-Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens ; The. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid: To you your father should 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 Her. So is Lysander. The. In himself he is : But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice, Her. I would, my father look'd but with my eyes. The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment 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 modesty, In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts: If I refuse to wed Demetrius. The. Either to die the death,2 or to abjure [1] By a law of Solon, parents had an absolute power of life and death over their children. So it suited 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. [2]Shakspeare employs this scriptural'expression in King John; and I meet with it again in the 2d part of the Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. STEEVENS. For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Unto his lordship, to whose unwished yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty. The. Take time to pause: and, by the next new moon, (The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, For everlasting bond of fellowship) Upon that day either prepare to die, Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would; For aye, austerity, and single life. Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia ;-And, Lysander, yield Thy crazed title to my certain right. Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius ; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him. Ege. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love; I do estate unto Demetrius. Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, And, which is more than all these boasts can be, Why should not I then prosecute my right? Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena, 17 VOL. II. Upon this spotted and inconstant man. 3 The. I must confess, that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; But, being over-full of self-affairs, My mind did lose it.-But, Demetrius, come; I must employ you in some business [Exe. THES. HIP. EGEUS, DEM. and train. Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast? Her. Belike, for want of rain; which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes. Lys. Ah me for aught that ever I could read, The course of true love never did run smooth: Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low ! Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; [3] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked. JOHNSON. [4] Give them, bestow upon them. The word is used by Spenser. JOH. "So would I, said the enchanter, glad and fain "Beteem to you his sword, you to defend." Fairy Queen. But I rather think that to beteem, in this place, signifies (as in the northern counties) to pour out; from tomner, Danish. STEEVENS. [5] Collied, i.e. black, smutted with coal, a word still used in the midland Counties. STEEVENS. That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, The jaws of darkness do devour it up : So quick bright things come to confusion. Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edíct in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross; As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child: From Athens is her house remote seven leagues; And she respects me as her only son. There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee; There will I stay for thee. Her. My good Lysander! I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow; By the simplicity of Venus' doves ; By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves : Lys. Keep promise, love: Look, here comes Helena. [6] Though the word spleen be here employed oddly enough, yet I believe it right. Shakspeare, always hurried on by the grandeur and multitude of his ideas, assumes every now and then an uncommon license in the use of his words. Particularly in complex moral modes it is usual with him to employ one, only to express a very few ideas of that number of which it is composed. Thus, wanting here to express the ideas-of a sudden, or—in a trice, he uses the word spleen; which, partially considered, signifying a hasty sudden fit, is enough for him, and he never troubles himself about the further or fuller signification of the word. Here, he uses the word spleen for a sudden hasty fit; so just the contrary, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, he uses sudden for splenetic :" sudden quips." And it must be owned this ort of conversation adds a force to the diction. WARBURTON. Enter HELENA. Her. God speed fair Helena ! Whither away? Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair : O happy fair! Your eyes are load-stars; and your tongue's sweet air When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move! Hel. None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were mine! Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face; Lysander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lysander see, Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me : O then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn'd a heaven unto hell! Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: To-morrow-night, when Phoebe doth behold Her silver visage in the watry glass, [7] This was a compliment not unfrequent among the old poets. The lodestar is the leading or guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the same reason, called the lode-stone, either because it leads iron, or because it leads the sailor. Davies calls Queen Elizabeth : JOHNSON. STEEVENS. "Lode-stone to hearts, and lode-stone to all eyes.” [8] Favour is feature, countenance. STEEVENS. [9] To translate, here signifies to change, to transform. [1] Perhaps every reader may not discover the propriety of these lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to consider the power of pleasing, as an advantage to be much envied or much desired, since Hermia, whom she considers as possessing it in the supreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness. JOHNSON. |