Miko: annotations

lively, cheerful

The image here is of a step-dame (a stepmother) or a dowager (a widow who has use of her dead husband's estate) using up the estate before the son can inherit it.

In Shakespeare's time the word “duke” could be used as a general term for a leader or a chief ruler. It did not necessarily mean the title of nobility that we know today. The word comes from the Latin word “dux” meaning “leader”.

a type of dance performed in circles

pronounced with a long “y” to rhyme with “lullaby”

bats

quarrel

Numerous scholars have suspected that this line was intended to have another syllable in order to complete the meter. The First Folio reads “But roome Fairy, heere comes Oberon.” Henry Irving changed it to “But room, room, fairy! Here comes Oberon.” The 1905 Arden Shakespeare changed it to “But room, good, fairy! Here comes Oberon.” Still other scholars, such as Samuel Johnson, have suggested that “fairy” is pronounced with three syllables.

Strong admirers, in this case of the king.

“Few words” - again, an ironic thing for the wordy Holofernes to say.