Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

ACT II.

Scene 1. Page 30.

Fai. And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.

Mr. Steevens in the happy and elegant remark at the end of his note on the last line, has made a slight mistake in substituting Puck for the fairy. When the damsels of old gathered the May dew on the grass, and which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings; apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty. Nor was it reckoned safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they should be liable to the fairies' power.

Scene 1. Page 32.

Puck. But they do square.

Dr. Johnson has very justly observed that to square here is to quarrel. In investigating the reason, we must previously take it for granted that our verb to quarrel is from the French quereller, or perhaps both from the common source, the Latin querela. Blackstone has remarked that the glaziers use the words square and quarrel as synonymous terms for a pane of glass, and he might have added for the instrument with which they cut it. This, he says, is somewhat whimsical; but had he been acquainted with the reason, he might have been disposed to waive his opinion, at least on the present occasion. The glazier's instrument is a diamond, usually cut into such a square form as the supposed diamonds on the French and English cards, in the former of which it is still properly called carreau, from its original. This was the square iron head of the arrow used for the cross-bow. In English it was called a quarrel, and hence the glazier's diamond and the pane of glass have received their names of square and quarrel. Now we may suppose without straining the point very violently, that these words being evidently synonymous in one sense, have corruptedly become so in another; and that the verb to square, which correctly and metaphorically, even at this time, signifies to agree or accord, has been carelessly and ignorantly wrested from its true sense, and from frequent use become a legitimate word. The French have avoided this error, and to express a meaning very similar to that of to quarrel or dispute, make use of the word contrecarrer.

Scene 1. Page 37.

Puck. The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down-topples she.

The celebrated duchess of Newcastle, in a poem of some fancy, entitled The queen of fairies, makes Puck or hobgoblin the queen of fairies' fool, and alludes to the above prank in the following lines:

"The goodwife sad squats down upon a stool,
Not at all thinking it was Hob the fool,
And frowning sits, then Hob gives her a slip,
And down she falls, whereby she hurts her hip."

The above dame is a farmer's wife who has been scolding because she was unable to procure any butter or cheese, and at Puck's holding up the hens' rumps to prevent their laying eggs too fast.

With respect to the word aunt, it has been usually derived from the French tante; but the original Norman term is ante. See examples in Carpentier Suppl. ad Ducang. v. avuncula. So the author of the old and excellent farce of Maistre Patelin,

"Vostre belle ante, mourut-elle?"

Scene 2. Page 39.

Enter Oberon and Titania.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's remark that the Pluto and Proserpine of Chaucer were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania, may be perfectly true; but the name of Oberon as king of the fairies, must have been exceedingly well known from the romance of Huon of Bourdeaux, in which this Oberon makes a very conspicuous figure.

Scene 2. Page 41.

Tita. Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain.

Milton, doubtless, had these lines in recollection when he wrote,

"To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade."
Par. lost, b. v. l. 203.

Scene 2. Page 41.

Tita. To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind.

An allusion to what the country people call fairy rings, which they suppose to be the tracks of the dances of those diminutive beings.

Scene 2. Page 43.

Tita. The nine mens morris is fill'd up with mud.

This game was sometimes called the nine mens merrils, from merelles or mereaux, an ancient French word for the jettons or counters, with which it was played. The other term morris is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of dance which in the progress of the game the counters performed. In the French merelles each party had three counters only, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the game. It appears to have been the Tremerel mentioned in an old fabliau. See Le Grand Fabliaux et contes, tom. ii. p. 208.

Dr. Hyde thinks the morris or merrils was known during the time that the Normans continued in possession of England, and that the name was afterwards corrupted into three mens morals, or nine mens morals. If this be true, the conversion of morals into morris, a term so very familiar to the country people, was extremely natural. The doctor adds, that it was likewise called nine-penny, or nine-pin miracle, three-penny morris, five-penny morris, nine-penny morris, or three-pin, five-pin, and nine-pin morris, all corruptions of three-pin, &c. merels. Hyde Hist. Nerdiludii, p. 202.

Scene 2. Page 44.

Tita. The human mortals want their winter here.

In the controversy respecting the immortality of fairies, Mr. Ritson's ingenious and decisive reply in his Quip modest ought on every account to have been introduced. A few pages further Titania evidently alludes to the immortality of fairies, when, speaking of the changeling's mother, she says, "but she, being mortal, of that boy did die." Spenser's fairy system and his pedigree were allegorical, invented by himself, and not coinciding with the popular superstitions on the subject. Human mortals is merely a pleonasm, and neither put in opposition to fairy mortals, according to Mr. Steevens, nor to human immortals, according to Ritson; it is simply the language of a fairy speaking of men.

A posthumous note by Mr. Steevens has not contributed to strengthen his former arguments, as the authors therein mentioned do not, strictly speaking, allude to the sort of fairies in question, but to spirits, devils, and angels. Shakspeare, however, would certainly be more influenced by popular opinion than by the dreams of the casuists. There is a curious instance of the nature of fairies, according to the belief of more ancient times, in the romance of Lancelot of the lake. "En celui temps," (the author is speaking of the days of king Arthur,) "estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentremettoient denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles estoient tenues en jeunesse et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient." This perpetual youth and beauty cannot well be separated from a state of immortality. Nor would it be difficult to controvert the sentiments of those who have maintained the mortality of devils, by means of authorities as valid as their own. The above interesting romance will furnish one at least that may not be unacceptable. Speaking of the birth of the prophet and enchanter Merlin, it informs us that his mother would not consent to the embraces of any man who should be visible; and therefore it was by some means ordained that a devil should be her lover. When he approached her, to use the words of the romance, "la damoiselle le tasta et sentit quil avoit le corps moult bien fait; non pourtant les dyables n'ont ne corps ne membres que l'en puisse veoir ne toucher, car spirituelle chose ne peut estre touchée, et tous diables sont choses spirituelles." The fruit of this amour was Merlin; but he, being born of woman, was but a semi-devil, and subject to mortality. A damsel with whom he had fallen in love, prevailed on him to disclose some of his magical arts to her, by means of which she deceived him, and preserved her chastity by casting him into a deep sleep whenever he importuned her. The romance adds, "si le decevoit ainsi pource qu'il estoit mortel; mais s'il eust este du tout dyable, elle ne l'eust peu decepvoir; car ung dyable ne peut dormir."

Scene 2. Page 45.

Tita. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.

Thus in Newton's Direction for the health of magistrates and studentes, 1574, 12mo, we are told that "the moone is ladie of moysture;" and in Hamlet, Act I. Scene 1, she is called "the moist star." In Bartholomæus De propriet. rerum, by Batman, lib. 8. c. 29, the moon is described to be "mother of all humours, minister and lady of the sea." But in Lydgate's prologue to his Storie of Thebes, there are two lines which Shakspeare seems closely to have imitated;

"Of Lucina the moone, moist and pale,
That many showre fro heaven made availe."

The same mode of expression occurs in Parkes's Curtaine drawer of the world, 1612, 4to, p. 48: "the centinels of the season ordained to marke the queen of floods how she lends her borrowed light." This book deserves to be noticed for the good sense which it contains, and the merit of some occasional pieces of poetry.

Scene 2. Page 50.

Obe. I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.

Of all the opinions concerning the origin of this word, that of Sir William Spelman alone can be maintained. If instead of deriving it from the German, he had stated that it came to us through the Saxon Henᵹeꞅꞇ, a horse, his information had been more correct. Although in more modern times the pages or henchmen might have walked on foot, it is very certain that they were originally horsemen, according to the term. Thus in Chaucer's Floure and the leafe:

"And every knight had after him riding
Three henshmen, on him awaiting."

If the old orthography henxmen had not been unfortunately disturbed, we should have heard nothing of the conjectures about haunch and haunch-men.

Scene 2. Page 58.

Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.

However forward and indecorous the conduct of Helena in pursuing Demetrius may appear to modern readers, such examples are very frequent in old romances of chivalry, wherein Shakspeare was undoubtedly well read. The beautiful ballad of the Nut-brown maid might have been more immediately in his recollection, many parts of this scene having a very strong resemblance to it.

Scene 2. Page 61.

Hel. I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell.

Imitated by Milton:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heaven."
Par. lost, b. i. l. 254.

Scene 2. Page 62.

Obe. Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine.

See what has been already said on this word in p. [8]; the meaning is the same as there. Theobald's amendment from luscious was probably in conformity with that passage; and the printers of the old editions not comprehending the meaning of lush, which even in their time was an antiquated word, ignorantly, as well as unharmoniously, substituted luscious.

Scene 3. Page 68.

Her. ... in human modesty
Such separation, as, may well be said,
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.

That is, "let there be such separation," &c. A comma should be placed after modesty.