Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens; 8 gards,] i. e. baubles, toys, trifles. Our author has the word frequently. See King John, Act III. sc. v. Again, in Appius and Virginia, 1576: "When gain is no grandsier, "And gaudes not set by," &c. Again, in Drayton's Mooncalf: 66 and in her lap "A sort of paper puppets, gauds and toys." The Rev. Mr. Lambe, in his notes on the ancient metrical history of The Battle of Flodden, observes that a gawd is a child's toy, and that the children in the North call their play-things gowdys, and their baby-house a gowdy-house. STEevens. 9 Or to her death; according to our law,] By a law of Solon's, parents had an absolute power of life and death over their children. So it suited the poet's purpose well enough, to suppose the Athenians had it before. Or perhaps he neither thought nor knew any thing of the matter. WARBURTON. 1 Immediately provided in that case.] Shakspeare is grievously suspected of having been placed, while a boy, in an attorney's office. The line before us has an undoubted smack of legal common-place. Poetry disclaims it. STEEVens. THE. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid: To you your father should be as a god; HER. So is Lysander. and one THE. HER. I would, my father look'd but with my eyes. HER. I do entreat your grace to pardon me. In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts: 3 THE. Either to die the death, or to abjure Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, your blood, 2 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. JOHNSON. 3 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, Know of your youth,] Bring your youth to the Consider your youth. JOHNSON. VOL. IV. question. Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun; 5 For aye 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, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage: 6 But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, HER. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, 5 For aye-] i. e. for ever. So, in K. Edward II. by Marlowe, 1622: "And sit for aye enthronized in heaven." STEEVENS. 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. the rose distill'd,] So, in Lyly's Midas, 1592: "You 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. STEEVENS. This is a thought in which Shakspeare seems to have much delighted. We meet with it more than once in his Sonnets. See 5th, 6th, and 54th Sonnet. MALONE. 7 whose unwished yoke-] Thus both the quartos 1600, and the folio 1623. The second folio reads to whose unwished yoke. STEEVENS. Dele to, and for unwish'd r. unwished.-Though I have been in general extremely careful not to admit into my text any of THE. Take time to pause: and, by the next new moon, (The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, 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.8 the innovations made by the editor of the second folio, from ignorance of our poet's language or metre, my caution was here over-watched; and I printed the above lines as exhibited by that and all the subsequent editors, of which the reader was apprized in a note. The old copies should have been adhered to, in which they appear thus: Ere I will yield my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty. i. e. to give sovereignty to. See various instances of this kind of phraseology in a note on Cymbeline, scene the last. The change was certainly made by the editor of the second folio, from his ignorance of Shakpeare's phraseology. MALONE. I have adopted the present elliptical reading, because it not only renders the line smoother, but serves to exclude the disgusting recurrence of the preposition-to; and yet if the authority of the first folio had not been supported by the quartos, &c. I should have preferred the more regular phraseology of the folio 1632. STEEVEns. 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. EGE. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love; Lrs. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, And, which is more than all these boasts can be, Why should not I then prosecute my right? 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; I must employ you in some business So, in King Lear: "Let pride which she calls plainness marry her." STEEVENS. spotted-] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked. JOHNSON. |