Now croakes the toad, and night crowes screech aloud,
Fluttering 'bout casements of departed soules;

Now gapes the graves, and through their yawnes let loose
Imprison'd spirits to revisit earth. -Works, vol. i. p. 111.

286. Line 391: By the TRIPLE Hecate's team. - Hecate is called triple because of her threefold sovereignty in heaven, on earth, and in hell. Compare Drayton, The Man in the Moon, 476-478:

So the great three most powerfull of the rest,
Phoebe, Diana, Hecate, do tell,

Her domination in heauen, in earth and hell.

287. Lines 410, 411:

To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessed be.

Steevens gives from "Articles ordained by King Henry VII. for the Regulation of his Household" the regulations to be observed at the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed at the marriage of a princess: "All men at her comming in to bee voided, except woemen, till shee bee brought to her bedd; and the man both; he sittinge in his bedd in his shirte, with a gowne cast about him. Then the Bishoppe, with the Chaplaines, to come in, and blesse the bedd: then everie man to avoide without any drinke save the twoe estates, if they liste, priviely (p. 129)." (Var. Ed. vol. v. p. 338). Douce gives the form, to be used on this occasion, from the Sarum Missal. Owing to the festivities on the wedding night being unduly prolonged, in 1577, according to Douce, the Archbishop of Paris ordained "that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed should for the future be performed in the day time, or at least before supper, and in the presence only of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations" (p. 124).

288. Line 419: Nor mark PRODIGIOUS.-Compare King John, iii. 1. 45-47:

Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,

Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,

Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks.

289. Line 422: With this field-dew CONSECRATE.-Compare, for this form of "consecrated," Sonnet lxxiv. 6: The very part was consecrate to thee.

290. Lines 424, 425:

And each several chamber bless,

Through this palace, with sweet peace.

The ceremony of blessing all the rooms in an "apartment," or house, is still preserved in some Roman Catholic countries. At Naples, in recent years, every Easter, a priest used to come round to all the houses with holy water and an aspergillus, and bless the several rooms. Chaucer gives a form of this blessing of a house (not the canonical one) in The Milleres Tale, 3480-3485:

On foure halves of the hous aboute,
And on threswold of the dore withoute.
Jesu Crist, and Seint Benedight.
Blisse this hous from every wicked wight,
Fro the nightes mare, the wite Pater-noster.
291. Lines 426, 427:

And the owner of it blest
Ever shall in safety rest.

In Qq. and Ff. these lines are transposed. We have followed Staunton's arrangement.

292. Line 440: Now to 'scape the SERPENT'S TONGUE. — Steevens quotes J. Markham's English Arcadia, 1607: "But the nymph, after the custom of distrest tragedians, whose first act is entertained with a snaky salutation, &c." (Var. Ed. vol. v. p. 341).