PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er play'd here! [Aside.-Exit. THIS. Must I speak now? QUIN. Ay, marry, must you: for you must understand, he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again. THIS. Most radiant Pyramus, most lilly-white of hue, Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier, Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew, As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire, I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb. QUIN. Ninus' tomb, man: Why you must not speak that yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your part at once, cues and all'.-Pyramus enter; your cue is past; it is, never tire. Re-enter Puck, and BOTTOM with an ass's head. THIS. O,-As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire. PYR. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine :QUIN. O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters! fly, masters! help! [Exeunt Clowns. 66 to have been lost; the first of which rhymed with savours sweet," and the other with "here a while." The line before appears to me to refer to something that has been lost. MALONe. than e'er play'd HERE!] I suppose he means in that theatre where the piece was acting. 5 STEEVENS. 66 6-juvenal,] i. e. young man. So, Falstaff: the ju vénal thy master." STEEVENS. 7 - CUES and all.] A cue, in stage cant, is the last words of the preceding speech, and serves as a hint to him who is to speak So, Othello: next. "Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Again, in The Return from Parnassus : "Indeed, master Kempe, you are very famous but that is as well for works in print, as your part in cue." Kempe was one of Shakspeare's fellow comedians. STEEVENS. 8 If I were fair, &c.] Perhaps we ought to point thus: If I were, [i. e. as true, &c.] fair Thisby, I were only thine. MALONE. PUCK. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier9; Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. [Exit. Bor. Why do they run away? this is a knavery oft hem, to make me afeard'. Re-enter SNOUT. SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?? Bor. What do you see? you see an ass's head of your own; Do you ? Re-enter QUINCE. QUIN. Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated. [Exit. Bor. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not 9 Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;] Here are two syllables wanting. Perhaps, it was written : 66 Through bog, through mire," So, in Spenser's Fairy Queene, b. vi. c. viii. : 66 66 JOHNSON. Through hills, through dales, through bushes and through briars, Long thus she bled," &c. MALONE. The alliteration evidently requires some word beginning with a b. We may therefore read: "Through bog, through burn, through bush, through brake, through brier." RITSON. 1 to make me AFEARD.] Afear is from to fear, by the old form of the language, as an hungered, from to hunger. So adry, for thirsty. JOHNSON. 2 O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?] It is plain by Bottom's answer, that Snout mentioned an ass's head. Therefore we should read: Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee? An ass's head? JOHNSON. stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. The ousel-cock3, so black of hue, 4 The throstle with his note so true, [Sings. TITA. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed 5 ? [Waking. 3 The OUSEL-COCK,] The ouzel cock is generally understood to be the cock blackbird. Ben Jonson uses the word in The Devil is an Ass: stay till cold weather come, "I'll help thee to an ouzel and a field-fare." P. Holland, however, in his translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. x. c. xxiv. represents the ouzle and the blackbird as different birds. In The Arbor of Amorous Devises, 4to. bl. 1. are the following lines: "The chattering pie, the jay, and eke the quaile, The former leaf and the title-page being torn out of the copy I consulted, I am unable either to give the two preceding lines of the stanza, or to ascertain the date of the book. STEEVENS. From the following passage in Gwazzo's Civile Conversation, 1586, p. 139, it appears that ousels and blackbirds were the same birds: " She would needs have it that they were two ousels or blackbirds." REED. The ousel differs from the black-bird by having a white crescent upon the breast, and is besides rather larger. See Lewin's English Birds. Douce. 4 The THROSTLE-] So, in the old metrical romance of The Squhr of Low Degree, bl. 1. no date: "The pee and the popinjaye, "The thrustele, sayinge both nyght and daye." Again, in the first book of Gower De Confessione Amantis, 1554: "The throstel with the nightingale." It appears from the following passage in Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587, that the throstle is a distinct bird from the thrush: " There is also another sort of myrte or myrtle which is wild, whose berries the mavises, throssels, owsells, and thrushes delite much to eate." STEEVENS. 5 What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?] Perhaps a parody on a line in The Spanish Tragedy, often ridiculed by the poets of our author's time: Bor. The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, Whose note full many a man doth mark, for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry, cuckoo, never so? TITA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, "What outcry calls me from my naked bed?" The Spanish Tragedy was entered on the Stationers' books in 1592. MALONE. 6 — PLAIN-SONG cuckoo, &c.] That is, the cuckoo, who, having no variety of strains, sings in plain song, or in plano cantu; by which expression the uniform modulation or simplicity of the chaunt was anciently distinguished, in opposition to prick-song, or variegated musick sung by note. Skelton introduces the birds singing the different parts of the service of the funeral of his favourite sparrow: among the rest is the cuckoo. P. 227, edit. Lond. 1736: "But with a large and a long "To kepe just playne songe "Our chanters shall be your cuckoue," &c. T. WARTON. Again, in The Return from Parnassus : "Our life is a plain song with cunning penn'd." Again, in Hans Beer-pot's Invisible Comedy, &c.: "The cuckoo sings not worth a groat, "Because she never changeth note." STEEVENS. 7 Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note, So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape; And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.] These lines are, in one quarto of 1600, the first folio of 1623, the second of 1632, and the third of 1664, &c. ranged in the following order: "Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note, "On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee; "And thy fair virtue's force (perforce) doth move me." This reading I have inserted, not that it can suggest any thing better than the order to which the lines have been re Bor. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that: And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days: The more the pity, that some honest neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion. TITA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful. Bor. Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn. TITA. Out of this wood do not desire to go; Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no. I am a spirit, of no common rate; The summer still doth tend upon my state, And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, stored by Mr. Theobald from another quarto, [Fisher's,] but to show that some liberty of conjecture must be allowed in the revisal of works so inaccurately printed, and so long neglected. 8 JOHNSON. gleek,] Joke or scoff. POPE. Gleek was originally a game at cards. The word is often used by other ancient comic writers, in the same sense as by our author. So, in Mother Bombie, 1594: "There's gleek for you, let me have my gird.” Again, in Tom Tyler and his Wife: "The more that I get her, the more she doth gleek me." Again, in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617: "Messieur Benedetto galled Peratio with his gleek." Mr. Lambe observes in his notes on the ancient metrical history of The Battle of Flodden, that, in the north, to gleek is to deceive, or beguile; and that the reply made by the queen of the fairies, proves this to be the meaning of it. STEEVENS. Glaik, or the glaiks, is still used in Scotland for a trick. See this word explained, and its origin pointed out, in Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish language, voc. Glaik. BOSWELL. 9- JEWELS from the DEEP,] So, in King Richard III. : reflecting gems "That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep." STEEVENS. |