This wife which is of faërie,
Of such a childe delivered is,
Fro kindè which stante all amis.
Gower, Legende of Constance.
[389] The derivation of Oberon has been already given (p. 208). The Shakspearean commentators have not thought fit to inform us why the poet designates the Fairy-queen, Titania. It, however, presents no difficulty. It was the belief of those days that the Fairies were the same as the classic Nymphs, the attendants of Diana: "That fourth kind of spritis," says King James, "quhilk be the gentilis was called Diana, and her wandering court, and amongst us called the Phairie." The Fairy-queen was therefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid (Met. iii. 173) styles Titania; Chaucer, as we have seen, calls her Proserpina.
'Twas I that led you through the painted meads,
Where the light Fairies danced upon the flowers,
Hanging on every leaf an orient pearl.
Wisdom of Dr. Dodypoll, 1600. Steevens.
Men of fashion, in that age, wore earrings.
And the yellow-skirted Fayes
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
Milton, Ode on the Nativity, 235.
[392] Ouph, Steevens complacently tells us, in the Teutonic language, is a fairy; if by Teutonic he means the German, and we know of no other, he merely showed his ignorance. Ouph is the same as oaf (formerly spelt aulf), and is probably to be pronounced in the same manner. It is formed from elf by the usual change of l into u.
[393] i. e. Pinch severely. The Ang.-Sax.
