A midsummer night's dream: multiple negation

Contemporary English requires only one negative per statement and regards such utterances as \"I haven\'t none\" as nonstandard. However, Shakespeare often used two or more negatives for emphasis, as when Helena chides Lysander:

Is\'t not enough, is\'t not enough, young man,

That I did never--no, nor never can-
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius\' eye,

(II, ii, 131ff)


and Bottom agrees with Titania:

Not so neither; (III, i, 141)