '
Never fo little fhow of love to her,

Thou fhalt aby it. 6

Lys.

Now fhe holds me not;

Now follow, if thou dar'ft, to try whose right,
Or thine or mine, is moft in Helena: "

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

"Should they put him into a fraight pair of gaskins, 'twere worfe than knot-grafs, he would never grow after it." Again, in The Coxcomb:

،، We want a boy extremely for this fungion, kept únder, for a year, with milk and knot-grafs." Daily-roots were supposed to have the fame effect.

That prince of verbose and pedantic coxcombs, Richard Tomlinfon, apothecary, in his tranflation of Renodaus his Difpenfatory, 1657, informs us that knot-grafs ،، is a low repiant hearb, with exile, copious, nodofe, and geniculated branches." Perhaps no hypochondriack is to be found, who might not derive his cure from the perufal of any fingle chapter in this work. STEEVENS.

thing :

intend] i. e. pretend. So, in Much ado about No

"Intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio."

STEEVENS.

Thou shalt aby it.] To aby is to pay dear for, to fuffer. So, in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: Had I fword and buckler here, "You should aby thefe queftions."

The word has occurred before in this play.

Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

،،

but thou shalt dear aby this blow." STEEVENS.

7 Or thine or mine,] The old copies read-Of thine. The emendation is Mr. Theobald's. I am not fure that the old reading is corrupt. If the line had run-" Of mine or thine," Ifhould have fufpected that the phrafe was borrowed from the Latin:-Now follow, to try whofe right of property, of meum or tuum,—is the greateft 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 truft you, I; Nor longer ftay in your curft company. Your hands, than mine, are quicker for a fray; My legs are longer though, to run away. [Exit. HER. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.

[Exit, pursuing HELENA. OBE. This is thy negligence: ftill thou mistak'ft, Or elfe commit'ft thy knaveries wilfully.

Puck. Believe me, king of fhadows, I mistook. Did not you tell me, I fhould know the man By the Athenian garments he had on? And so far blameless proves my enterprize, That I have 'nointed an' Athenian's eyes: And fo far am I glad it fo did fort, As this their jangling I efteem a sport.

OBE. Thou feeft, thefe lovers feek a place to fight: Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night; The ftarry welkin cover thou anon With drooping fog, as black as Acheron; And lead thefe tefty rivals fo aftray, As one come not within another's way. Like to Lyfander fometime frame thy tongue, Then ftir Demetrius up with bitter wrong; And fometime rail thou like Demetrius;

And from each other look thou lead them thus, 'Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting fleep With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:

8

-fo did fort,] So happen in the iffue. JOHNSON.

So, in Monfieur D'Olive, 1606:

never look to have any action sort to your honor."

STEEVENS.

Then crufh this herb into Lyfander's eye;
Whofe liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error, with his might,
And make his eye-balls roll with wonted fight.
When they next wake, all this derifion
Shall feem a dream, and fruitless vifion;
And back to Athens fhall the lovers wend,
With league, whose date till death fhall never end.
Whiles 1 in this affair do thee employ,

I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy; ̧
And then I will her charmned eye release

From monfler's view, and all things fhall be peace.
PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with

hafte ;

For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full faft, And yonder fhines Aurora's harbinger;

At whofe approach, ghofts, wandering here and

there,

Troop home to church-yards: damned fpirits all, That in crofs-ways and floods have burial,*

7

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

8

See

wend,] i. c. go. So, in The Comedy of Errors: Hopeless and helpless doth Egeon wend." STEEvens. For night's fwift dragons, &c.] So, in Cymbeline, A& II. fc. ii: “Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night!”

my note on this passage, concerning the vigilance imputed to the ferpent tribe. STEEVENS.

This circumftance Shakspeare might have learned from a paffage in Golding's Tranflation of Ovid, which he has imitated in The Tempeft:

Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal war did fet, "And brought afleep the dragon féll, whofe eyes were never fhet." MALONE.

damned fpirits all,

That in crofs-ways and floods have burial,] i. c. The ghofts of felf-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads; and of those who being drowned, were condemned (according to the opinion of the

Already to their wormy beds are gone;
For fear left day fhould look their fhames upon,
They wilfully themfelves exile from light,
And muft for aye confort with black-brow'd night.*
OBE. But we are fpirits of another fort:-
I with the morning's love have oft made fport;

ancients) to wander for a hundred years, as the rites of fepulture had never been regularly bellowed on their bodies. That the waters were fometimes the place of refidence for damned fpirits, we learn from the ancient bl. 1. Romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no

date :

3

"Let fome preeft a gofpel faye

"For doute of fendes in the flode." STEEVENS.

to their wormy beds

This periphrafis

the grave has been borrowed by Milton, in his Ode on the d of a fair Infant: "Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed." STEEVENS. black-brow'd night.] So, in King John:

4

Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night."

STEEVENS.

▾ I with the morning's love have oft made Sport;] Thus all the old copies, and I tuk, rightly. Tithonus was the hufband of Aurora, and Tithonus was no young deity.

Thus, in Aurora, a collection of fonnets, by lord Sterline, 1604: "And why fhould Tithon thus, whofe day grows late, Enjoy the morning's love?"

เ

Again, in The Parafitafter, by J. Marton, 1606:

"Aurora yet keeps chafte ola Tithon's bed;
"Yet blushes at it when the rifes."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. III. c. iii:
As faire Aurora rifing haflily,

"Doth by her blufhing tell that he did lye
"All night in old Tithonus' frozen bed."

Again, in The Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher:

"Thou fhame-fac'd morning, when from Tithon's bed
"Thou rifeft ever-maiden!"

How fuch a waggifh fpirit as the King of the Fairies might make fport with an antiquated lover, or his miftiefs in his abfence, may be easily understood. Dr. Johnfon reads with all the modern editors, "I with the morning light, &c. STEEVENS.

Will not this paffage bear a different explanation? By the morning's love I apprehend Cephalus, the mighty hunter and paramour VOL. VII.

I

And, like a forefter, the groves may tread,
Even till the eaftern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair bleffed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his falt-green ftreams.
But, notwithflanding, hafte; make no delay:
We may effect this bufinefs yet ere day. [Exit OBE.
PUCK. Up and down, up and down;
I will lead them up and down:

I am fear'd in field and town;
Goblin, lead them up and down.

Here comes one.

Enter LYSANDER.

Lys. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? fpeak thou now.

PUCK. Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou?

Lys. I will be with thee ftraight.

PUCK.

To plainer ground.

DEM.

Follow me thep

[Exit Lys. as following the voice.

Enter DEMETRIUS.

Lyfander! fpeak again.

Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? Speak. In fome bufh? Where doft thou hide thy

head?

of Aurora, is intended.

The context, "And, like a forester," &c. feems to fhow that the chace was the fport which Oberon boasts he partook with the morning's love.

HOLT WHITE.

Even till. the eastern gate, &c.] What the fairy Monarch means
That he was not compelled, like meaner

to inform Puck of, is this.

fpirits, to vanish at the first appearance of the dawn.

STEEVENS.