Misprision

Now he fleetly backs down on the bait.

Now she sweetly upbraids him of her fate.

Now he speechifies his love’s undying.

Now she monologues on where he’s lying.

Now he wonders why it’s this way then that.

Now she starts me-owing instead to her cat.

Now he pleads wit beauty status as prized.

Now she reads his claims as quaintly misprised.

Now we all agog in the furnished stalls

How we ask, why such impetuous squalls:

How they’re all over each other like a rash,

Wow crash next minute the whole thing’s a hash.

Now we check the program the word Misprision.

Now dawning we mouth their right to revision.

Misprision is a word used by Oberon (Act III ii, 90) when he finds that Puck has “laid the love-juice on some true-love’s sight” by mistake. Misprise comes from Latin through French, minus+prehendere. In other words, a mistake, but also to take amiss, and to misapprehend. Puck’s action is fairly innocent, some distance from the word’s modern legal meaning of deliberate concealment of knowledge. Mistaken identity is rife in the middle of the play. I like the hint of prison in the word, mistaken lovers being in such a place of their own making, though what’s in that love-juice?