Miko: annotations

To be reasonable, we must wait for him to finish.

Theseus seems to be calling Starveling stupid. His “small light of discretion” refers to both the candle and Starveling's intelligence.

Demetrius plays on two meanings of “snuff”. 1) Part of the candle wick that needs to be trimmed. 2) Angry. Perhaps Moonshine (Robin Starveling) is becoming impatient with the audience's interruptions. Notice that he starts his speech over after the first interruption. Furthermore, in the next line, Hippolyta says she is ready for Moonshine to leave.

Theseus is pointing out that the man-in-the-moon should be inside the lanthorn, not outside.

crescent

A joke based on the idea that cuckolds (men whose wives are cheating on them) supposedly grow horns on their heads. Elizabethans loved cuckold jokes.

Lantern. Lanterns were usually made of horns, hence the spelling of the word.

Demetrius makes a pun on two meanings of the word “partition”. 1) A division such as a wall. 2) A part of Cicero's classic divisions of a speech: Exordium, Narration, Partition, Confirmation, Refutation, and Peroration.

happen exactly

Vile or viled. The First Quarto has “vilde”, the First Folio has “vile”.