Your hands, than mine, are quicker for a fray;
My legs are longer though, to run away. [Exit.
HER. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say *.
[Exit, pursuing HELENA.
OBE. This is thy negligence: still thou mistak'st,
Or else commit'st thy knaveries wilfully.

PUCK. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me, I should know the man
By the Athenian garments he had on?
And so far blameless proves my enterprize,
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes:
And so far am I glad it so did sort 7,
As this their jangling I esteem a sport.

OBE. Thou seest, these lovers seek a place to fight: Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;

The starry welkin cover thou anon
With drooping fog, as black as Acheron ;
And lead these testy rivals so astray,
As one come not within another's way.
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property
To take from thence all error, with his might,
And make his eye-balls roll with wonted sight.

7

* First folio omits this speech.

† So both the quartos ; folio, willingly.
Quarto R., and folio, hath.

8

so did SORT,] So happen in the issue. JOHNSON. So, in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606;

8

never look to have any action sort to your honour." STEEVENS.

VIRTUOUS property,] Salutiferous. So he calls, in The

Tempest, poisonous dew, wicked dew. JOHNSON,

When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream, and fruitless vision;
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend.

With league, whose date till death shall never end.
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ *,

I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;
And then I will her charmed eye release

From monster's view, and all things shall be peace. PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste;

For night's swift dragons' cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,

Troop home to church-yards: damned spirits all, That in cross-ways and floods have burial2,

*So Quarto F.; Quarto R. apply; folio, imply. 9-wend,] i. e. go. So, in the Comedy of Errors:

Hopeless and helpless doth Ægeon wend." STEEVENS. ' For NIGHT'S SWIFT DRAGONS, &c.] So, in Cymbeline, Act II. Sc. II. :

66

Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night!"

See my note on this passage, concerning the vigilance imputed to the serpent tribe. STEEVENS.

This circumstance Shakspeare might have learned from a passage in Golding's translation of Ovid, which he has imitated in The Tempest:

66

Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal war did set,

"And brought asleep the dragon fell, whose eyes were never shet." MALONE.

2

damned spirits all,

That in CROSS-WAYS and FLOODS have burial,] The ghosts of self-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads; and of those who being drowned, were condemned (according to the opinion of the ancients) to wander for a hundred years, as the rites of sepulture had never been regularly bestowed on their bodies. That the waters were sometimes the place of residence for damned spirits, we learn from the ancient bl. 1. romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no date:

"Let some preest a gospel saye,

"For doute of fendes in the flode." STEEVENS.

3

Already to their wormy beds are gone;

For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
They wilfully themselves exíle from light,
And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night'.
OBE. But we are spirits of another sort:

5

I with the morning's love have oft made sport ;

3

to their WORMY BEDS] This periphrasis for the grave has been borrowed by Milton, in his Ode on the Death of a Fair Infant :

4

"Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed." STEEVENS.
black-brow'd night.] So, in King John:

“Why, here walk I, in the black-brow of night."

STEEVENS.

5 I with the MORNING'S LOVE have oft made sport ;] Thus all the old copies, and I think, rightly. Tithonus was the husband of Aurora, and Tithonus was no young deity.

Thus, in Aurora, a collection of sonnets, by Lord Sterline, 1604:

"And why should Tithon thus, whose day grows late,
Enjoy the morning's love?"

66

Again, in The Parasitaster, by J. Marston, 1606:
"Aurora yet keeps chaste old Tithon's bed;
"Yet blushes at it when she rises."

Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iii. c. iii.:

As faire Aurora rising hastily,

"Doth by her blushing tell that she did lye
"All night in old Tithonus' frozen bed."

Again, in The Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher:

·O, lend me all thy red,

"Thou shame-fac'd morning, when from Tithon's bed
"Thou risest ever-maiden?"

How such a waggish spirit as the King of the Fairies might make sport with an antiquated lover, or his mistress in his absence, may be easily understood. Dr. Johnson reads with all the modern editors: "I with the morning light," &c. STEEVENS.

66

Will not this passage bear a different explanation? By the morning's love I apprehend Cephalus, the mighty hunter and paramour of Aurora, is intended. The context, And, like a forester," &c. seems to show that the chace was the sport which Oberon boasts he partook with the morning's love.

HOLT WHITE. The connection between Aurora and Cephalus is also pointed out in one of the Poems that form a collection intitled The Phonix Nest, &c. 4to, 1593, p. 95:

And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams.
But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:
We may effect this business yet ere day.

[Exit OBERON. PUCK. Up and down, up and down;

I will lead them up and down :
I am fear'd in field and town;
Goblin, lead them up and down.

Here comes one.

Enter LYSANDER.

Lys. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now.

PUCK. Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where

art thou?

Lys. I will be with thee straight.

PUCK.

To plainer ground.

DEM.

Follow me then

[Erit Lys. as following the voice.

Enter DEMETRIUS.

Lysander! speak again.

Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?

Speak. In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy

head ?

PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,

"Aurora now began to rise againe

"From watrie couch and from old Tithon's side,

"In hope to kiss upon Acteian plaine

"Yong Cephalus," &c. STEEVENS.

6 Even till the eastern gate, &c.] What the fairy monarch means to inform Puck of, is this.-That he was not compelled, like meaner spirits, to vanish at the first appearance of the dawn.

STEEVENS.

Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou

child;

I'll whip thee with a rod: He is defil'd,

That draws a sword on thee.

DEM.

Yea; art thou there?

PUCK. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood

here.

Re-enter LYSANDER.

[Exeunt.

Lys. He goes before me, and still dares me on; When I come where he calls, then he is gone. The villain is much lighter heel'd than I: I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly; That fallen am I in dark uneven way, And here will rest me.

Come, thou gentle day!

[Lies down. For if but once thou show me thy grey light, I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite. [Sleeps.

Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS.

PUCK. Ho, ho! ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not??

7 Puck. Ho, HO! HO, HO! Coward, why com'st thou not?] This exclamation would have been uttered by Puck with greater propriety, if he were not now playing an assumed character, which he, in the present instance, seems to forget. In the old song printed by Peck and Percy, in which all his gambols are related, he concludes every stanza with Ho, ho, ho! So, in Grim the Collier of Croydon :

"Ho, ho, ho, my masters! No good fellowship!

"Is Robin Goodfellow a bug-bear grown, "That he is not worthy to be bid sit down?" Again, in Drayton's Nymphidia:

"Hoh, hoh, quoth Hob, God save thy grace."

It was not, however, as has been asserted, the appropriate exclamation, in our author's time, of this eccentric character; the devil himself having, if not a better, at least an older, title to it. So, in Histriomastix (as quoted by Mr. Steevens in a note or