Midsummer Night's Dream (1918) Yale/Notes
NOTES
I. i. 5, 6. The passage of time seems as slow to Theseus as to a young man under the guardianship of a stepmother or to one who is kept from the enjoyment of his estate by his father's widow who lingers on in possession of a life-interest therein.
I. i. 31. feigning . . . feigning. The two words 'fain' and 'feign' were often spelled alike in the sixteenth century. Hence 'feigning' may have here its modern sense or it may mean 'love-sick,' 'yearning.' A third possibility, which I am inclined to accept, is that by 'feigning voice' Egeus means 'a repressed voice,' i.e., that Lysander sang softly so as to avoid unwelcome attention.
I. i. 32. stol'n . . . fantasy. 'Secretly and without permission stamped your image upon her imagination.'
I. i. 206, 207. 'How powerful must be the graces of my beloved one, seeing that they have made Athens a place of torture for me; i.e., since so long as she remained in it she could not marry Lysander.' (Deighton.)
I. i. 232, 233. 'Love, forgetting proportionate values, can so transform things base and vile that they take on form and dignity.'
I. i. 249. dear expense. Helena seems to mean that she will pay dearly for Demetrius' thanks—if indeed she receives them—because she will be assisting him to pursue her rival.
I. ii. 2. generally. Bottom obviously means just the opposite of this, i.e., separately. His intended meaning is usually fairly clear, but it would be a foolhardy editor who should attempt to translate 'Bottomese' too precisely. Cf. 'obscenely' in line 112 of this scene.
I. ii. 56. Thisne. This word may mean 'in this way' (in which case it should be written without a capital), or it may represent Bottom's first attempt to say Thisbe in a 'monstrous little voice.'
I. ii. 115. hold, or cut bow-strings. 'This phrase is of the proverbial kind, and was born in the days of archery: when a party was made at butts [archery], assurance of meeting was given in the words of that phrase ; the sense of the person using them being that he would "hold" or keep promise, or they might "cut his bowstrings," demolish him for an archer.' (Capell.) This explanation is not certain, but the phrase undoubtedly means, 'Be there without fail.'
II. i. S. d. at one door. This refers to one of the side doors on the Elizabethan stage, and not, of course, to the imagined locality.
Robin Goodfellow. This is the proper name of the character referred to indiscriminately in the old copies as Robin or Puck. The latter was often used in the sixteenth century as a generic name for a kind of sprite or goblin. Nash, in his Terrors of the Night (1594), says that such mischievous beings 'did most of their merry prankes in the Night. Then ground they malt, and had hempen shirts for their labours, daunst in greene meadowes, pincht maids in their sleep that swept not their houses cleane, and led poor Trauellers out of their way notoriously.'
II. i. 7. moon's sphere. According to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy accepted in Shakespeare's day, the sun, moon, and stars revolved about the earth fixed in transparent spheres.
II. i. 9. orbs. The circles of dark green grass often seen in old pastures, once supposed to be produced by the care of fairies in watering such spots.
II. i. 10. pensioners. Queen Elizabeth had a bodyguard of tall and handsome gentlemen, many of them noble, who were called her pensioners.
II. i. 23. changeling. Fairies were supposed sometimes to steal a mortal child and to leave a substitute, usually of inferior intelligence, in its place. This substituted being was called a changeling; but here the word is used in reference to the stolen child.
II. i. 47. gossip's bowl. A drink, often called Lamb's-wool, made of ale, nutmeg, sugar, and roasted crab-apples. Originally served to the sponsors (gossips) at christenings, it was often used on other social occasions.
II. i. 54. tailor. This exclamation has called forth much learned discussion, the most amusing result of which has been Furness's suggestion that there is here a pun upon a word the reverse of header.
II. i. 66. Corin. Corin and Phillida (Phyllis) were conventional names for a shepherd and shepherdess.
II. i. 78. Perigenia. 'This Sinnis had a goodly fair daughter called Perigouna, which fled away when she saw her father slain. . . . But Theseus finding her, called her, and sware by his faith he would use her gently, and do her no hurt, nor displeasure at all.(North's Plutarch, ed. Skeat, p. 279.)
II. i. 79, 80. Ægle . . . Antiopa. 'For some say that Ariadne hung herself for sorrow, when she saw that Theseus had cast her off. Other . . . think that Theseus left her, because he was in love with another, as by these verses should appear: Ægles, the nymph, was loved of Theseus, Who was the daughter of Panopeus. . . . Philochorus, and some other hold opinion, that [Theseus] went thither with Hercules against the Amazons: and that to honour his valiantness, Hercules gave him Antiopa the Amazon. . . . Bion . . . saith, that he brought her away by deceit and stealth . . . and that Theseus enticed her to come into his ship . . . and so soon as she was aboard, he hoised his sail, and so carried her away.(North's Plutarch, ed. Skeat, pp. 284–286.)
II. i. 98. nine men's morris. A game played upon a sort of chessboard dug in the turf.
II. i. 101–103. No interpretation of this puzzling passage is entirely satisfactory. E. K. Chambers paraphrases it thus: 'The summer is so bad that men wish it were winter. Not only have we offended the winds, but we have neglected the hymns and carols due from us to the moon. Therefore she too is wrathful, and does her part to spoil the weather.' Furness, on the other hand, explains it as follows: 'Here in Warwickshire, says Titania, in effect (for of course she and Oberon are in the Forest of Arden, with never a thought of Athens; who ever heard of the nine mens morris on the slopes of Pentelicus?), "here the poor human mortals have no summer with its sports, and now they have had no winter with its hymns and carols."' If the latter be the meaning, 'therefore' is to be understood as 'because of our quarrel.'
II. i. 148–169. There is general agreement that this passage contains some allegory; but as to the extent and interpretation of this there is great diversity of opinion. It is fairly certain that the 'fair vestal throned by the west' is Queen Elizabeth. The imagery of the whole passage was very likely suggested by the allegorical figures which appeared in the pageants and 'triumphs' of the day, and it is not impossible that there is specific reference to the 'Princely Pleasures' with which the Earl of Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth in 1575.
II. i. 231. The story here 'changed,' i.e., reversed, is that of Apollo's pursuit of the nymph Daphne, who was transformed into a laurel tree and thus escaped.
III. i. 64. bush of thorns. English peasants saw 'the man in the moon' as bearing a bundle of sticks on his back.
III. i. 122, 123. you see an ass-head of your own. A popular retort which is flung out by Bottom with no consciousness of its special appropriateness.
III. i. 138. plain-song. Just what characterization of the cuckoo's song is intended is not clear. Perhaps the comparison is between the simple musical interval of the cuckoo's song and that which often occurs at the end of a phrase in the chanting of the psalms. The bird's cry of 'Cuckoo' gives rise in the following lines to one of the common Elizabethan jokes about cuckolds.
III. i. 169. Moth. The meaning of this name appears when it is given its Elizabethan pronunciation, 'mote,' i.e., a minute particle, as of dust in a sunbeam.
III. ii. 25. our stamp. Those who are puzzled by the unexpected 'our' instead of 'my,' or who fail to see the alarming effect of the stamping of so diminutive a being, may escape the difficulty by adopting the emendation (first suggested by Allen) at one stamp, i.e., 'in one rush.' But cf. IV. i. 91, 92.
III. ii. 97. costs the fresh blood dear. An allusion to the once popular belief that sighing lowers vitality.
III. ii. 129. 'If Lysander's present protestations are true, they destroy the truth of his former vows to Hermia, and the contest between these two truths, which in themselves are holy, must in the issue be devilish and end in the destruction of both.' (W. A. Wright.)
III. ii. 213, 214. There is some doubt as to the extent to which Shakespeare here pushes his allusion to heraldry, but the following note is satisfactory enough: 'Helen exemplifies her position by a simile,—"we had two of the first, i.e., bodies, like the double coats [of arms] in heraldry that belong to man and wife as one person, but which, like our single heart, have but one crest."' (Douce.)
III. ii. 257. The punctuation adopted in the text is the result of an attempt to make sense out of the reading of the First Quarto : No, no; heele Seeme. As the speech stands Demetrius must be supposed to address Hermia, and then, breaking off, to taunt Lysander. There is almost certainly some corruption of the text, and it might be better to read with the First Folio: No, no, Sir, seeme to breake loose. Then the No, no, Sir ! would have the force of the modern colloquialism, 'No you don't!'
III. ii. 329. hindering knot-grass. The knotgrass, a low, tough weed, hinders growth in gardens, and was popularly supposed to be a means of stunting a child's growth.
III. ii. 389. the morning's love. It is not certain whether this phrase refers to Cephalus, according to classical mythology a mighty hunter and the lover of Aurora, the dawn, or whether it is a figurative description of Aurora herself, or whether it means simply the sun. It is clear, however, that Oberon is contrasting his freedom to sport by day with the fate of those spirits which are exiled from the sunshine.
IV. i. 89 S. d. Music, still. This stage direction of the Folio is puzzling. Since Oberon later directs the music to sound, this may be a direction to the musicians to be ready, but not to play. Another possibility is that the meaning is simply 'soft music.'
IV. i. 145. Saint Valentine. An allusion to the old belief that the birds began to mate on St. Valentine's day. Cf. Chaucer, The Parlement of Foules:
'For this was on seynt Valentynys day,
Whan every bryd comyth there to chese his make . . .'
IV. i. 197, 198. 'Helena, I think, means to say that having found Demetrius unexpectedly, she considered her property in him as insecure as that which a person has in a jewel that he has found by accident; which he knows not whether he shall retain, and which, therefore, may properly enough be called his own and not his own.' (Malone.)
IV. i. 226. at her death. Does Bottom here mean Thisbe's death? But he is speaking, not of the play, but of a play. And why 'more gracious' after Thisbe's death? Theobald was very likely right in reading 'after death.' Were Bottom to rise, after dying a heroic death, and sing his 'ballad,' that would be gracious indeed.
V. i. 19, 20. 'The mere idea of a joy is enough incentive to a strong imagination to conjure up and believe in the actual presence of a something which causes that joy.' (Chambers.)
V. i. 79, 80. intents . . . conn'd. 'Intents' is here used in a double sense. Philostrate speaks of the clowns' endeavors to please as carried to the limit of their ability and of their having learned the play, the result of their endeavor, with painful toil.
V. i. 128 S. d. Tawyer. This reference in the stage direction of the First Folio to one of the actors in the company to which Shakespeare belonged is an interesting evidence that the Folio was printed from a stage-copy.
V. i. 200. Limander. Limander and Helen are blunders for Leander and Hero, just as Shafalus and Procrus are the closest the clowns can come to Cephalus and Procris. The two pairs of lovers thus referred to were typical instances of devotion.
V. i. 210. Now is the mural down. In place of this the First Quarto, which is the most reliable authority for the text of this play, has, Now is the moon used. That this latter version is almost certainly corrupt is shown, however, not only by the difficulty of finding in it a satisfactory meaning, but also by the fact that the First Folio substitutes, Now is the morall downe. Although the reading of the Folio can be interpreted as a pun on the senses 'moral obstacle' and 'wall all' (i.e., mure all), it still seems unlikely to be what Shakespeare wrote. In despair most editors have taken refuge in the emendation of Pope here adopted, despite the fact that it is open to serious objection both on literary grounds and because the noun 'mural' does not elsewhere appear as part of Shakespeare's vocabulary. The true reading seems irretrievably lost.
V. i. 246. horns. Moon's lantern had sides of horn instead of glass, so that there is a double significance in his reference to the horned, i.e., crescent, moon. Thereupon Demetrius makes the inevitable Elizabethan joke about the horns which were supposed to grow upon the head of the married man whose wife was unfaithful to him.
V. i. 314. No . . . ace. Demetrius attempts to make a pun on a second sense of 'die,' i.e., one of a pair of dice. Some editors have attempted to help out Demetrius' wit by taking the word as related to 'duo,' i.e., two. The Elizabethan pronunciation of 'ace' gives Theseus a chance for another pun.
V. i. 393. Hecate is called triple because she was as Luna a heavenly goddess, as Diana an earthly one, and as Hecate one of the lower world. When, as the moon-goddess, she disappears at the coming of the sun, the fairies accompany her car.
V. i. 428, 429. It is not improbable that these lines were printed in the wrong order and should be transposed.