THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

74 APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS
Gypsies Metamorphosed are described as " a sort of
overgrown fairies."
The size of the fairies can almost be reckoned from
Imogen, mistaken for a fairy in Cymbeline, so carefully
has Shakespeare measured her :
PIS. Well then, here's the point:
You must forget to be a woman; change
Command into obedience; fear, and niceness,
(The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,
Woman its pretty self,) into a waggish courage;
Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy, and
As quarrellous as the weasel: nay, you must
Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,
Exposing it (but, 0 , the harder heart!
Alack no remedy !) to the greedy touch
Of common-kissing Titan; and forget
Your laboursome and dainty trims, wherein
You made great Juno angry.
IMO. Nay, be brief:
I see into thy end, and am almost
A man already.
PIS. First, make yourself but like one.
Fore-thinking this, I have already fit,
('Tis in my cloak-bag,) doublet, hat, hose, all
That answer to them: Would you, in their serving,
And with what imitation you can borrow
From youth of such a season, 'for noble Lucius
Present yourself, . . . 31
In this garb and with this carriage, Imogen is mistaken
for a fairy, and her figure and theirs are designated by
the phrases:
272.
Ben Jonson, Masques and Entertainments, Morley ed., 1890, p.
31 111, 4. Cf. also Fletcher, Darley ed., 1851, The Night-Walker,
I, 2; Fletcher, Darley ed., 1851, The Pilgrim, 111, 4; and the anony-
mous Historie of Jacob and Esau, Farmer ed., 1906, 11, 2.