I.i.110 (8,2) [spotted] As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked. (1773)
I.i.131 (9,3) [Beteem them] give them, bestow upon then. The word is used by Spenser.
I.i.157 (10,8) [I have a widow aunt, a dowager] These lines perhaps might more properly be regulated thus:
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child,
And she respects me as her only son;
Her house from Athens is remov'd seven leagues,
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place—
I.i.169-178 (11,1) [Warburton had reassigned speeches here] This emendation is judicious, but not necessary. I have therefore given the note without altering the text. The censure of men, as oftner perjured than women, seems to make that line more proper for the lady.
I.i.183 (12,3) [Your eyes are lode-stars] This was a complement not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode star is the leading or guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the same reason, called the lode-stone, either became it leads iron, or because it guides the sailor. Milton has the same thought in L'Allegro:
Tow'rs and battlements he sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes.
Davies calls Elizabeth, lode-stone to hearts, and lode-stone to all eyes, (see 1765, 1,97,9)
I.i.204 (13,6)
[Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me]