-Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, 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 To leave the figure, or disfigure it. 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, 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 inatter. WARBURTON. [2] Shakespeare 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. Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, 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, For disobedience to your father's will; Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would; Or on Diana's altar to protest, 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; And what is mine my love shall render him; I do estate unto Demetrius. Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, As well possess'd; my love is more than his ; My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd, If not with vantage, as Demetrius'; And, which is more than all these boasts can be, Why should not I then prosecute my right? Upon this spotted and inconstant man.3 The. I must confess, that I have heard so much, My mind did lose it.-But, Demetrius, come; shall go with me, I have some private schooling for you both. 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 enthrali'd to low! Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; [3] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked. 8 5 JOHNSON. Give them, bestow upon them. The word is used by Spenser. JOHN. 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 coumies. STEEVENS. That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict 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. 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. Shakespeare, 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 Gentemen of Verona, he uses sudden for splenetic: sudden quips." And it must be owned this sort 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. My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, 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; O then, what graces in my love do dwell, Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: [7] This was a compliment not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode-star 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: "Lode-stone to hearts, and lode-stone to all eyes." [8] Favour is feature, countenance. [9] To translate, here signifies to change, to transform, JOHNSON. STEEVENS. [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 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. mu |