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New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of air folemnities.

Go, Philoftrate,

THE. Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals, The pale companion is not for our pomp.[Exit PHILOSTRATE, Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my fword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key,

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling,'

Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS, EGE. Happy be Thefeus, our renowned duke!"

4 New bent by Mr. Rowe.

-] The old copies read-Now bent. Corrected MALONE.

5 With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.] By triumph, as Mr. Warton has observed in his late edition of Milton's Poems, p. 56, we are to understand bows, fuch as masks, revels, &c. So, again in King Henry VI. P. III:

"And now what refts, but that we spend the time

With ftately triumphs, mirthful comick shows, "Such as befit the pleasures of the court?"

Again, in the preface to Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy, 1624: "Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, trophies, triumphs, revels, fports, playes." Jonfon, as the fame gentleman obferves, in the title of his mafque called Love's Triumph through Callipolis, by triumph seems to have meant a grand proceffion; and in one of the ftage-directions, it is faid, "the triumph is feen far off." MALONE.

our renowned duke!] Thus in Chaucer's Knight's Tale :, "Whilom as olde ftories tellen us,

"There was a Duk that highte Thefeus,

"Of Athenes he was lord and governour," &c.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 861. Lidgate too, the monk of Bury, in his tranflation of the Tragedies of John Bochas, calls him by the fame title, chap. xii. 1. 21: "Duke Thefeus had the victorye."

THE. Thanks, good Egeus: What's the news with thee?

EGE. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia.Stand forth, Demetrius ;-My noble lord, This man hath my confent to marry her:Stand forth, Lyfander ;-and, my gracious duke, This hath bewitch'd' the bofom of my child: Thou, thou, Lyfander, thou haft given her rhimes, And interchang'd love-tokens with my child: Thou haft by moon-light at her window fung, With feigning voice, verfes of feigning love; And ftol'n the impreffion of her fantasy

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,

Creon, in the tragedy of Jocafla, tranflated from Euripides in 1566, is called Duke Creon.

So likewife Skelton :

"Not lyke Duke Hamilcar,

"Nor lyke Duke Afdruball.”

Stanyhurst, in his Translation of Virgil, calls Æneas, Duke Eneas; and in Heywood's Iron Age, Part II. 1632, Ajax is ftyled Duke Ajax, Palamedes, Duke Palamedes, and Neftor, Duke Neftor, &c.

Our verfion of the Bible exhibits a fimilar mifapplication of a modern title; for in Daniel iii. 2. Nebuchadonozar, King of Babylon, fends out a fummons to the Sheriffs of his provinces.

STEEVENS.

7 This hath bewitch'd—] The old copies read-This man hath bewitch'd. The emendation was made for the fake of the metre, by the editor of the fecond folio. It is very probable that the compofitor caught the word man from the line above. MALONE. 8 gawds,] i. e. baubles, toys, trifles. Our author has the word frequently. See K. John, Act III. fc. v. Again, in Appius and Virginia, 1576:

"When gain is no grandfier,

"And gaudes not fet by," &c.

Again, in Drayton's Mooncalf:

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and in her lap

"A fort of paper puppets, gands and toys."

The Rev. Mr. Lambe, in his notes on the ancient metrical history of the Battle of Floddon, obferves that a gard is a child's toy, and

Knacks, trifles, nofegays, fweet-meats; messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning haft thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harfhnefs:-And, my gracious duke,
Be it fo fhe will not here before your grace
Confent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens;
As the is mine, I may dispose of her:
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death; according to our law,"
Immediately provided in that cafe.*

THE. What fay you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid:

To you your father fhould be as a god;

One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.3
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HER. So is Lyfander.

THE.

In himself he is:

But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other muft be held the worthier,

that the children in the North call their play-things gowdys, and their baby-house a gordy-house. STEEVENS.

9 Or to her death; according to our law,] By a law of Solon's, parents had an abfolute power of life and death over their children. So it fuited the poet's purpose well enough, to suppose the Athenians had it before. Or perhaps he neither thought nor knew any thing of the matter. WARBURTON.

Immediately provided in that cafe.] Shakspeare is grievously fufpected of having been placed, while a boy, in an attorney's office. The line before us has an undoubted fmack of legal common-place. Poetry disclaims it. STEEVENS.

3 To leave the figure, or disfigure it.] The fenfe is, you owe to your father a being which he may at pleasure continue or destroy.

JOHNSON.

HER. I would, my father look'd but with my eyes. THE. Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.

HER. I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold;
Nor how it may concern my modefty,

In fuch a prefence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace, that I
that I may know
The worst that may befal me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THE. Either to die the death, or to abjure
For ever the fociety of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, queftion your defires,
Know of your youth,' examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun;

For aye" to be in fhady cloifter mew'd,
To live a barren fifter all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice bleffed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo fuch maiden pilgrimage:
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,'

4

to die the death,] So, in the Second part of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

"We will, my liege, elfe let us die the death."

See notes on Measure for Measure, Act II. fc. iv. STEEVENS. 5 Know of your youth,] Bring your youth to the question. Confider your youth. JOHNSON.

6 For aye

lowe, 1622:

-] i. e. for ever. So, in K. Edward II. by Mar

"And fit for aye enthronized in heaven." STEEVENS. But earthlier happy is the rofe diftill'd,] Thus all the copies : yet earthlier is fo harsh a word, and earthlier happy, for happier earthly, a mode of fpeech fo unusual, that I wonder none of the editors have proposed earlier happy. JOHNSON.

It has fince been obferved, that Mr. Pope did propofe earlier. We might read-earthly happier.

Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in fingle bleffedness.
HER. So will I grow, fo live, fo die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship, whofe unwifhed yoke
My foul confents not to give fovereignty.

THE. Take time to paufe: and, by the next new

moon,

(The fealing-day betwixt my love and me,

————— the rose diftill'd,] So, in Lyly's Midas, 1592: "You bee all young and faire, endeavour to bee wife and vertuous; that when, like rjes, you fhall fall from the ftalke, you may be gathered, and put to the ftill."

This image however, muft have been generally obvious, as in Shakspeare's time the diftillation of rose water was a common procefs in all families. STEEVENS.

This is a thought in which Shakspeare seems to have much delighted. We meet with it more than once in his Sonnets. See 5th, 6th, and 54th Sonnet. MALONE.

8 — whose unwifhed yoke-] Thus both the quartos 1600, and the folio 1623. The fecond folio reads

66

to whofe unwifhed yoke." STEEVENS,

Dele to, and for unwish'd, r. unwi/bed.-Though I have been in general extremely careful not to admit into my text any of the innovations made by the editor of the fecond folio, from ignorance of our poet's language or metre, my caution was here over-watched; and I printed the above lines as exhibited by that and all the fubfequent editors, of which the reader was apprized in a note. The old copies should have been adhered to, in which they appear thus: "Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

"Unto his lordship, whofe unwifhed yoke

My foul confents not to give fovereignty." i. e. to give fovereignty to. See various inftances of this kind of phrafeology in a note on Cymbeline, fcene the laft. The change was certainly made by the editor of the fecond folio from his ignorance of Shakspeare's phrafeology. MALONE.

I have adopted the prefent elliptical reading, because it not only renders the line fmoother, but ferves to exclude the disgusting recurrence of the prepofition-to; and yet if the authority of the first folio had not been fupported by the quartos, &c. I fhould have preferred the more regular phrafeology of the folio 1632. STEEVENS.

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