Rotes

The Dramatis Persona were added by the seventeenthcentury editors, Rowe and Theobald. The division into acts was first given in F1; the scene divisions are modern. I. i. 5. dowager. A widow whose dower is a burden on the income of an estate.

I. i. 7-11. The time indicated here is not consistent with the time of the action, which requires only three days; and the new moon (referred to again in 1. 83) would hardly give the light the players count on in III. i; but Shakespeare was often careless about minor details. I. i. 31. faining... faining.

Probably meaning "yearning, love-sick." Some editors change to "feigning." I. i. 54. In this question, lacking your father's approval. I. i. 81. lordship. Sovereignty, control. —his. Of him, to whose.

whose.

I. i. 113. over-full of self-affairs. Too much taken up with my own affairs.

I. i. 158. revenue. Accented here on second syllable; in 1. 6 on first.

I. i. 167. The observance of May Day is, of course, an English, not an Athenian custom; but Chaucer had already committed this anachronism in The Knightes Tale.

I. i. 173. the Carthage queen. Dido in Vergil's Æneid. I. ii. 31. Ercles. Hercules, a ranting character on the early stage, apparently taken over from the Hercules Furens of Seneca.

I. ii. 37. Phibbus'. Phoebus'.

I. ii. 51-52. The women's parts were played by boys, who appear sometimes to have worn masks.

I. ii. 84. aggravate. For "moderate."

I. ii. 111. obscenely. Only Bottom knows what he really meant.

I. ii. 114. hold or cut bow-strings. A proverb.

II. i. 9. orbs. The fairy-rings now said to be due to fungi.

II. i. 54. "tailor" cries. No satisfactory explanation of this expression has been offered.

II. i. 66-68. Corin and Phillida (or Phillis) are conventional pastoral lovers.

II. i. 78-80. Perigouna, Ariadne, Egles, and Antiopa are mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Theseus, as translated by North.

II. i. 98. nine men's morris. A game like 'fox and geese," played usually on a table, but sometimes with holes in the ground.

II. i. 149-168. As to the supposed allegory here, see Introduction.

II. i. 192. wood. Mad; one of Shakespeare's worst puns. II. ii. 154. of all loves. By all loves. Cf. Merry Wives, II. ii. 118.

III. i. 14. lakin. Ladykin, i.e. the Virgin Mary.

III. i. 25. in eight and six. The fourteen syllable line is usual in Early English drama before 1580.

III. i. 40. defect. For "effect."

III. i. 62. disfigure. For "prefigure."

III. i. 134. cuckoo. The English cuckoo sings a minor third, and was supposed in Elizabeth's time to reproach

married men for their wives' unfaithfulness. See the cuckoo song at the end of Love's Labour's Lost.

III. ii. 13. The shallowest blockhead of that emptyheaded company.

III. ii. 119. alone. Of or in itself.

III. ii. 204. needles. One syllable, often spelled "neelds." III. ii. 213. Two of the first. Two bodies.

III. ii. 237. persever. Accented on second syllable. III. ii. 257–305. The epithets bandied about in this distracted lovers' wrangle make it clear that Hermia is short and dark and shrewish; while Helena is tall and fair and timid; Helena's pink and white complexion suggests the comparison with a painted maypole.

III. ii. 380. Aurora's harbinger. The morning star.
III. ii. 461-463. Current proverbs.

IV. i. 24-25. Cavalery Cobweb has just been sent off on a chase after a humble-bee, and it is Pease blossom who is scratching; the mistake, however, may be Bottom's, and not Shakespeare's.

IV. i. 31. the tongs and the bones. Instruments still known to country boys, university students, and negro minstrels.

IV. i. 35. bottle. Diminutive of Fr. botte, a bundle. IV. i. 41. exposition of. Possibly for "disposition to." IV. i. 44. always. Perhaps we should read all ways, i.e. in all directions.

IV. i. 45. woodbine. Usually identified with the honeysuckle, but possibly here used for the bindweed or convolvulus.

IV. i. 76. Dian's bud. Probably the agnus castus or 'chaste-tree." Cf. II. i. 184 and III. ii. 366-369.

IV. i. 108. observation. The "rite of May" mentioned by Theseus in 1. 137 of this same scene. Evidently the time of the action is spring, and not summer, though the title indicates that the dream is dreamt on midsummer-night. IV. i. 116–130. Cadmus and Hercules did not live at the same mythical era, and, according to Pliny, there were no bears in Crete; Shakespeare's allusion is probably due to a confused recollection of Ovid, Metamorphoses, III, where the hunting of Cadmus is described. Thessaly is mentioned as a place for bear-hunting, and the hounds of Crete are commended, along with those of Sparta. See No. 116 of the Spectator for the care taken by an English country gentleman to match the notes of his hounds.

IV. i. 143–144. The birds were supposed to choose their mates on St. Valentine's Day. Cf. Chaucer's Parlement of Foules.

IV. i. 157. Without the peril. Outside the jurisdiction. IV. i. 191-203. The charm still rests upon the eyes of Demetrius.

IV. i. 215. patch'd fool. A jester in the professional motley.

IV. i. 224. at her death. Theobald asks "At whose?" and proposes the emendation after death, i.e. after the death of the character Bottom will represent in the play.

IV. ii. 20-21. sixpence a day. Queen Elizabeth, in an unusual burst of generosity, gave a young Cambridge actor who pleased her a pension of £20 a year — rather more than a shilling a day; but this was in 1564, and the reference must be rather general than special. Sixpence would represent about $1.25 of our money to-day.