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PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches2, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play,
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.

3

The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort +,
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport

seem to mean, what frolick of the night, what revelry is going forward? So, in Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1661 :

"Marry, here is good rule!"

Again:

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why how now strife! here is pretty rule!"

It appears from the old song of Robin Goodfellow, in the third volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, that it was the office of this waggish spirit" to viewe [or superintend] the night-sports." STEEVENS.

2-patches,] Patch was in old language used as a term of opprobry; perhaps with much the same import as we use raggamuffin, or tatterdemalion, JOHNSON.

Puck calls the players, "a a crew of patches." A common opprobrious term, which probably took its rise from Patch, Cardinal Wolsey's fool. In the western counties, cross-patch is still used for perverse, ill-natur'd fool. T. WARTON.

The name was rather taken from the patch'd or pied coats worn by the fools or jesters of those times.

So, in The Tempest:

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what a pied ninny's this?"

Again, in Preston's Cambyses:

"Hob and Lob, ah ye country patches!" Again, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"It is simplicitie, that patch." STEEVENS.

I should suppose patch to be merely a corruption of the Italian pazzo, which signifies properly a fool. So, in The Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. V. Shylock says of Launcelot: The patch is kind enough ;—after having just called him, that fool of Hagar's off-spring. TYRWHITT.

3-thick-skin-] See Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV. Sc. V. STEEVENS.

4 - BARREN sort,] Barren is dull, unpregnant. Hamlet:

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some quantity of barren spectators," &c.

Sort is company. STEEVENS.

So, in

Forsook his scene, and enter'd in a brake:
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's now I fixed on his head";
Anon, his Thisbe must be answered,

And forth my mimick" comes: When they him spy, As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,

5 An ass's Now I fixed on his head;] A head.

So, Chaucer, in The History of Beryn, 1524:

Saxon.

JOHNSON.

"No sothly, quoth the steward, it lieth all in thy noll, "Both wit and wysdom," &c.

Again, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584:

One thumps me on the neck, and another strikes me on the nole." STEEVENS.

The following receipt for the process tried on Bottom, occurs in Albertus Magnus de Secretis: "Si vis quod caput hominis assimiletur capiti asini, sume de segimine aselli, et unge hominem in capite, et sic apparebit." There was a translation of this book in Shakspeare's time. DOUCE.

The metamorphosis of Bottom's head, might have been suggested by a similar trick played by Dr. Faustus. See his History, chap. xliii. STEEVENS.

6 mimick-] Minnock is the reading of the old quarto, and I believe right. Minnekin, now minx, is a nice trifling girl. Minnock is apparently a word of contempt. JOHNSON.

The folio reads-mimmick: perhaps for mimick, a word more familiar than that exhibited by one of the quartos, for the other reads-minnick. STEEVENS.

Mimmick is the reading of the folio. The quarto printed by Fisher has-minnick; that by Roberts, minnock: both evidently corruptions. The line has been explained as if it related to Thisbe; but it does not relate to her, but to Pyramus. Bottom had just been playing that part, and had retired into a brake; (according to Quince's direction: "When you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake.") Anon, his Thisbe must be answered, And forth my mimick (i. e. my actor) comes." In this there seems no difficulty.

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Mimick is used as synonymous to actor, by Decker, in his Guls Hornebooke, 1609: “Draw what troop you can from the stage after you; the mimicks are beholden to you for allowing them elbow room." Again, in his Satiromastix, 1602: "Thou [B. Jonson] hast forgot how thou ambled'st in a leather pilch by a play-waggon in the highway, and took'st mad Jeronymo's part, to get service amongst the mimicks." MALONE.

Or russet-pated choughs", many in sort 3,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report
Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky;
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly :

And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;

7

CHOUGHS,] The chough is a bird of the daw kind. It is mentioned also in Macbeth:

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"By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks," &c. STEEVENS. 8-sort,] Company. So above:

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and in Waller :

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that barren sort; "

"A sort of lusty shepherds strive." So, in Chapman's May-day, 1611: "though

JOHNSON.

though we neuer lead any other company than a sort of quart-pots." STEEVENS.

9 And, at OUR STAMP,] This seems to be a vicious reading. Fairies are never represented stamping, or of a size that should give force to a stamp, nor could they have distinguished the stamps of Puck from those of their own companions. I read :

"And at a stump here o'er and o'er one falls."

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Against a stubbled tree he reels,

"And up went poor Hobgoblin's heels;
"Alas, his brain was dizzy.-

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"At length upon his feet he gets,
Hobgoblin fumes, Hobgoblin frets,
"And as again he forward sets,

"And through the bushes scrambles,
"A stump doth trip him in his pace,
"Down fell poor Hob upon his face,
"And lamentably tore his case,

"Among the briers and brambles." JOHNSON.

I adhere to the old reading. The stamp of a fairy might be efficacious though not loud; neither is it necessary to suppose, when supernatural beings are spoken of, that the size of the agent determines the force of the action. That fairies did stamp to some purpose, may be known from the following passage in Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus :-" Vero saltum adeo profundè in terram impresserant, ut locus insigni adore orbiculariter peresus, non parit arenti redivivum cespite gramen.” Shakspeare's own authority, however, is most decisive. See the conclusion of the first Scene of the fourth Act:

He murder cries, and help from Athens calls. Their sense, thus weak, lost with their fears, thus

strong,

Made senseless things begin to do them wrong:
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
Some, sleeves; some, hats'; from yielders all
things catch.

I led them on in this distracted fear,
And left sweet Pyramus translated there:
When in that moment (so it came to pass,)
Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.

2

OBE. This falls out better than I could devise. But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?

PUCK. I took him sleeping,—that is finish'd too,—— And the Athenian woman by his side;

That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.

"Come, my queen, take hand with me,

"And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be."

STEEVENS.

Honest Reginald Scott, says: "Our grandams maides were wont to set a boll of milke before incubus, and his cousin Robin Good-fellow, for grinding of malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight: and-that he would chafe exceedingly, if the maid or good wife of the house, having compassion of his nakednes, laid anie clothes for him beesides his messe of white bread and milke, which was his standing fee. For in that case he saith, What have we here? Hemton, hamten, here will I never more tread nor stampen." Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 85.

RITSON.

Some, sleeves; some, hats ;] There is the like image in Drayton, of queen Mab and her fairies flying from Hobgoblin: "Some tore a ruff, and some a gown, "'Gainst one another justling;

2

"They flew about like chaff i' th' wind,
"For haste some left their masks behind,

"Some could not stay their gloves to find,

"There never was such bustling." JOHNSON.

latch'd] Or letch'd, lick'd over, lecher, to lick, Fr.

In the North, it signifies to infect. STEEVENS.

HANMER,

Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA.

OBE. Stand close; this is the same Athenian. PUCK. This is the woman, but not this the man. DEM. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so? Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

HER. Now I but chide, but I should use thee

worse;

For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,

Being o'er shoes in blood3, plunge in the deep,
And kill me too.

The sun was not so true unto the day,

As he to me: Would he have stol'n away

From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon,

This whole earth may be bor'd; and that the moon
May through the center creep, and so displease
Her brother's noon-tide with the Antipodes*.
It cannot be, but thou hast murder'd him;
So should a murderer look; so dead', so grim.

3 Being o'er shoes in blood,] An allusion to the proverb, Over shoes, over boots. JOHNSON.

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I am in blood,

'Stept in so far," &c. STEEVENS.

NOON-TIDE with the Antipodes.] Dr. Warburton would read- i' th' antipodes, which Mr. Edwards ridicules without mercy. The alteration is certainly not necessary; but it is not so unlucky as he imagined. Shirley has the same expression in his Andromana:

"To be a whore, is more unknown to her,
"Then what is done in the antipodes."

In for among is frequent in old language. FARMER.

The familiarity of the general idea, is shown by the following passage in The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: "And dwell one month with the Antipodes."

Again, in King Richard II. :

"While we were wandring with the Antipodes."

STBEVENS.

5 SO DEAD,] All the old copies read-so dead; in my copy of it, some reader has altered dead to dread. JOHNSON.

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