willing duty .. Noble respect. The meaning is sufficiently clear, and recalls Love's Labour's Lost, V. ii. 516, That sport best pleases that doth least know how,' etc. Takes it in might= ' regards the ability or effort of the performance.'

V. i. 106. the Prologue is address'd; i.e. the speaker of the p. is ready.

From a woodcut in the Antigone of G. P. Trapolini (Padua, 1581).

V. i. 118. stand upon points'; Quince's punctuation reminds one of the reading of Roister Doister's letter to Mistress Constance in the old comedy (cp. Roister Doister, iii. 3).

V. i. 139. 'name'; as there is no rhyme to name, the loss of a line is to be inferred, or perhaps we should read' which by name Lion hight.'

V. i. 163.

And this the

cranny is. (Cp. the following

illustration.)

V. i. 207. mural down';

Moon

the
read
Quartos
used'; the Folios, morall
downe'; the emendation 'mu-
ral' was due to Pope.

V. i. 224. n'am lion fell'; the Quartos and Folios read 'am lion fell,' i.e. a fierce lion; but Snug wishes to say 'he is not a lion,' wherefore the words have been hyphened by most modern editors, including the Cambridge Edition, 'lion-fell,'

From a Dutch drama on the subject of Pyramus and Thisbe (Amsterdam, 1640.)

i.e. a lion's skin.' Johnson understood 'neither' before 'a lion fell'; Rowe read' No lion fell.' I am strongly inclined to believe that Shakespeare wrote 'n'am,' an archaic form, like will (i.e. ne will). In Gascoigne's Steele Glas the following couplet occurs, remarkably suggestive of our text:

"I n'am a man, as some do think I am;

(Laugh not good lord), I am indede a dame."

Considering Gascoigne's intimate connection with the Kenilworth Festivities, a strong case could be made out for the theory that Snug's couplet is a direct parody of the lines in the Steele Glas.

V. i. 322. means,' changed by Theobald to 'moans.' ..'Mean' in the sense of 'to lament,' an archaic form, is really more correct than 'moan,' and probably intentionally used by Shakespeare to harmonize with the archaisms of the interlude.

V. i. 370. 'behowls'; Theobald's emendation of 'beholds,' the reading of the Quartos and Folios.

V. i. 387. 'I am sent with broom before. Cp. illustration.) V. i. 393. this ditty'; Johnson supposes that two songs are lost, one led by Titania, and one by Oberon.

V. i. 417, 418. These lines should obviously be transposed in order to make sense of the passage.

Explanatory Notes.

The Explanatory Notes in this edition have been specially selected and adapted, with emendations after the latest and best authorities, from the most eminent Shakespearian scholars and commentators, including Johnson, Malone, Steevens, Singer, Dyce, Hudson, White, Furness, Dowden, and others. This method, here introduced for the first time, provides the best annotation of Shakespeare ever embraced in a single edition.

ACT FIRST..

Scene I.

20. duke:-This has been set down as a misapplication of a modern title. If it be such, Shakespeare is not responsible for it, as Theseus is repeatedly called duk in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, to which the Poet was evidently indebted for some of the material of this play. But indeed this application of duke to the heroes of antiquity was quite common; the word being from the Latin dux, which means a chief or leader of any sort. Thus in 1 Chronicles, i. 51, we have a list of "the dukes of Edom." We will subjoin the opening of The Knight's Tale, as illustrating both the matter in hand and the general scope of the Poet's obligations in that quarter :

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"Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duk that highte Theseus.
Of Athenes he was lord and governour,
And in his time swiche a conquerour,
That greter was ther non under the sonne.
Ful many a riche contree had he wonne.
What with his wisdom and his chevalrie,
He conquerd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was ycleped Scythia;
And wedded the fresshe quene Ipolita,

And brought hire home with him to his contree

With mochel glorie and gret solempnitee,
And eke hire yonge suster Emelie.
And thus with victorie and with melodie
Let I this worthy duk to Athenes ride,
And all his host in armes him beside."

131. Beteem: This term for permit or allow is used by Shakespeare only here and in Hamlet, I. ii., in the familiar passage (lines 140-142): “So loving to my mother, that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly." Spenser has in The Faerie Queene, ii. 8, 19:—

66

So would I (said th' enchaunter) glad and faine
Beteeme to you this sword, you to defend.”

141-149. Or, if there were a sympathy, etc. :-Milton seems to have remembered this passage in his account of the "innumerable disturbances on earth through female snares," Paradise Lost, Book x.:

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'For either

He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain,

Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain'd

By a far worse; or, if she love, withheld

By parents; or his happiest choice too late

Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound

To a fell adversary, his hate or shame:

Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and household peace confound.”

It did not fall within Milton's purpose to consider that poor woman is a sufferer in these disturbances as well as man: he views her as the cause, not as the victim, of these mischiefs; whereas Shakespeare regards both sexes as subject to them by an edict of Destiny.

167. To do observance to a morn of May:-Here we may perceive that Shakespeare has been with Chaucer:—

"Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day,
Till it felle ones in a morwe of May,
That Emelie, that fayrer was to sene
Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene,