Immediately provided in that case.

The. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid: To you, your father should be as a god;

One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
Her. So is Lysander.

The.

In himself he is:

But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,

The other must be held the worthier.

Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
Her. I do entreat your grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold;
Nor how it may concern my modesty,

*

In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace, that I may know
The worst that may befal me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

9

The. Either to die the death, or to abjure

For ever the society of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth,1 examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun;

For aye2 to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,

8 To leave the figure, or disfigure it.] The sense is, you owe to your father a being, which he may at pleasure continue or destroy.

9

Johnson.

to die the death,] So, in the second part of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

"We will, my liege, else let us die the death." See notes on Measure for Measure, Act II, sc. iv. Steevens. 1 Know of your youth,] Bring your youth to the question. Consider your youth. Johnson.

2 For aye-] i. e. for ever. So, in K. Edward II, by Marlowe, 1622:

"And sit for aye enthronized in heaven." Steevens.

To undergo such maiden pilgrimage:
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,3

Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

The. Take time to pause: and, by the next new moon, (The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,

For everlasting bond of fellowship)

Upon that day either prepare to die,
For disobedience to your father's will;

Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would:
Or, on Diana's altar to protest,

For aye, austerity and single life.

Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia;-and, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius;

Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.5

Ege. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him;
And she is mine; and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.

3 But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,] Thus all the copies: yet earthlier is so harsh a word, and earthlier happy, for happier earthly, a mode of speech so unusual, that I wonder none of the editors have proposed earlier happy. Johnson.

It has since been observed, that Mr. Pope did propose earlier. We might read-earthly happy.

You

the rose distill'd,] So, in Lyly's Midas, 1592: " bee all young and faire, endeavour to bee wise and vertuous; that when, like roses, you shall fall from the stalke, you may be gathered, and put to the still."

This image, however, must have been generally obvious, as in Shakspeare's time, the distillation of rose-water was a common process, in all families.

4

Steevens.

whose unwished yoke-] Thus both the quartos 1600, and the folio 1623. The second folio reads

to whose unwished yoke Steevens.

-.

5 You have her father's love, Demetrius ;

Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.] I suspect, that Shakspeare wrote:

Let me have Hermia; do you marry him. Tyrwhitt.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
If not with vantage, as Demetrius';

And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.

Why should not I, then, prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

The. I must confess, that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,

My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;
I have some private schooling for you both.-
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else, the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death, or to a vow of single life.-
Come, my Hippolyta; What cheer, my love?-
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along

I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial; and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
Ege. With duty and desire we follow you.

[Exeunt THE. HIP. EGE. DEM. and train. Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Her. Belike, for want of rain; which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes.

6

spotted-] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked. Johnson.

7 Beteem them-] Give them, bestow upon them. The word is used by Spenser. Johnson.

"So would I, said th' enchanter, glad and fain "Beteem to you his sword, you to defend." Fairy Queen. Again, in The Case is Altered. How? Ask Dalio and Milo, 1605: "I could beteeme her a better match."

Lys. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear, by tale or history,

The course of true loves never did run smooth:
But, either it was different in blood,-

Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!9
Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years;
Her. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young!
Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends:
Her. O hell! to choose love by another's eye!
Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;
Making it momentany as a sound,1

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,"

'But I rather think, that to beteem, in this place, signifies (as in the northern counties) to pour out; from tommer, Danish.

Steevens. 8 The course of true love-] This passage seems to have been imitated by Milton. Paradise Lost, B. X.-896. & seq.

Malone.

9 too high to be enthrall'd to low!] Love-possesses all the editions, but carries no just meaning in it. Nor was Hermia displeased at being in love; but regrets the inconveniences, that generally attend the passion; either the parties are disproportioned, in degree of blood and quality; or unequal, in respect of years; or brought together by the appointment of friends, and not by their own choice. These are the complaints, represented by Lysander; and Hermia, to answer to the first, as she has done to the other two, must necessarily say:

O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!

So the antithesis is kept up in the terms; and so she is made to condole the disproportion of blood and quality in lovers.

Theobald.

The emendation is fully supported, not only by the tenour of the preceding lines, but by a passage in our author's Venus and Adonis, in which the former predicts that the course of love never shall run smooth:

"Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend,

"Ne'er settled equally, too high, or low," &c. Malone.

1 momentany as a sound,] Thus the quartos. The first folio reads-momentary. Momentany (says Dr. Johnson) is the old and proper word. Steevens.

66

that short momentany rage,”—is an expression of Dryden. Henley.

2 Brief as the lightning in the collied night,] Collied, i. e. black, smutted with coal, a word still used in the midland counties.

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And, ere a man hath power to say,-Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up: 3
So quick bright things come to confusion.

Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
It stands as an edíct in destiny:

Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross;

As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers.*

Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child:

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee:
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us: If thou lov'st me, then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And, in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,

There will I stay for thee.

So, in Ben Jonson's Poetaster:

66

Thou hast not collied thy face enough." Steevens.

3 That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And, ere a man hath power to say,-Behold!

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:] Though the word spleen be here employed oddly enough, yet I believe it right. Shakspeare, always hurried on by the grandeur and multitude of his ideas, assumes, every now and then, an uncommon licence in the use of his words. Particularly in complex moral modes it is usual with him to employ one, only to express a very few ideas of that number of which it is composed. Thus wanting here to express the ideas-of a sudden, or—in a trice, he uses the word spleen; which, partially considered, signifying a hasty sudden fit, is enough for him, and he never troubles himself about the further or fuller signification of the word. Here, he uses the word spleen for a sudden hasty fit; so, just the contrary, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, he uses sudden for splenetic; "sudden quips." And it must be owned, this sort of conversation adds a force to the diction. Warburton.

fancy's followers.] Fancy is love. So, afterwards, in this

"Fair Helena in fancy following me." Steevens.