* A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.] This play was entered at Stationers' Hall, Oct. 8, 1600, by Thomas Fisher. It is probable that the hint for it was received from Chaucer's Knight's Tale. There is an old black letter pamphlet by W. Bettie, called Titana and Theseus, entered at Stationers' Hall, in 1608; but Shakspeare has taken no hints from it. Titania is also the name of the Queen of the Fairies in Decker's Whore of Babylon, 1607. STEevens. The Midsummer Night's Dream I suppose to have been written in 1592. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. II. MALONE. Theseus, Duke of Athens. Egeus, Father to Hermia. Lysander, Demetrius, in love with Hermia. Philostrate, Master of the Revels to Theseus. Quince, the Carpenter. Snug, the Joiner. Bottom, the Weaver. Flute, the Bellows-mender. Starveling, the Tailor. Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus. Hermia, Daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander. Helena, in love with Demetrius. Oberon, King of the Fairies. Titania, Queen of the Fairies. Puck, or Robin-goodfellow, a Fairy. Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Fairies. Characters in the Interlude performed by the Clowns. Lion, Other Fairies attending their King and Queen. Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE, Athens, and a Wood not far from it. 1 The enumeration of persons was first made by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS. MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. A Room in the Palace of Theseus. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants. THE. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon: but, oh, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's revenue.2 HIP. Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; 3 2 Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's revenue.] The authenticity of this reading having been questioned by Dr. Warburton, I shall exemplify it from Chapman's translation of the 4th Book of Homer: 3 sc. iv: there the goodly plant lies withering out his grace." Ut piget annus Pupillis, quos dura premit custodia matrum, STEEVENS. "Sic mihi tarda fluunt ingrataque tempora." Hor. 66 MALONE. steep themselves in nights ;] So, in Cymbeline, Act V. neither deserve, "And yet are steep'd in favours." STEEVENS. Four nights will quickly dream away the time; THE. Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling." New bent] The old copies read-Now bent. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. s With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.] By triumph, as Mr. Warton has observed in his late edition of Milton's Poems, p. 56, we are to understand shows, such as masks, revels, &c. So, again in King Henry VI. P. III: "And now what rests, but that we spend the time Again, in the preface to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1624: "Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, playes." Jonson, as the same gentleman observes, in the title of his masque called Love's Triumph through Callipolis, by triumph seems to have meant a grand procession; and in one of the stage-directions, it is said, "the triumph is seen far off." MALONE. Thus also, (and more satisfactorily,) in the Duke of Anjou's Entertainment at Antwerp, 1581: "Yet notwithstanding, their triumphes [those of the Romans] have so borne the bell above all the rest, that the word triumphing, which commeth thereof, hath beene applied to all high, great, and statelie dooings.” STEEVENS. |