43. [Burn daylight.] "A proverbial expression used when candles are lighted in the daytime" (Steevens); hence applied to superfluous actions in general. Here it is = waste time, as the context shows. Cf. M.W. ii. 1. 54, where it has the same meaning.
45. [We waste,] etc. The quartos have "We waste our lights in vaine, lights lights by day;" the folios, "We wast our lights in vaine, lights, by day." The emendation is Capell's. Daniel and Dowden read, "light lights by day," which is very plausible.
47. [Five wits.] Cf. Much Ado, i. 1. 66: "four of his five wits went halting off;" Sonn. 141. 9: "But my five wits nor my five senses." Here the five wits are distinguished from the five senses; but the two expressions were sometimes used interchangeably. The five wits, on the other hand, were defined as "common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation (judgment), and memory."
50. [To-night.] That is, last night, as in M.W. iii. 3. 171: "I have dreamed to-night;" W.T. ii. 3. 10: "He took good rest to-night," etc. See also ii. 4. 2 below.
53. [Queen Mab.] No earlier instance of Mab as the name of the fairy-queen has been discovered, but S. no doubt learned it from the folk-lore of his own time. Its derivation is uncertain.
54. [The fairies' midwife.] Not midwife to the fairies, but the fairy whose department it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men of their dreams, those children of an idle brain (Steevens). T. Warton believes she was so called because she steals new-born infants, and leaves "changelings" (see M.N.D. ii. 1. 23, etc.) in their place.
55. [No bigger,] etc. That is, no bigger than the figures cut in such an agate. Cf. Much Ado, iii. 1. 65: "If low, an agate very vilely cut." Rings were sometimes worn on the thumb. Steevens quotes Glapthorne, Wit in a Constable, 1639: "and an alderman as I may say to you, he has no more wit than the rest o' the bench; and that lies in his thumb-ring."
57. [Atomies.] Atoms, or creatures as minute as atoms. Cf. A.Y.L. iii. 2. 245: "to count atomies;" and Id. iii. 5. 13: "Who shut their coward gates on atomies." In 2 Hen. IV. v. 4. 33, Mrs. Quickly confounds the word with anatomy. S. uses it only in these four passages, atom not at all.
59. [Spinners.] Long-legged spiders, mentioned also in M.N.D. ii. 2. 21: "Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!"
65. [Worm.] Nares says, under idle worms: "Worms bred in idleness. It was supposed, and the notion was probably encouraged for the sake of promoting industry, that when maids were idle, worms bred in their fingers;" and he cites Beaumont and Fletcher, Woman Hater, iii. 1:—