[MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.]
ACT I.
Scene 1. Page 6.
Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke.
This is in reality no "misapplication of a modern title," as Mr. Steevens conceived, but a legitimate use of the word in its primitive Latin sense of leader; and so it is often used in the Bible. Not so the instance adduced of sheriffs of the provinces, which might have been avoided in our printed bibles. Wicliffe had most properly used prefectis. Shakspeare might have found Duke Theseus in the book of Troy, or in Turbervile's Ovid's Epistles. See the argument to that of Phædra to Hippolytus.
Scene 1. Page 9.
The. You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd.
The threatening to make a nun of poor Hermia is as whimsical an anachronism as any in Shakspeare.