Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine : ANT. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme: What, was I married to her in my dream; "To shew rash vows cannot bind destiny, " They fix you there a rock, whence they're exempt." Yet I think that Adriana does not use the word exempt in that sense, but means to say, that as he was her husband she had no power over him, and that he was privileged to do her wrong. M. MASON. 3 Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine; &c.] Thus, in Ovid's tale of Vertumnus and Pomona: " Ulmus erat contra, spatiosa tumentibus uvis: "Lenta, qui, velut assitas So, Milton, Paradise Lost, B. V: STEEVENS. She spous'd, about him twines " Her marriageable arms." MALONE. stronger state,] The old copy has-stranger. Cor rected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 5 idle moss;] i. e. moss that produces no fruit, but be ing unfertile is useless. So, in Othello: "-antres vast and desarts idle." STEEVENS. Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this? Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. DRO. S. O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner. This is the fairy land; -O, spite of spites!We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites;" the offer'd fallacy.] The old copy has: Which perhaps was only, by mistake, for- We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites;] Here Mr. Theobald calls out, in the name of Nonsense, the first time he had formally invoked her, to tell him how owls could suck their breath, and pinch them black and blue. He therefore alters owls to ouphs, and dares say, that his readers will acquiesce in the justness of his emendation. But, for all this, we must not part, with the old reading. He did not know it to be an old popular superstition, that the screech-owl sucked out the breath and blood of infants in the cradle. On this account, the Italians called witches, who were supposed to be in like manner mischievously bent against children, strega from strix, the screechowl. This superstition they had derived from their pagan ancestors, as appears from this passage age of Ovid: " Sunt avidæ volucres; non quæ Phineïa mensis Ghastly owls accompany elvish ghosts, in Spenser's Shepherd's If we obey them not, this will ensue, Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!" Calendar for June. So, in Sheringham's Disceptatio de Anglorum Gentis Origine, p. 333: "Lares, Lemures, Stryges, Lamiæ, Manes (Gastæ dicti) et similes monstrorum, Greges, Elvarum Chorea dicebatur." Much the same is said in Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, p. 112, 113. TOLLET. Owls are also mentioned in Cornucopiæ, or Pasquil's Nightcap, or Antidote for the Headach, 1623, p. 38: "Dreading no dangers of the darksome night, STEEVENS. How, it is objected, should Shakspeare know that striges or screech-owls were considered by the Romans as witches? The notes of Mr. Tollet and Mr. Steevens, as well as the following passage in The London Prodigal, a comedy, 1605, afford the best answer to this question: ""Soul, I think, I am sure cross'd. or witch'd with an owl." MALONE. The epithet elvish is not in the first folio, but the second has-elves, which certainly was meant for elvish. STEEVENS. All the emendations made in the second folio having been merely arbitrary, any other suitable epithet of two syllables may have been the poet's word. Mr. Rowe first introduced elvish. MALONE. I am satisfied with the epithet elvish. It was probably inserted in the second folio on some authority which cannot now be ascertained. It occurs again, in King Richard III: "Thou elvish-mark'd abortive, rooting hog." Why should a book, which has often judiciously filled such vacuities, and rectified such errors, as disgrace the folio 1623, be so perpetually distrusted? STEEVENS. • Dromio, thou drone, &c.] The old copy reads Dromio, thou Dromio, snail, thou slug, thou sot! STEEVENS. This verse is half a foot too long; my correction cures that fault: besides, drone corresponds with the other appellations of reproach. THEOBALD. DRO. S. I am transformed, master, am not I?9 ANT. S. I think, thou art, in mind, and so am I. DRO. S. Nay, master, both in mind, and in my shape. ANT. S. Thou hast thine own form. DRO. S. No, I am an ape. Luc. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass. DRO. S. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for grass. 'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be, But I should know her as well as she knows me. ADR. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool, To put the finger in the eye and weep, Whilst man, and master, laugh my woes to scorn.Come, sir, to dinner; Dromio, keep the gate :Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day, And shrive you1 of a thousand idle pranks: Sirrah, if any ask you for your master, Say, he dines forth, and let no creature enter.Come, sister :-Dromio, play the porter well. ANT. S. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Sleeping or waking? mad, or well-advis'd? Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd! Drone is also a term of reproach applied by Shylock to Launcelot, in The Merchant of Venice: 66 he sleeps by day "More than the wild cat; drones hive not with me." STEEVENS. 9am not I?] Old copy-am I not? Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. And shrive you-] That is, I will call you to confession, and make you tell your tricks. Johnson. So, in Hamlet: " -not shriving time allow'd." STEEVENS. I'll say as they say, and perséver so, DRO. S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate? ADR. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate. Luc. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late. [Exeunt. ACT III. SCENE I. The same. Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR. ANT. E. Good signior Angelo, you must excuse us all; 2 My wife is shrewish, when I keep not hours: * Good signior Angelo, you must excuse us all ;] I suppose, the word-all, which overloads the measure, without improvement of the sense, might be safely omitted, as an interpolation. STEEVENS. 3-carkanet,] Seems to have been a necklace, or rather chain, perhaps hanging down double from the neck. So, Lovelace, in his poem': "The empress spreads her carcanets." JOHNSON. " Quarquan, ornement d'or qu'on mit au col des damoiselles." Le grand Dict. de Nicot. A carkanet seems to have been a necklace set with stones, or strung with pearls. Thus, in Partheneia Sacra, &c. 1633: |