of the watery moon' had instantly quenched. But if she is not 'cold' she is the embodiment of feminine daintiness and delicacy; and all about her is imagined with an exquisite instinct for the elemental life of flower and insect and all the dainty and delicate things of nature.1

One flower, however, which plays a notable part in the plot, carries us back to myth.

The love-juice with which Puck anointed the eyes of the lovers and Titania was first brought into connection with fairy-lore by Shakespeare. It was perhaps suggested by a passage in the Diana of Montemayor (tr. 1579), a book which the Two Gentlemen shows him to have known. Upon this juice and its effects the whole plot turns. The attempts of Warburton and Halpin to read complex personal allusions into the pretty myth of the little western flower beyond the obvious compliment to Elizabeth, are therefore open to grave doubt. With the same delight in blending classical and romantic myths which marks his handling of the fairy world, Shakespeare sought a link between the classical and the romance symbols for the caprice and incalculableness of love,-between the arrow of Cupid and the love-juice. Such a link he found in the country name for the pansy-'love in idleness.' It receives the arrow and yields the juice. Cupid himself, the boy, is replaced by the king of the childlike fairies, and in Oberon's hands the juice provokes sudden accesses of unreasoning love. From these wayward caprices of passion, Theseus and Hippolyta, once sufficiently subject to them, now stand severely apart.

1 The last clause is borrowed from Mr. E. K. Chambers' admirable edition of this play (Blackie), to which this Intro

duction, and the above paragraph in particular, owes several suggestions.

They can afford to look down upon the delusive 'imagination' of the lover who sees Helen in a brow of Egypt, or an 'angel' in an ass. And both the clear-eyed lovers and those whom imagination deludes are admirably set off by the 'crew of patches' who are deluded by the want of it. They see nothing but a brow of Egypt in Helen; their leader calls for provender in the very arms of the fairy-queen; the enactor of the lion explains that he is Snug the joiner; and the play itself is a travesty of love so palpably gross that, instead of captivating the imagination, it requires the active exercise of imagination to lend it the semblance of life.

Thus that interweaving of lyric love-scenes with clownish humours, in which the Elizabethans delighted, gradually became in Shakespeare's hands no mere relieving contrast of grave and gay, but a subtle instrument of poetic speech; and in none of the early comedies was it used with art so fine as in the present play, where the elements appear at first to be mixed with the fantastic incoherence befitting its name.

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. 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, O, 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.

Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves
in night;

Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

ΙΟ

the now bent of Qq and Ff. But no alteration will make the various statements about the moon in the play quite coherent. The wedding is to take place at new moon; but there will be bright moonlight not only for the performance on that evening (iii. 1. 48) but also for the rehearsal the night before (i. 2. 103).

II. New-bent. This is Theobald's excellent correction for

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth :
Turn melancholy forth to funerals ;
The pale companion is not for our pomp.

[Exit Philostrate.

Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,

With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.

Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and
DEMETRIUS.

Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!
The. Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news
with thee?

Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander; and, my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child:
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
And stolen the impression of her fantasy

14. pert, lively.

16. companion, fellow (in a disparaging sense).

19. triumph, entertainment, festive celebration.

27. SoQqand F1. F2 amended the metre by omitting man, Theobald by reading witch' d. No change is necessary; prob

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ably either the be- or the hath was slurred.

32. stolen the impression of her fantasy, imprinted thyself surreptitiously upon her affections; stolen seems to combine the notions of 'secretly,' 'by false pretences,' and 'without a title.'

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's
heart,

Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,

To stubborn harshness; and, my gracious duke,
Be it so she will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,
As she is mine, I may dispose of her :
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.

The. What say you, Hermia ?

fair maid:

be advised,

To you your father should be as a god;

One that composed 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 judge ment look.

Her. I do entreat your grace to pardon me. I know not by what power I am made bold,

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