Mer. She is the fairies' midwife, etc."
I think it best to read thus with 4to, 1597, adding Mer. before 'She is.' Benvolio's question is evidently wanted.
"Of healths five fathom deep."
It seems almost incredible that such a glaring absurdity as this should have escaped a long succession of critics; and yet I am not aware that any have noticed it. What is a health? a wish, a moral idea, and how could that be 'five fathom deep'? or be an object of terror to a soldier? It may be said that it is the cup that is meant, but of this we have no instance; and even if we had, Master Silence, who was a man of peace, sings—
"Fill the cup and let it come;
I'll pledge you a mile to the bottóm."
So, as we may see, he was not, and why should a soldier be, afraid of it? Malone quotes from Westward Hoe, 1607, a passage in which we have drinking fathom deep, and it is apparently drinking healths; but there is nothing about terror in it, and it seems, no unusual circumstance, to have arisen from the present line. In fine, something must have been named that was a real object of terror to a soldier; and I know no word so likely to have been used as trenches, which might easily have been mistaken for 'healths.' In that case the metric accent falling on 'five' would augment the terror.
"This is she that."