{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/mnd/mnd.htm","path":"sks/mnd/mnd.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/mnd/mnd.htm","text":"A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nTHESEUS Duke of Athens.\nEGEUS father to Hermia.\nLYSANDER |\n| in love with Hermia.\nDEMETRIUS |\nPHILOSTRATE master of the revels to Theseus.\nQUINCE a carpenter.\nSNUG a joiner.\nBOTTOM a weaver.\nFLUTE a bellows-mender.\nSNOUT a tinker.\nSTARVELING a tailor.\nHIPPOLYTA queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus.\nHERMIA daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander.\nHELENA in love with Demetrius.\nOBERON king of the fairies.\nTITANIA queen of the fairies.\nPUCK or Robin Goodfellow.\nPEASEBLOSSOM |\n|\nCOBWEB |\n| fairies.\nMOTH |\n|\nMUSTARDSEED |\nOther fairies attending their King and Queen.\nAttendants on Theseus and Hippolyta.\nSCENE Athens, and a wood near it.\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT I\nSCENE I Athens. The palace of THESEUS.\n[Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and\nAttendants]\nTHESEUS Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour\nDraws on apace; four happy days bring in\nAnother moon: but, O, methinks, how slow\nThis old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,\nLike to a step-dame or a dowager\nLong withering out a young man revenue.\nHIPPOLYTA Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;\nFour nights will quickly dream away the time;\nAnd then the moon, like to a silver bow\nNew-bent in heaven, shall behold the night\nOf our solemnities.\nTHESEUS Go, Philostrate,\nStir up the Athenian youth to merriments;\nAwake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;\nTurn melancholy forth to funerals;\nThe pale companion is not for our pomp.\n[Exit PHILOSTRATE]\nHippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,\nAnd won thy love, doing thee injuries;\nBut I will wed thee in another key,\nWith pomp, with triumph and with revelling.\n[Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS]\nEGEUS Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!\nTHESEUS Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?\nEGEUS Full of vexation come I, with complaint\nAgainst my child, my daughter Hermia.\nStand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,\nThis man hath my consent to marry her.\nStand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,\nThis man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;\nThou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,\nAnd interchanged love-tokens with my child:\nThou hast by moonlight at her window sung,\nWith feigning voice verses of feigning love,\nAnd stolen the impression of her fantasy\nWith bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,\nKnacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers\nOf strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:\nWith cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,\nTurn'd her obedience, which is due to me,\nTo stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,\nBe it so she; will not here before your grace\nConsent to marry with Demetrius,\nI beg the ancient privilege of Athens,\nAs she is mine, I may dispose of her:\nWhich shall be either to this gentleman\nOr to her death, according to our law\nImmediately provided in that case.\nTHESEUS What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:\nTo you your father should be as a god;\nOne that composed your beauties, yea, and one\nTo whom you are but as a form in wax\nBy him imprinted and within his power\nTo leave the figure or disfigure it.\nDemetrius is a worthy gentleman.\nHERMIA So is Lysander.\nTHESEUS In himself he is;\nBut in this kind, wanting your father's voice,\nThe other must be held the worthier.\nHERMIA I would my father look'd but with my eyes.\nTHESEUS Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.\nHERMIA I do entreat your grace to pardon me.\nI know not by what power I am made bold,\nNor how it may concern my modesty,\nIn such a presence here to plead my thoughts;\nBut I beseech your grace that I may know\nThe worst that may befall me in this case,\nIf I refuse to wed Demetrius.\nTHESEUS Either to die the death or to abjure\nFor ever the society of men.\nTherefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;\nKnow of your youth, examine well your blood,\nWhether, if you yield not to your father's choice,\nYou can endure the livery of a nun,\nFor aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,\nTo live a barren sister all your life,\nChanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.\nThrice-blessed they that master so their blood,\nTo undergo such maiden pilgrimage;\nBut earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,\nThan that which withering on the virgin thorn\nGrows, lives and dies in single blessedness.\nHERMIA So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,\nEre I will my virgin patent up\nUnto his lordship, whose unwished yoke\nMy soul consents not to give sovereignty.\nTHESEUS Take time to pause; and, by the nest new moon--\nThe sealing-day betwixt my love and me,\nFor everlasting bond of fellowship--\nUpon that day either prepare to die\nFor disobedience to your father's will,\nOr else to wed Demetrius, as he would;\nOr on Diana's altar to protest\nFor aye austerity and single life.\nDEMETRIUS Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield\nThy crazed title to my certain right.\nLYSANDER You have her father's love, Demetrius;\nLet me have Hermia's: do you marry him.\nEGEUS Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,\nAnd what is mine my love shall render him.\nAnd she is mine, and all my right of her\nI do estate unto Demetrius.\nLYSANDER I am, my lord, as well derived as he,\nAs well possess'd; my love is more than his;\nMy fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,\nIf not with vantage, as Demetrius';\nAnd, which is more than all these boasts can be,\nI am beloved of beauteous Hermia:\nWhy should not I then prosecute my right?\nDemetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,\nMade love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,\nAnd won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,\nDevoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,\nUpon this spotted and inconstant man.\nTHESEUS I must confess that I have heard so much,\nAnd with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;\nBut, being over-full of self-affairs,\nMy mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;\nAnd come, Egeus; you shall go with me,\nI have some private schooling for you both.\nFor you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself\nTo fit your fancies to your father's will;\nOr else the law of Athens yields you up--\nWhich by no means we may extenuate--\nTo death, or to a vow of single life.\nCome, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?\nDemetrius and Egeus, go along:\nI must employ you in some business\nAgainst our nuptial and confer with you\nOf something nearly that concerns yourselves.\nEGEUS With duty and desire we follow you.\n[Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA]\nLYSANDER How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?\nHow chance the roses there do fade so fast?\nHERMIA Belike for want of rain, which I could well\nBeteem them from the tempest of my eyes.\nLYSANDER Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,\nCould ever hear by tale or history,\nThe course of true love never did run smooth;\nBut, either it was different in blood,--\nHERMIA O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.\nLYSANDER Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--\nHERMIA O spite! too old to be engaged to young.\nLYSANDER Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--\nHERMIA O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.\nLYSANDER Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,\nWar, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,\nMaking it momentany as a sound,\nSwift as a shadow, short as any dream;\nBrief as the lightning in the collied night,\nThat, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,\nAnd ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'\nThe jaws of darkness do devour it up:\nSo quick bright things come to confusion.\nHERMIA If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,\nIt stands as an edict in destiny:\nThen let us teach our trial patience,\nBecause it is a customary cross,\nAs due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,\nWishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.\nLYSANDER A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.\nI have a widow aunt, a dowager\nOf great revenue, and she hath no child:\nFrom Athens is her house remote seven leagues;\nAnd she respects me as her only son.\nThere, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;\nAnd to that place the sharp Athenian law\nCannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,\nSteal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;\nAnd in the wood, a league without the town,\nWhere I did meet thee once with Helena,\nTo do observance to a morn of May,\nThere will I stay for thee.\nHERMIA My good Lysander!\nI swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,\nBy his best arrow with the golden head,\nBy the simplicity of Venus' doves,\nBy that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,\nAnd by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,\nWhen the false Troyan under sail was seen,\nBy all the vows that ever men have broke,\nIn number more than ever women spoke,\nIn that same place thou hast appointed me,\nTo-morrow truly will I meet with thee.\nLYSANDER Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.\n[Enter HELENA]\nHERMIA God speed fair Helena! whither away?\nHELENA Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.\nDemetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!\nYour eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air\nMore tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,\nWhen wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.\nSickness is catching: O, were favour so,\nYours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;\nMy ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,\nMy tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.\nWere the world mine, Demetrius being bated,\nThe rest I'd give to be to you translated.\nO, teach me how you look, and with what art\nYou sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.\nHERMIA I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.\nHELENA O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!\nHERMIA I give him curses, yet he gives me love.\nHELENA O that my prayers could such affection move!\nHERMIA The more I hate, the more he follows me.\nHELENA The more I love, the more he hateth me.\nHERMIA His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.\nHELENA None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!\nHERMIA Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;\nLysander and myself will fly this place.\nBefore the time I did Lysander see,\nSeem'd Athens as a paradise to me:\nO, then, what graces in my love do dwell,\nThat he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!\nLYSANDER Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:\nTo-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold\nHer silver visage in the watery glass,\nDecking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,\nA time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,\nThrough Athens' gates have we devised to steal.\nHERMIA And in the wood, where often you and I\nUpon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,\nEmptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,\nThere my Lysander and myself shall meet;\nAnd thence from Athens turn away our eyes,\nTo seek new friends and stranger companies.\nFarewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;\nAnd good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!\nKeep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight\nFrom lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.\nLYSANDER I will, my Hermia.\n[Exit HERMIA]\nHelena, adieu:\nAs you on him, Demetrius dote on you!\n[Exit]\nHELENA How happy some o'er other some can be!\nThrough Athens I am thought as fair as she.\nBut what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;\nHe will not know what all but he do know:\nAnd as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,\nSo I, admiring of his qualities:\nThings base and vile, folding no quantity,\nLove can transpose to form and dignity:\nLove looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;\nAnd therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:\nNor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;\nWings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:\nAnd therefore is Love said to be a child,\nBecause in choice he is so oft beguiled.\nAs waggish boys in game themselves forswear,\nSo the boy Love is perjured every where:\nFor ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,\nHe hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;\nAnd when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,\nSo he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.\nI will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:\nThen to the wood will he to-morrow night\nPursue her; and for this intelligence\nIf I have thanks, it is a dear expense:\nBut herein mean I to enrich my pain,\nTo have his sight thither and back again.\n[Exit]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT I\nSCENE II Athens. QUINCE'S house.\n[Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and\nSTARVELING]\nQUINCE Is all our company here?\nBOTTOM You were best to call them generally, man by man,\naccording to the scrip.\nQUINCE Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is\nthought fit, through all Athens, to play in our\ninterlude before the duke and the duchess, on his\nwedding-day at night.\nBOTTOM First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats\non, then read the names of the actors, and so grow\nto a point.\nQUINCE Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and\nmost cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.\nBOTTOM A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a\nmerry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your\nactors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.\nQUINCE Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.\nBOTTOM Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.\nQUINCE You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.\nBOTTOM What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?\nQUINCE A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.\nBOTTOM That will ask some tears in the true performing of\nit: if I do it, let the audience look to their\neyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some\nmeasure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a\ntyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to\ntear a cat in, to make all split.\nThe raging rocks\nAnd shivering shocks\nShall break the locks\nOf prison gates;\nAnd Phibbus' car\nShall shine from far\nAnd make and mar\nThe foolish Fates.\nThis was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.\nThis is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is\nmore condoling.\nQUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.\nFLUTE Here, Peter Quince.\nQUINCE Flute, you must take Thisby on you.\nFLUTE What is Thisby? a wandering knight?\nQUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love.\nFLUTE Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.\nQUINCE That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and\nyou may speak as small as you will.\nBOTTOM An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll\nspeak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne,\nThisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear,\nand lady dear!'\nQUINCE No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby.\nBOTTOM Well, proceed.\nQUINCE Robin Starveling, the tailor.\nSTARVELING Here, Peter Quince.\nQUINCE Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.\nTom Snout, the tinker.\nSNOUT Here, Peter Quince.\nQUINCE You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby's father:\nSnug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I\nhope, here is a play fitted.\nSNUG Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it\nbe, give it me, for I am slow of study.\nQUINCE You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.\nBOTTOM Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will\ndo any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar,\nthat I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again,\nlet him roar again.'\nQUINCE An you should do it too terribly, you would fright\nthe duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek;\nand that were enough to hang us all.\nALL That would hang us, every mother's son.\nBOTTOM I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the\nladies out of their wits, they would have no more\ndiscretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my\nvoice so that I will roar you as gently as any\nsucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any\nnightingale.\nQUINCE You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a\nsweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a\nsummer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man:\ntherefore you must needs play Pyramus.\nBOTTOM Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best\nto play it in?\nQUINCE Why, what you will.\nBOTTOM I will discharge it in either your straw-colour\nbeard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain\nbeard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your\nperfect yellow.\nQUINCE Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and\nthen you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here\nare your parts: and I am to entreat you, request\nyou and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night;\nand meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the\ntown, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if\nwe meet in the city, we shall be dogged with\ncompany, and our devices known. In the meantime I\nwill draw a bill of properties, such as our play\nwants. I pray you, fail me not.\nBOTTOM We will meet; and there we may rehearse most\nobscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.\nQUINCE At the duke's oak we meet.\nBOTTOM Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.\n[Exeunt]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT II\nSCENE I A wood near Athens.\n[Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK]\nPUCK How now, spirit! whither wander you?\nFairy Over hill, over dale,\nThorough bush, thorough brier,\nOver park, over pale,\nThorough flood, thorough fire,\nI do wander everywhere,\nSwifter than the moon's sphere;\nAnd I serve the fairy queen,\nTo dew her orbs upon the green.\nThe cowslips tall her pensioners be:\nIn their gold coats spots you see;\nThose be rubies, fairy favours,\nIn those freckles live their savours:\nI must go seek some dewdrops here\nAnd hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.\nFarewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:\nOur queen and all our elves come here anon.\nPUCK The king doth keep his revels here to-night:\nTake heed the queen come not within his sight;\nFor Oberon is passing fell and wrath,\nBecause that she as her attendant hath\nA lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;\nShe never had so sweet a changeling;\nAnd jealous Oberon would have the child\nKnight of his train, to trace the forests wild;\nBut she perforce withholds the loved boy,\nCrowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:\nAnd now they never meet in grove or green,\nBy fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,\nBut, they do square, that all their elves for fear\nCreep into acorn-cups and hide them there.\nFairy Either I mistake your shape and making quite,\nOr else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite\nCall'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he\nThat frights the maidens of the villagery;\nSkim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern\nAnd bootless make the breathless housewife churn;\nAnd sometime make the drink to bear no barm;\nMislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?\nThose that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,\nYou do their work, and they shall have good luck:\nAre not you he?\nPUCK Thou speak'st aright;\nI am that merry wanderer of the night.\nI jest to Oberon and make him smile\nWhen I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,\nNeighing in likeness of a filly foal:\nAnd sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,\nIn very likeness of a roasted crab,\nAnd when she drinks, against her lips I bob\nAnd on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.\nThe wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,\nSometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;\nThen slip I from her bum, down topples she,\nAnd 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;\nAnd then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,\nAnd waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear\nA merrier hour was never wasted there.\nBut, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.\nFairy And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!\n[Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train;\nfrom the other, TITANIA, with hers]\nOBERON Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.\nTITANIA What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:\nI have forsworn his bed and company.\nOBERON Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?\nTITANIA Then I must be thy lady: but I know\nWhen thou hast stolen away from fairy land,\nAnd in the shape of Corin sat all day,\nPlaying on pipes of corn and versing love\nTo amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,\nCome from the farthest Steppe of India?\nBut that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,\nYour buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,\nTo Theseus must be wedded, and you come\nTo give their bed joy and prosperity.\nOBERON How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,\nGlance at my credit with Hippolyta,\nKnowing I know thy love to Theseus?\nDidst thou not lead him through the glimmering night\nFrom Perigenia, whom he ravished?\nAnd make him with fair AEgle break his faith,\nWith Ariadne and Antiopa?\nTITANIA These are the forgeries of jealousy:\nAnd never, since the middle summer's spring,\nMet we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,\nBy paved fountain or by rushy brook,\nOr in the beached margent of the sea,\nTo dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,\nBut with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.\nTherefore the winds, piping to us in vain,\nAs in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea\nContagious fogs; which falling in the land\nHave every pelting river made so proud\nThat they have overborne their continents:\nThe ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,\nThe ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn\nHath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;\nThe fold stands empty in the drowned field,\nAnd crows are fatted with the murrion flock;\nThe nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,\nAnd the quaint mazes in the wanton green\nFor lack of tread are undistinguishable:\nThe human mortals want their winter here;\nNo night is now with hymn or carol blest:\nTherefore the moon, the governess of floods,\nPale in her anger, washes all the air,\nThat rheumatic diseases do abound:\nAnd thorough this distemperature we see\nThe seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts\nFar in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,\nAnd on old Hiems' thin and icy crown\nAn odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds\nIs, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,\nThe childing autumn, angry winter, change\nTheir wonted liveries, and the mazed world,\nBy their increase, now knows not which is which:\nAnd this same progeny of evils comes\nFrom our debate, from our dissension;\nWe are their parents and original.\nOBERON Do you amend it then; it lies in you:\nWhy should Titania cross her Oberon?\nI do but beg a little changeling boy,\nTo be my henchman.\nTITANIA Set your heart at rest:\nThe fairy land buys not the child of me.\nHis mother was a votaress of my order:\nAnd, in the spiced Indian air, by night,\nFull often hath she gossip'd by my side,\nAnd sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,\nMarking the embarked traders on the flood,\nWhen we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive\nAnd grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;\nWhich she, with pretty and with swimming gait\nFollowing,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--\nWould imitate, and sail upon the land,\nTo fetch me trifles, and return again,\nAs from a voyage, rich with merchandise.\nBut she, being mortal, of that boy did die;\nAnd for her sake do I rear up her boy,\nAnd for her sake I will not part with him.\nOBERON How long within this wood intend you stay?\nTITANIA Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.\nIf you will patiently dance in our round\nAnd see our moonlight revels, go with us;\nIf not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.\nOBERON Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.\nTITANIA Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!\nWe shall chide downright, if I longer stay.\n[Exit TITANIA with her train]\nOBERON Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove\nTill I torment thee for this injury.\nMy gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest\nSince once I sat upon a promontory,\nAnd heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back\nUttering such dulcet and harmonious breath\nThat the rude sea grew civil at her song\nAnd certain stars shot madly from their spheres,\nTo hear the sea-maid's music.\nPUCK I remember.\nOBERON That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,\nFlying between the cold moon and the earth,\nCupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took\nAt a fair vestal throned by the west,\nAnd loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,\nAs it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;\nBut I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft\nQuench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,\nAnd the imperial votaress passed on,\nIn maiden meditation, fancy-free.\nYet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:\nIt fell upon a little western flower,\nBefore milk-white, now purple with love's wound,\nAnd maidens call it love-in-idleness.\nFetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:\nThe juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid\nWill make or man or woman madly dote\nUpon the next live creature that it sees.\nFetch me this herb; and be thou here again\nEre the leviathan can swim a league.\nPUCK I'll put a girdle round about the earth\nIn forty minutes.\n[Exit]\nOBERON Having once this juice,\nI'll watch Titania when she is asleep,\nAnd drop the liquor of it in her eyes.\nThe next thing then she waking looks upon,\nBe it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,\nOn meddling monkey, or on busy ape,\nShe shall pursue it with the soul of love:\nAnd ere I take this charm from off her sight,\nAs I can take it with another herb,\nI'll make her render up her page to me.\nBut who comes here? I am invisible;\nAnd I will overhear their conference.\n[Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him]\nDEMETRIUS I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.\nWhere is Lysander and fair Hermia?\nThe one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.\nThou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;\nAnd here am I, and wode within this wood,\nBecause I cannot meet my Hermia.\nHence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.\nHELENA You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;\nBut yet you draw not iron, for my heart\nIs true as steel: leave you your power to draw,\nAnd I shall have no power to follow you.\nDEMETRIUS Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?\nOr, rather, do I not in plainest truth\nTell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?\nHELENA And even for that do I love you the more.\nI am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,\nThe more you beat me, I will fawn on you:\nUse me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,\nNeglect me, lose me; only give me leave,\nUnworthy as I am, to follow you.\nWhat worser place can I beg in your love,--\nAnd yet a place of high respect with me,--\nThan to be used as you use your dog?\nDEMETRIUS Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;\nFor I am sick when I do look on thee.\nHELENA And I am sick when I look not on you.\nDEMETRIUS You do impeach your modesty too much,\nTo leave the city and commit yourself\nInto the hands of one that loves you not;\nTo trust the opportunity of night\nAnd the ill counsel of a desert place\nWith the rich worth of your virginity.\nHELENA Your virtue is my privilege: for that\nIt is not night when I do see your face,\nTherefore I think I am not in the night;\nNor doth this wood lack worlds of company,\nFor you in my respect are all the world:\nThen how can it be said I am alone,\nWhen all the world is here to look on me?\nDEMETRIUS I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,\nAnd leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.\nHELENA The wildest hath not such a heart as you.\nRun when you will, the story shall be changed:\nApollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;\nThe dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind\nMakes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,\nWhen cowardice pursues and valour flies.\nDEMETRIUS I will not stay thy questions; let me go:\nOr, if thou follow me, do not believe\nBut I shall do thee mischief in the wood.\nHELENA Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,\nYou do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!\nYour wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:\nWe cannot fight for love, as men may do;\nWe should be wood and were not made to woo.\n[Exit DEMETRIUS]\nI'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,\nTo die upon the hand I love so well.\n[Exit]\nOBERON Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,\nThou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.\n[Re-enter PUCK]\nHast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.\nPUCK Ay, there it is.\nOBERON I pray thee, give it me.\nI know a bank where the wild thyme blows,\nWhere oxlips and the nodding violet grows,\nQuite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,\nWith sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:\nThere sleeps Titania sometime of the night,\nLull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;\nAnd there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,\nWeed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:\nAnd with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,\nAnd make her full of hateful fantasies.\nTake thou some of it, and seek through this grove:\nA sweet Athenian lady is in love\nWith a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;\nBut do it when the next thing he espies\nMay be the lady: thou shalt know the man\nBy the Athenian garments he hath on.\nEffect it with some care, that he may prove\nMore fond on her than she upon her love:\nAnd look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.\nPUCK Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.\n[Exeunt]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT II\nSCENE II Another part of the wood.\n[Enter TITANIA, with her train]\nTITANIA Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;\nThen, for the third part of a minute, hence;\nSome to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,\nSome war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,\nTo make my small elves coats, and some keep back\nThe clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders\nAt our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;\nThen to your offices and let me rest.\n[The Fairies sing]\nYou spotted snakes with double tongue,\nThorny hedgehogs, be not seen;\nNewts and blind-worms, do no wrong,\nCome not near our fairy queen.\nPhilomel, with melody\nSing in our sweet lullaby;\nLulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:\nNever harm,\nNor spell nor charm,\nCome our lovely lady nigh;\nSo, good night, with lullaby.\nWeaving spiders, come not here;\nHence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!\nBeetles black, approach not near;\nWorm nor snail, do no offence.\nPhilomel, with melody, &c.\nFairy Hence, away! now all is well:\nOne aloof stand sentinel.\n[Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps]\n[Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA's eyelids]\nOBERON What thou seest when thou dost wake,\nDo it for thy true-love take,\nLove and languish for his sake:\nBe it ounce, or cat, or bear,\nPard, or boar with bristled hair,\nIn thy eye that shall appear\nWhen thou wakest, it is thy dear:\nWake when some vile thing is near.\n[Exit]\n[Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA]\nLYSANDER Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;\nAnd to speak troth, I have forgot our way:\nWe'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,\nAnd tarry for the comfort of the day.\nHERMIA Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;\nFor I upon this bank will rest my head.\nLYSANDER One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;\nOne heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.\nHERMIA Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,\nLie further off yet, do not lie so near.\nLYSANDER O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!\nLove takes the meaning in love's conference.\nI mean, that my heart unto yours is knit\nSo that but one heart we can make of it;\nTwo bosoms interchained with an oath;\nSo then two bosoms and a single troth.\nThen by your side no bed-room me deny;\nFor lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.\nHERMIA Lysander riddles very prettily:\nNow much beshrew my manners and my pride,\nIf Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.\nBut, gentle friend, for love and courtesy\nLie further off; in human modesty,\nSuch separation as may well be said\nBecomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,\nSo far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:\nThy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!\nLYSANDER Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;\nAnd then end life when I end loyalty!\nHere is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!\nHERMIA With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!\n[They sleep]\n[Enter PUCK]\nPUCK Through the forest have I gone.\nBut Athenian found I none,\nOn whose eyes I might approve\nThis flower's force in stirring love.\nNight and silence.--Who is here?\nWeeds of Athens he doth wear:\nThis is he, my master said,\nDespised the Athenian maid;\nAnd here the maiden, sleeping sound,\nOn the dank and dirty ground.\nPretty soul! she durst not lie\nNear this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.\nChurl, upon thy eyes I throw\nAll the power this charm doth owe.\nWhen thou wakest, let love forbid\nSleep his seat on thy eyelid:\nSo awake when I am gone;\nFor I must now to Oberon.\n[Exit]\n[Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running]\nHELENA Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.\nDEMETRIUS I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.\nHELENA O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.\nDEMETRIUS Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.\n[Exit]\nHELENA O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!\nThe more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.\nHappy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;\nFor she hath blessed and attractive eyes.\nHow came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:\nIf so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.\nNo, no, I am as ugly as a bear;\nFor beasts that meet me run away for fear:\nTherefore no marvel though Demetrius\nDo, as a monster fly my presence thus.\nWhat wicked and dissembling glass of mine\nMade me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?\nBut who is here? Lysander! on the ground!\nDead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.\nLysander if you live, good sir, awake.\nLYSANDER [Awaking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.\nTransparent Helena! Nature shows art,\nThat through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.\nWhere is Demetrius? O, how fit a word\nIs that vile name to perish on my sword!\nHELENA Do not say so, Lysander; say not so\nWhat though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?\nYet Hermia still loves you: then be content.\nLYSANDER Content with Hermia! No; I do repent\nThe tedious minutes I with her have spent.\nNot Hermia but Helena I love:\nWho will not change a raven for a dove?\nThe will of man is by his reason sway'd;\nAnd reason says you are the worthier maid.\nThings growing are not ripe until their season\nSo I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;\nAnd touching now the point of human skill,\nReason becomes the marshal to my will\nAnd leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook\nLove's stories written in love's richest book.\nHELENA Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?\nWhen at your hands did I deserve this scorn?\nIs't not enough, is't not enough, young man,\nThat I did never, no, nor never can,\nDeserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,\nBut you must flout my insufficiency?\nGood troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,\nIn such disdainful manner me to woo.\nBut fare you well: perforce I must confess\nI thought you lord of more true gentleness.\nO, that a lady, of one man refused.\nShould of another therefore be abused!\n[Exit]\nLYSANDER She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:\nAnd never mayst thou come Lysander near!\nFor as a surfeit of the sweetest things\nThe deepest loathing to the stomach brings,\nOr as tie heresies that men do leave\nAre hated most of those they did deceive,\nSo thou, my surfeit and my heresy,\nOf all be hated, but the most of me!\nAnd, all my powers, address your love and might\nTo honour Helen and to be her knight!\n[Exit]\nHERMIA [Awaking] Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best\nTo pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!\nAy me, for pity! what a dream was here!\nLysander, look how I do quake with fear:\nMethought a serpent eat my heart away,\nAnd you sat smiling at his cruel pray.\nLysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!\nWhat, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?\nAlack, where are you speak, an if you hear;\nSpeak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.\nNo? then I well perceive you all not nigh\nEither death or you I'll find immediately.\n[Exit]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT III\nSCENE I The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.\n[Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and\nSTARVELING]\nBOTTOM Are we all met?\nQUINCE Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place\nfor our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our\nstage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we\nwill do it in action as we will do it before the duke.\nBOTTOM Peter Quince,--\nQUINCE What sayest thou, bully Bottom?\nBOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and\nThisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must\ndraw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies\ncannot abide. How answer you that?\nSNOUT By'r lakin, a parlous fear.\nSTARVELING I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.\nBOTTOM Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.\nWrite me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to\nsay, we will do no harm with our swords, and that\nPyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more\nbetter assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not\nPyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them\nout of fear.\nQUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be\nwritten in eight and six.\nBOTTOM No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.\nSNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?\nSTARVELING I fear it, I promise you.\nBOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to\nbring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a\nmost dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful\nwild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to\nlook to 't.\nSNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.\nBOTTOM Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must\nbe seen through the lion's neck: and he himself\nmust speak through, saying thus, or to the same\ndefect,--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish\nYou,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would\nentreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life\nfor yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it\nwere pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a\nman as other men are;' and there indeed let him name\nhis name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.\nQUINCE Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things;\nthat is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for,\nyou know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.\nSNOUT Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?\nBOTTOM A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find\nout moonshine, find out moonshine.\nQUINCE Yes, it doth shine that night.\nBOTTOM Why, then may you leave a casement of the great\nchamber window, where we play, open, and the moon\nmay shine in at the casement.\nQUINCE Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns\nand a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to\npresent, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is\nanother thing: we must have a wall in the great\nchamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did\ntalk through the chink of a wall.\nSNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?\nBOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall: and let him\nhave some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast\nabout him, to signify wall; and let him hold his\nfingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus\nand Thisby whisper.\nQUINCE If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,\nevery mother's son, and rehearse your parts.\nPyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your\nspeech, enter into that brake: and so every one\naccording to his cue.\n[Enter PUCK behind]\nPUCK What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,\nSo near the cradle of the fairy queen?\nWhat, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;\nAn actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.\nQUINCE Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.\nBOTTOM Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,--\nQUINCE Odours, odours.\nBOTTOM --odours savours sweet:\nSo hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.\nBut hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,\nAnd by and by I will to thee appear.\n[Exit]\nPUCK A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.\n[Exit]\nFLUTE Must I speak now?\nQUINCE Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes\nbut to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.\nFLUTE Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,\nOf colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,\nMost brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,\nAs true as truest horse that yet would never tire,\nI'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.\nQUINCE 'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that\nyet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your\npart at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue\nis past; it is, 'never tire.'\nFLUTE O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would\nnever tire.\n[Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head]\nBOTTOM If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.\nQUINCE O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray,\nmasters! fly, masters! Help!\n[Exeunt QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING]\nPUCK I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,\nThrough bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:\nSometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,\nA hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;\nAnd neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,\nLike horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.\n[Exit]\nBOTTOM Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to\nmake me afeard.\n[Re-enter SNOUT]\nSNOUT O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?\nBOTTOM What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do\nyou?\n[Exit SNOUT]\n[Re-enter QUINCE]\nQUINCE Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art\ntranslated.\n[Exit]\nBOTTOM I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me;\nto fright me, if they could. But I will not stir\nfrom this place, do what they can: I will walk up\nand down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear\nI am not afraid.\n[Sings]\nThe ousel cock so black of hue,\nWith orange-tawny bill,\nThe throstle with his note so true,\nThe wren with little quill,--\nTITANIA [Awaking] What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?\nBOTTOM [Sings]\nThe finch, the sparrow and the lark,\nThe plain-song cuckoo gray,\nWhose note full many a man doth mark,\nAnd dares not answer nay;--\nfor, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish\na bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry\n'cuckoo' never so?\nTITANIA I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:\nMine ear is much enamour'd of thy note;\nSo is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;\nAnd thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me\nOn the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.\nBOTTOM Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason\nfor that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and\nlove keep little company together now-a-days; the\nmore the pity that some honest neighbours will not\nmake them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.\nTITANIA Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.\nBOTTOM Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out\nof this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.\nTITANIA Out of this wood do not desire to go:\nThou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.\nI am a spirit of no common rate;\nThe summer still doth tend upon my state;\nAnd I do love thee: therefore, go with me;\nI'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,\nAnd they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,\nAnd sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;\nAnd I will purge thy mortal grossness so\nThat thou shalt like an airy spirit go.\nPeaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!\n[Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED]\nPEASEBLOSSOM Ready.\nCOBWEB And I.\nMOTH And I.\nMUSTARDSEED And I.\nALL Where shall we go?\nTITANIA Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;\nHop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;\nFeed him with apricocks and dewberries,\nWith purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;\nThe honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,\nAnd for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs\nAnd light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,\nTo have my love to bed and to arise;\nAnd pluck the wings from Painted butterflies\nTo fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:\nNod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.\nPEASEBLOSSOM Hail, mortal!\nCOBWEB Hail!\nMOTH Hail!\nMUSTARDSEED Hail!\nBOTTOM I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech your\nworship's name.\nCOBWEB Cobweb.\nBOTTOM I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\nCobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with\nyou. Your name, honest gentleman?\nPEASEBLOSSOM Peaseblossom.\nBOTTOM I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your\nmother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good\nMaster Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more\nacquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?\nMUSTARDSEED Mustardseed.\nBOTTOM Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well:\nthat same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath\ndevoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise\nyou your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I\ndesire your more acquaintance, good Master\nMustardseed.\nTITANIA Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.\nThe moon methinks looks with a watery eye;\nAnd when she weeps, weeps every little flower,\nLamenting some enforced chastity.\nTie up my love's tongue bring him silently.\n[Exeunt]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT III\nSCENE II Another part of the wood.\n[Enter OBERON]\nOBERON I wonder if Titania be awaked;\nThen, what it was that next came in her eye,\nWhich she must dote on in extremity.\n[Enter PUCK]\nHere comes my messenger.\nHow now, mad spirit!\nWhat night-rule now about this haunted grove?\nPUCK My mistress with a monster is in love.\nNear to her close and consecrated bower,\nWhile she was in her dull and sleeping hour,\nA crew of patches, rude mechanicals,\nThat work for bread upon Athenian stalls,\nWere met together to rehearse a play\nIntended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.\nThe shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,\nWho Pyramus presented, in their sport\nForsook his scene and enter'd in a brake\nWhen I did him at this advantage take,\nAn ass's nole I fixed on his head:\nAnon his Thisbe must be answered,\nAnd forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,\nAs wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,\nOr russet-pated choughs, many in sort,\nRising and cawing at the gun's report,\nSever themselves and madly sweep the sky,\nSo, at his sight, away his fellows fly;\nAnd, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;\nHe murder cries and help from Athens calls.\nTheir sense thus weak, lost with their fears\nthus strong,\nMade senseless things begin to do them wrong;\nFor briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;\nSome sleeves, some hats, from yielders all\nthings catch.\nI led them on in this distracted fear,\nAnd left sweet Pyramus translated there:\nWhen in that moment, so it came to pass,\nTitania waked and straightway loved an ass.\nOBERON This falls out better than I could devise.\nBut hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes\nWith the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?\nPUCK I took him sleeping,--that is finish'd too,--\nAnd the Athenian woman by his side:\nThat, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.\n[Enter HERMIA and DEMETRIUS]\nOBERON Stand close: this is the same Athenian.\nPUCK This is the woman, but not this the man.\nDEMETRIUS O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?\nLay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.\nHERMIA Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse,\nFor thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse,\nIf thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,\nBeing o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,\nAnd kill me too.\nThe sun was not so true unto the day\nAs he to me: would he have stolen away\nFrom sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon\nThis whole earth may be bored and that the moon\nMay through the centre creep and so displease\nHer brother's noontide with Antipodes.\nIt cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;\nSo should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.\nDEMETRIUS So should the murder'd look, and so should I,\nPierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:\nYet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,\nAs yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.\nHERMIA What's this to my Lysander? where is he?\nAh, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?\nDEMETRIUS I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.\nHERMIA Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds\nOf maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?\nHenceforth be never number'd among men!\nO, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!\nDurst thou have look'd upon him being awake,\nAnd hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!\nCould not a worm, an adder, do so much?\nAn adder did it; for with doubler tongue\nThan thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.\nDEMETRIUS You spend your passion on a misprised mood:\nI am not guilty of Lysander's blood;\nNor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.\nHERMIA I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.\nDEMETRIUS An if I could, what should I get therefore?\nHERMIA A privilege never to see me more.\nAnd from thy hated presence part I so:\nSee me no more, whether he be dead or no.\n[Exit]\nDEMETRIUS There is no following her in this fierce vein:\nHere therefore for a while I will remain.\nSo sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow\nFor debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe:\nWhich now in some slight measure it will pay,\nIf for his tender here I make some stay.\n[Lies down and sleeps]\nOBERON What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite\nAnd laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:\nOf thy misprision must perforce ensue\nSome true love turn'd and not a false turn'd true.\nPUCK Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,\nA million fail, confounding oath on oath.\nOBERON About the wood go swifter than the wind,\nAnd Helena of Athens look thou find:\nAll fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,\nWith sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear:\nBy some illusion see thou bring her here:\nI'll charm his eyes against she do appear.\nPUCK I go, I go; look how I go,\nSwifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.\n[Exit]\nOBERON Flower of this purple dye,\nHit with Cupid's archery,\nSink in apple of his eye.\nWhen his love he doth espy,\nLet her shine as gloriously\nAs the Venus of the sky.\nWhen thou wakest, if she be by,\nBeg of her for remedy.\n[Re-enter PUCK]\nPUCK Captain of our fairy band,\nHelena is here at hand;\nAnd the youth, mistook by me,\nPleading for a lover's fee.\nShall we their fond pageant see?\nLord, what fools these mortals be!\nOBERON Stand aside: the noise they make\nWill cause Demetrius to awake.\nPUCK Then will two at once woo one;\nThat must needs be sport alone;\nAnd those things do best please me\nThat befal preposterously.\n[Enter LYSANDER and HELENA]\nLYSANDER Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?\nScorn and derision never come in tears:\nLook, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,\nIn their nativity all truth appears.\nHow can these things in me seem scorn to you,\nBearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?\nHELENA You do advance your cunning more and more.\nWhen truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!\nThese vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er?\nWeigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:\nYour vows to her and me, put in two scales,\nWill even weigh, and both as light as tales.\nLYSANDER I had no judgment when to her I swore.\nHELENA Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.\nLYSANDER Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.\nDEMETRIUS [Awaking] O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!\nTo what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?\nCrystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show\nThy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!\nThat pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,\nFann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow\nWhen thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss\nThis princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!\nHELENA O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent\nTo set against me for your merriment:\nIf you we re civil and knew courtesy,\nYou would not do me thus much injury.\nCan you not hate me, as I know you do,\nBut you must join in souls to mock me too?\nIf you were men, as men you are in show,\nYou would not use a gentle lady so;\nTo vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,\nWhen I am sure you hate me with your hearts.\nYou both are rivals, and love Hermia;\nAnd now both rivals, to mock Helena:\nA trim exploit, a manly enterprise,\nTo conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes\nWith your derision! none of noble sort\nWould so offend a virgin, and extort\nA poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.\nLYSANDER You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;\nFor you love Hermia; this you know I know:\nAnd here, with all good will, with all my heart,\nIn Hermia's love I yield you up my part;\nAnd yours of Helena to me bequeath,\nWhom I do love and will do till my death.\nHELENA Never did mockers waste more idle breath.\nDEMETRIUS Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none:\nIf e'er I loved her, all that love is gone.\nMy heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,\nAnd now to Helen is it home return'd,\nThere to remain.\nLYSANDER Helen, it is not so.\nDEMETRIUS Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,\nLest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.\nLook, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.\n[Re-enter HERMIA]\nHERMIA Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,\nThe ear more quick of apprehension makes;\nWherein it doth impair the seeing sense,\nIt pays the hearing double recompense.\nThou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;\nMine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound\nBut why unkindly didst thou leave me so?\nLYSANDER Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?\nHERMIA What love could press Lysander from my side?\nLYSANDER Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,\nFair Helena, who more engilds the night\nThan all you fiery oes and eyes of light.\nWhy seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,\nThe hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?\nHERMIA You speak not as you think: it cannot be.\nHELENA Lo, she is one of this confederacy!\nNow I perceive they have conjoin'd all three\nTo fashion this false sport, in spite of me.\nInjurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!\nHave you conspired, have you with these contrived\nTo bait me with this foul derision?\nIs all the counsel that we two have shared,\nThe sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,\nWhen we have chid the hasty-footed time\nFor parting us,--O, is it all forgot?\nAll school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?\nWe, Hermia, like two artificial gods,\nHave with our needles created both one flower,\nBoth on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,\nBoth warbling of one song, both in one key,\nAs if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,\nHad been incorporate. So we grow together,\nLike to a double cherry, seeming parted,\nBut yet an union in partition;\nTwo lovely berries moulded on one stem;\nSo, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;\nTwo of the first, like coats in heraldry,\nDue but to one and crowned with one crest.\nAnd will you rent our ancient love asunder,\nTo join with men in scorning your poor friend?\nIt is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:\nOur sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,\nThough I alone do feel the injury.\nHERMIA I am amazed at your passionate words.\nI scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.\nHELENA Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,\nTo follow me and praise my eyes and face?\nAnd made your other love, Demetrius,\nWho even but now did spurn me with his foot,\nTo call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,\nPrecious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this\nTo her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander\nDeny your love, so rich within his soul,\nAnd tender me, forsooth, affection,\nBut by your setting on, by your consent?\nWhat thought I be not so in grace as you,\nSo hung upon with love, so fortunate,\nBut miserable most, to love unloved?\nThis you should pity rather than despise.\nHERNIA I understand not what you mean by this.\nHELENA Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,\nMake mouths upon me when I turn my back;\nWink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:\nThis sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.\nIf you have any pity, grace, or manners,\nYou would not make me such an argument.\nBut fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault;\nWhich death or absence soon shall remedy.\nLYSANDER Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:\nMy love, my life my soul, fair Helena!\nHELENA O excellent!\nHERMIA Sweet, do not scorn her so.\nDEMETRIUS If she cannot entreat, I can compel.\nLYSANDER Thou canst compel no more than she entreat:\nThy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.\nHelen, I love thee; by my life, I do:\nI swear by that which I will lose for thee,\nTo prove him false that says I love thee not.\nDEMETRIUS I say I love thee more than he can do.\nLYSANDER If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.\nDEMETRIUS Quick, come!\nHERMIA Lysander, whereto tends all this?\nLYSANDER Away, you Ethiope!\nDEMETRIUS No, no; he'll [ ]\nSeem to break loose; take on as you would follow,\nBut yet come not: you are a tame man, go!\nLYSANDER Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,\nOr I will shake thee from me like a serpent!\nHERMIA Why are you grown so rude? what change is this?\nSweet love,--\nLYSANDER Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!\nOut, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!\nHERMIA Do you not jest?\nHELENA Yes, sooth; and so do you.\nLYSANDER Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.\nDEMETRIUS I would I had your bond, for I perceive\nA weak bond holds you: I'll not trust your word.\nLYSANDER What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?\nAlthough I hate her, I'll not harm her so.\nHERMIA What, can you do me greater harm than hate?\nHate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love!\nAm not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?\nI am as fair now as I was erewhile.\nSince night you loved me; yet since night you left\nme:\nWhy, then you left me--O, the gods forbid!--\nIn earnest, shall I say?\nLYSANDER Ay, by my life;\nAnd never did desire to see thee more.\nTherefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;\nBe certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest\nThat I do hate thee and love Helena.\nHERMIA O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!\nYou thief of love! what, have you come by night\nAnd stolen my love's heart from him?\nHELENA Fine, i'faith!\nHave you no modesty, no maiden shame,\nNo touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear\nImpatient answers from my gentle tongue?\nFie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!\nHERMIA Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game.\nNow I perceive that she hath made compare\nBetween our statures; she hath urged her height;\nAnd with her personage, her tall personage,\nHer height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.\nAnd are you grown so high in his esteem;\nBecause I am so dwarfish and so low?\nHow low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;\nHow low am I? I am not yet so low\nBut that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.\nHELENA I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,\nLet her not hurt me: I was never curst;\nI have no gift at all in shrewishness;\nI am a right maid for my cowardice:\nLet her not strike me. You perhaps may think,\nBecause she is something lower than myself,\nThat I can match her.\nHERMIA Lower! hark, again.\nHELENA Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.\nI evermore did love you, Hermia,\nDid ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;\nSave that, in love unto Demetrius,\nI told him of your stealth unto this wood.\nHe follow'd you; for love I follow'd him;\nBut he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me\nTo strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:\nAnd now, so you will let me quiet go,\nTo Athens will I bear my folly back\nAnd follow you no further: let me go:\nYou see how simple and how fond I am.\nHERMIA Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you?\nHELENA A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.\nHERMIA What, with Lysander?\nHELENA With Demetrius.\nLYSANDER Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.\nDEMETRIUS No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.\nHELENA O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!\nShe was a vixen when she went to school;\nAnd though she be but little, she is fierce.\nHERMIA 'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and 'little'!\nWhy will you suffer her to flout me thus?\nLet me come to her.\nLYSANDER Get you gone, you dwarf;\nYou minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;\nYou bead, you acorn.\nDEMETRIUS You are too officious\nIn her behalf that scorns your services.\nLet her alone: speak not of Helena;\nTake not her part; for, if thou dost intend\nNever so little show of love to her,\nThou shalt aby it.\nLYSANDER Now she holds me not;\nNow follow, if thou darest, to try whose right,\nOf thine or mine, is most in Helena.\nDEMETRIUS Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole.\n[Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS]\nHERMIA You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you:\nNay, go not back.\nHELENA I will not trust you, I,\nNor longer stay in your curst company.\nYour hands than mine are quicker for a fray,\nMy legs are longer though, to run away.\n[Exit]\nHERMIA I am amazed, and know not what to say.\n[Exit]\nOBERON This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest,\nOr else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.\nPUCK Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.\nDid not you tell me I should know the man\nBy the Athenian garment be had on?\nAnd so far blameless proves my enterprise,\nThat I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;\nAnd so far am I glad it so did sort\nAs this their jangling I esteem a sport.\nOBERON Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight:\nHie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;\nThe starry welkin cover thou anon\nWith drooping fog as black as Acheron,\nAnd lead these testy rivals so astray\nAs one come not within another's way.\nLike to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,\nThen stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;\nAnd sometime rail thou like Demetrius;\nAnd from each other look thou lead them thus,\nTill o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep\nWith leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:\nThen crush this herb into Lysander's eye;\nWhose liquor hath this virtuous property,\nTo take from thence all error with his might,\nAnd make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.\nWhen they next wake, all this derision\nShall seem a dream and fruitless vision,\nAnd back to Athens shall the lovers wend,\nWith league whose date till death shall never end.\nWhiles I in this affair do thee employ,\nI'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;\nAnd then I will her charmed eye release\nFrom monster's view, and all things shall be peace.\nPUCK My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,\nFor night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,\nAnd yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;\nAt whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,\nTroop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,\nThat in crossways and floods have burial,\nAlready to their wormy beds are gone;\nFor fear lest day should look their shames upon,\nThey willfully themselves exile from light\nAnd must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.\nOBERON But we are spirits of another sort:\nI with the morning's love have oft made sport,\nAnd, like a forester, the groves may tread,\nEven till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,\nOpening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,\nTurns into yellow gold his salt green streams.\nBut, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:\nWe may effect this business yet ere day.\n[Exit]\nPUCK Up and down, up and down,\nI will lead them up and down:\nI am fear'd in field and town:\nGoblin, lead them up and down.\nHere comes one.\n[Re-enter LYSANDER]\nLYSANDER Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now.\nPUCK Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou?\nLYSANDER I will be with thee straight.\nPUCK Follow me, then,\nTo plainer ground.\n[Exit LYSANDER, as following the voice]\n[Re-enter DEMETRIUS]\nDEMETRIUS Lysander! speak again:\nThou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?\nSpeak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?\nPUCK Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,\nTelling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,\nAnd wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child;\nI'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled\nThat draws a sword on thee.\nDEMETRIUS Yea, art thou there?\nPUCK Follow my voice: we'll try no manhood here.\n[Exeunt]\n[Re-enter LYSANDER]\nLYSANDER He goes before me and still dares me on:\nWhen I come where he calls, then he is gone.\nThe villain is much lighter-heel'd than I:\nI follow'd fast, but faster he did fly;\nThat fallen am I in dark uneven way,\nAnd here will rest me.\n[Lies down]\nCome, thou gentle day!\nFor if but once thou show me thy grey light,\nI'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.\n[Sleeps]\n[Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS]\nPUCK Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not?\nDEMETRIUS Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot\nThou runn'st before me, shifting every place,\nAnd darest not stand, nor look me in the face.\nWhere art thou now?\nPUCK Come hither: I am here.\nDEMETRIUS Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,\nIf ever I thy face by daylight see:\nNow, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me\nTo measure out my length on this cold bed.\nBy day's approach look to be visited.\n[Lies down and sleeps]\n[Re-enter HELENA]\nHELENA O weary night, O long and tedious night,\nAbate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east,\nThat I may back to Athens by daylight,\nFrom these that my poor company detest:\nAnd sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,\nSteal me awhile from mine own company.\n[Lies down and sleeps]\nPUCK Yet but three? Come one more;\nTwo of both kinds make up four.\nHere she comes, curst and sad:\nCupid is a knavish lad,\nThus to make poor females mad.\n[Re-enter HERMIA]\nHERMIA Never so weary, never so in woe,\nBedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,\nI can no further crawl, no further go;\nMy legs can keep no pace with my desires.\nHere will I rest me till the break of day.\nHeavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!\n[Lies down and sleeps]\nPUCK On the ground\nSleep sound:\nI'll apply\nTo your eye,\nGentle lover, remedy.\n[Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER's eyes]\nWhen thou wakest,\nThou takest\nTrue delight\nIn the sight\nOf thy former lady's eye:\nAnd the country proverb known,\nThat every man should take his own,\nIn your waking shall be shown:\nJack shall have Jill;\nNought shall go ill;\nThe man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.\n[Exit]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT IV\nSCENE I The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA\nlying asleep.\n[Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH,\nMUSTARDSEED, and other Fairies attending; OBERON\nbehind unseen]\nTITANIA Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,\nWhile I thy amiable cheeks do coy,\nAnd stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,\nAnd kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.\nBOTTOM Where's Peaseblossom?\nPEASEBLOSSOM Ready.\nBOTTOM Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?\nCOBWEB Ready.\nBOTTOM Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your\nweapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped\nhumble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good\nmounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret\nyourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,\ngood mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;\nI would be loath to have you overflown with a\nhoney-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?\nMUSTARDSEED Ready.\nBOTTOM Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,\nleave your courtesy, good mounsieur.\nMUSTARDSEED What's your Will?\nBOTTOM Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb\nto scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for\nmethinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I\nam such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,\nI must scratch.\nTITANIA What, wilt thou hear some music,\nmy sweet love?\nBOTTOM I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have\nthe tongs and the bones.\nTITANIA Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.\nBOTTOM Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good\ndry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle\nof hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.\nTITANIA I have a venturous fairy that shall seek\nThe squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.\nBOTTOM I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.\nBut, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I\nhave an exposition of sleep come upon me.\nTITANIA Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.\nFairies, begone, and be all ways away.\n[Exeunt fairies]\nSo doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle\nGently entwist; the female ivy so\nEnrings the barky fingers of the elm.\nO, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!\n[They sleep]\n[Enter PUCK]\nOBERON [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin.\nSee'st thou this sweet sight?\nHer dotage now I do begin to pity:\nFor, meeting her of late behind the wood,\nSeeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,\nI did upbraid her and fall out with her;\nFor she his hairy temples then had rounded\nWith a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;\nAnd that same dew, which sometime on the buds\nWas wont to swell like round and orient pearls,\nStood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes\nLike tears that did their own disgrace bewail.\nWhen I had at my pleasure taunted her\nAnd she in mild terms begg'd my patience,\nI then did ask of her her changeling child;\nWhich straight she gave me, and her fairy sent\nTo bear him to my bower in fairy land.\nAnd now I have the boy, I will undo\nThis hateful imperfection of her eyes:\nAnd, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp\nFrom off the head of this Athenian swain;\nThat, he awaking when the other do,\nMay all to Athens back again repair\nAnd think no more of this night's accidents\nBut as the fierce vexation of a dream.\nBut first I will release the fairy queen.\nBe as thou wast wont to be;\nSee as thou wast wont to see:\nDian's bud o'er Cupid's flower\nHath such force and blessed power.\nNow, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.\nTITANIA My Oberon! what visions have I seen!\nMethought I was enamour'd of an ass.\nOBERON There lies your love.\nTITANIA How came these things to pass?\nO, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!\nOBERON Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.\nTitania, music call; and strike more dead\nThan common sleep of all these five the sense.\nTITANIA Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!\n[Music, still]\nPUCK Now, when thou wakest, with thine\nown fool's eyes peep.\nOBERON Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,\nAnd rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.\nNow thou and I are new in amity,\nAnd will to-morrow midnight solemnly\nDance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,\nAnd bless it to all fair prosperity:\nThere shall the pairs of faithful lovers be\nWedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.\nPUCK Fairy king, attend, and mark:\nI do hear the morning lark.\nOBERON Then, my queen, in silence sad,\nTrip we after the night's shade:\nWe the globe can compass soon,\nSwifter than the wandering moon.\nTITANIA Come, my lord, and in our flight\nTell me how it came this night\nThat I sleeping here was found\nWith these mortals on the ground.\n[Exeunt]\n[Horns winded within]\n[Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train]\nTHESEUS Go, one of you, find out the forester;\nFor now our observation is perform'd;\nAnd since we have the vaward of the day,\nMy love shall hear the music of my hounds.\nUncouple in the western valley; let them go:\nDispatch, I say, and find the forester.\n[Exit an Attendant]\nWe will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,\nAnd mark the musical confusion\nOf hounds and echo in conjunction.\nHIPPOLYTA I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,\nWhen in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear\nWith hounds of Sparta: never did I hear\nSuch gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,\nThe skies, the fountains, every region near\nSeem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard\nSo musical a discord, such sweet thunder.\nTHESEUS My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,\nSo flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung\nWith ears that sweep away the morning dew;\nCrook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;\nSlow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,\nEach under each. A cry more tuneable\nWas never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,\nIn Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:\nJudge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?\nEGEUS My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;\nAnd this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;\nThis Helena, old Nedar's Helena:\nI wonder of their being here together.\nTHESEUS No doubt they rose up early to observe\nThe rite of May, and hearing our intent,\nCame here in grace our solemnity.\nBut speak, Egeus; is not this the day\nThat Hermia should give answer of her choice?\nEGEUS It is, my lord.\nTHESEUS Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.\n[Horns and shout within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS,\nHELENA, and HERMIA wake and start up]\nGood morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:\nBegin these wood-birds but to couple now?\nLYSANDER Pardon, my lord.\nTHESEUS I pray you all, stand up.\nI know you two are rival enemies:\nHow comes this gentle concord in the world,\nThat hatred is so far from jealousy,\nTo sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?\nLYSANDER My lord, I shall reply amazedly,\nHalf sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,\nI cannot truly say how I came here;\nBut, as I think,--for truly would I speak,\nAnd now do I bethink me, so it is,--\nI came with Hermia hither: our intent\nWas to be gone from Athens, where we might,\nWithout the peril of the Athenian law.\nEGEUS Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:\nI beg the law, the law, upon his head.\nThey would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,\nThereby to have defeated you and me,\nYou of your wife and me of my consent,\nOf my consent that she should be your wife.\nDEMETRIUS My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,\nOf this their purpose hither to this wood;\nAnd I in fury hither follow'd them,\nFair Helena in fancy following me.\nBut, my good lord, I wot not by what power,--\nBut by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,\nMelted as the snow, seems to me now\nAs the remembrance of an idle gaud\nWhich in my childhood I did dote upon;\nAnd all the faith, the virtue of my heart,\nThe object and the pleasure of mine eye,\nIs only Helena. To her, my lord,\nWas I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:\nBut, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;\nBut, as in health, come to my natural taste,\nNow I do wish it, love it, long for it,\nAnd will for evermore be true to it.\nTHESEUS Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:\nOf this discourse we more will hear anon.\nEgeus, I will overbear your will;\nFor in the temple by and by with us\nThese couples shall eternally be knit:\nAnd, for the morning now is something worn,\nOur purposed hunting shall be set aside.\nAway with us to Athens; three and three,\nWe'll hold a feast in great solemnity.\nCome, Hippolyta.\n[Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train]\nDEMETRIUS These things seem small and undistinguishable,\nHERMIA Methinks I see these things with parted eye,\nWhen every thing seems double.\nHELENA So methinks:\nAnd I have found Demetrius like a jewel,\nMine own, and not mine own.\nDEMETRIUS Are you sure\nThat we are awake? It seems to me\nThat yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think\nThe duke was here, and bid us follow him?\nHERMIA Yea; and my father.\nHELENA And Hippolyta.\nLYSANDER And he did bid us follow to the temple.\nDEMETRIUS Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him\nAnd by the way let us recount our dreams.\n[Exeunt]\nBOTTOM [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will\nanswer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!\nPeter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,\nthe tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen\nhence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare\nvision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to\nsay what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go\nabout to expound this dream. Methought I was--there\nis no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and\nmethought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if\nhe will offer to say what methought I had. The eye\nof man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not\nseen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue\nto conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream\nwas. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of\nthis dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,\nbecause it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the\nlatter end of a play, before the duke:\nperadventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall\nsing it at her death.\n[Exit]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT IV\nSCENE II Athens. QUINCE'S house.\n[Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING]\nQUINCE Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?\nSTARVELING He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is\ntransported.\nFLUTE If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes\nnot forward, doth it?\nQUINCE It is not possible: you have not a man in all\nAthens able to discharge Pyramus but he.\nFLUTE No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft\nman in Athens.\nQUINCE Yea and the best person too; and he is a very\nparamour for a sweet voice.\nFLUTE You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us,\na thing of naught.\n[Enter SNUG]\nSNUG Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and\nthere is two or three lords and ladies more married:\nif our sport had gone forward, we had all been made\nmen.\nFLUTE O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a\nday during his life; he could not have 'scaped\nsixpence a day: an the duke had not given him\nsixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;\nhe would have deserved it: sixpence a day in\nPyramus, or nothing.\n[Enter BOTTOM]\nBOTTOM Where are these lads? where are these hearts?\nQUINCE Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!\nBOTTOM Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not\nwhat; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I\nwill tell you every thing, right as it fell out.\nQUINCE Let us hear, sweet Bottom.\nBOTTOM Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that\nthe duke hath dined. Get your apparel together,\ngood strings to your beards, new ribbons to your\npumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look\no'er his part; for the short and the long is, our\nplay is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have\nclean linen; and let not him that plays the lion\npair his nails, for they shall hang out for the\nlion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions\nnor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I\ndo not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet\ncomedy. No more words: away! go, away!\n[Exeunt]\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\nACT V\nSCENE I Athens. The palace of THESEUS.\n[Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and\nAttendants]\nHIPPOLYTA 'Tis strange my Theseus, that these\nlovers speak of.\nTHESEUS More strange than true: I never may believe\nThese antique fables, nor these fairy toys.\nLovers and madmen have such seething brains,\nSuch shaping fantasies, that apprehend\nMore than cool reason ever comprehends.\nThe lunatic, the lover and the poet\nAre of imagination all compact:\nOne sees more devils than vast hell can hold,\nThat is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,\nSees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:\nThe poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,\nDoth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;\nAnd as imagination bodies forth\nThe forms of things unknown, the poet's pen\nTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing\nA local habitation and a name.\nSuch tricks hath strong imagination,\nThat if it would but apprehend some joy,\nIt comprehends some bringer of that joy;\nOr in the night, imagining some fear,\nHow easy is a bush supposed a bear!\nHIPPOLYTA But all the story of the night told over,\nAnd all their minds transfigured so together,\nMore witnesseth than fancy's images\nAnd grows to something of great constancy;\nBut, howsoever, strange and admirable.\nTHESEUS Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.\n[Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA]\nJoy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love\nAccompany your hearts!\nLYSANDER More than to us\nWait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!\nTHESEUS Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,\nTo wear away this long age of three hours\nBetween our after-supper and bed-time?\nWhere is our usual manager of mirth?\nWhat revels are in hand? Is there no play,\nTo ease the anguish of a torturing hour?\nCall Philostrate.\nPHILOSTRATE Here, mighty Theseus.\nTHESEUS Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?\nWhat masque? what music? How shall we beguile\nThe lazy time, if not with some delight?\nPHILOSTRATE There is a brief how many sports are ripe:\nMake choice of which your highness will see first.\n[Giving a paper]\nTHESEUS [Reads] 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung\nBy an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'\nWe'll none of that: that have I told my love,\nIn glory of my kinsman Hercules.\n[Reads]\n'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,\nTearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'\nThat is an old device; and it was play'd\nWhen I from Thebes came last a conqueror.\n[Reads]\n'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death\nOf Learning, late deceased in beggary.'\nThat is some satire, keen and critical,\nNot sorting with a nuptial ceremony.\n[Reads]\n'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus\nAnd his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'\nMerry and tragical! tedious and brief!\nThat is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.\nHow shall we find the concord of this discord?\nPHILOSTRATE A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,\nWhich is as brief as I have known a play;\nBut by ten words, my lord, it is too long,\nWhich makes it tedious; for in all the play\nThere is not one word apt, one player fitted:\nAnd tragical, my noble lord, it is;\nFor Pyramus therein doth kill himself.\nWhich, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,\nMade mine eyes water; but more merry tears\nThe passion of loud laughter never shed.\nTHESEUS What are they that do play it?\nPHILOSTRATE Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,\nWhich never labour'd in their minds till now,\nAnd now have toil'd their unbreathed memories\nWith this same play, against your nuptial.\nTHESEUS And we will hear it.\nPHILOSTRATE No, my noble lord;\nIt is not for you: I have heard it over,\nAnd it is nothing, nothing in the world;\nUnless you can find sport in their intents,\nExtremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,\nTo do you service.\nTHESEUS I will hear that play;\nFor never anything can be amiss,\nWhen simpleness and duty tender it.\nGo, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.\n[Exit PHILOSTRATE]\nHIPPOLYTA I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged\nAnd duty in his service perishing.\nTHESEUS Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.\nHIPPOLYTA He says they can do nothing in this kind.\nTHESEUS The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.\nOur sport shall be to take what they mistake:\nAnd what poor duty cannot do, noble respect\nTakes it in might, not merit.\nWhere I have come, great clerks have purposed\nTo greet me with premeditated welcomes;\nWhere I have seen them shiver and look pale,\nMake periods in the midst of sentences,\nThrottle their practised accent in their fears\nAnd in conclusion dumbly have broke off,\nNot paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,\nOut of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;\nAnd in the modesty of fearful duty\nI read as much as from the rattling tongue\nOf saucy and audacious eloquence.\nLove, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity\nIn least speak most, to my capacity.\n[Re-enter PHILOSTRATE]\nPHILOSTRATE So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.\nTHESEUS Let him approach.\n[Flourish of trumpets]\n[Enter QUINCE for the Prologue]\nPrologue If we offend, it is with our good will.\nThat you should think, we come not to offend,\nBut with good will. To show our simple skill,\nThat is the true beginning of our end.\nConsider then we come but in despite.\nWe do not come as minding to contest you,\nOur true intent is. All for your delight\nWe are not here. That you should here repent you,\nThe actors are at hand and by their show\nYou shall know all that you are like to know.\nTHESEUS This fellow doth not stand upon points.\nLYSANDER He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows\nnot the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not\nenough to speak, but to speak true.\nHIPPOLYTA Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child\non a recorder; a sound, but not in government.\nTHESEUS His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing\nimpaired, but all disordered. Who is next?\n[Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion]\nPrologue Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;\nBut wonder on, till truth make all things plain.\nThis man is Pyramus, if you would know;\nThis beauteous lady Thisby is certain.\nThis man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present\nWall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;\nAnd through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content\nTo whisper. At the which let no man wonder.\nThis man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,\nPresenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,\nBy moonshine did these lovers think no scorn\nTo meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.\nThis grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,\nThe trusty Thisby, coming first by night,\nDid scare away, or rather did affright;\nAnd, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,\nWhich Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.\nAnon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,\nAnd finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:\nWhereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,\nHe bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;\nAnd Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,\nHis dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,\nLet Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain\nAt large discourse, while here they do remain.\n[Exeunt Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine]\nTHESEUS I wonder if the lion be to speak.\nDEMETRIUS No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.\nWall In this same interlude it doth befall\nThat I, one Snout by name, present a wall;\nAnd such a wall, as I would have you think,\nThat had in it a crannied hole or chink,\nThrough which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,\nDid whisper often very secretly.\nThis loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show\nThat I am that same wall; the truth is so:\nAnd this the cranny is, right and sinister,\nThrough which the fearful lovers are to whisper.\nTHESEUS Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?\nDEMETRIUS It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard\ndiscourse, my lord.\n[Enter Pyramus]\nTHESEUS Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!\nPyramus O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!\nO night, which ever art when day is not!\nO night, O night! alack, alack, alack,\nI fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!\nAnd thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,\nThat stand'st between her father's ground and mine!\nThou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,\nShow me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!\n[Wall holds up his fingers]\nThanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!\nBut what see I? No Thisby do I see.\nO wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!\nCursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!\nTHESEUS The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.\nPyramus No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'\nis Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to\nspy her through the wall. You shall see, it will\nfall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.\n[Enter Thisbe]\nThisbe O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,\nFor parting my fair Pyramus and me!\nMy cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,\nThy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.\nPyramus I see a voice: now will I to the chink,\nTo spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!\nThisbe My love thou art, my love I think.\nPyramus Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;\nAnd, like Limander, am I trusty still.\nThisbe And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.\nPyramus Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.\nThisbe As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.\nPyramus O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!\nThisbe I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.\nPyramus Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?\nThisbe 'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.\n[Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe]\nWall Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;\nAnd, being done, thus Wall away doth go.\n[Exit]\nTHESEUS Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.\nDEMETRIUS No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear\nwithout warning.\nHIPPOLYTA This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.\nTHESEUS The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst\nare no worse, if imagination amend them.\nHIPPOLYTA It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.\nTHESEUS If we imagine no worse of them than they of\nthemselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here\ncome two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.\n[Enter Lion and Moonshine]\nLion You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear\nThe smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,\nMay now perchance both quake and tremble here,\nWhen lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.\nThen know that I, one Snug the joiner, am\nA lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;\nFor, if I should as lion come in strife\nInto this place, 'twere pity on my life.\nTHESEUS A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.\nDEMETRIUS The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.\nLYSANDER This lion is a very fox for his valour.\nTHESEUS True; and a goose for his discretion.\nDEMETRIUS Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his\ndiscretion; and the fox carries the goose.\nTHESEUS His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;\nfor the goose carries not the fox. It is well:\nleave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.\nMoonshine This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;--\nDEMETRIUS He should have worn the horns on his head.\nTHESEUS He is no crescent, and his horns are\ninvisible within the circumference.\nMoonshine This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;\nMyself the man i' the moon do seem to be.\nTHESEUS This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man\nshould be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the\nman i' the moon?\nDEMETRIUS He dares not come there for the candle; for, you\nsee, it is already in snuff.\nHIPPOLYTA I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!\nTHESEUS It appears, by his small light of discretion, that\nhe is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all\nreason, we must stay the time.\nLYSANDER Proceed, Moon.\nMoonshine All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the\nlanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this\nthorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.\nDEMETRIUS Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all\nthese are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.\n[Enter Thisbe]\nThisbe This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?\nLion [Roaring] Oh--\n[Thisbe runs off]\nDEMETRIUS Well roared, Lion.\nTHESEUS Well run, Thisbe.\nHIPPOLYTA Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a\ngood grace.\n[The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit]\nTHESEUS Well moused, Lion.\nLYSANDER And so the lion vanished.\nDEMETRIUS And then came Pyramus.\n[Enter Pyramus]\nPyramus Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;\nI thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;\nFor, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,\nI trust to take of truest Thisby sight.\nBut stay, O spite!\nBut mark, poor knight,\nWhat dreadful dole is here!\nEyes, do you see?\nHow can it be?\nO dainty duck! O dear!\nThy mantle good,\nWhat, stain'd with blood!\nApproach, ye Furies fell!\nO Fates, come, come,\nCut thread and thrum;\nQuail, crush, conclude, and quell!\nTHESEUS This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would\ngo near to make a man look sad.\nHIPPOLYTA Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.\nPyramus O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?\nSince lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:\nWhich is--no, no--which was the fairest dame\nThat lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd\nwith cheer.\nCome, tears, confound;\nOut, sword, and wound\nThe pap of Pyramus;\nAy, that left pap,\nWhere heart doth hop:\n[Stabs himself]\nThus die I, thus, thus, thus.\nNow am I dead,\nNow am I fled;\nMy soul is in the sky:\nTongue, lose thy light;\nMoon take thy flight:\n[Exit Moonshine]\nNow die, die, die, die, die.\n[Dies]\nDEMETRIUS No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.\nLYSANDER Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.\nTHESEUS With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and\nprove an ass.\nHIPPOLYTA How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes\nback and finds her lover?\nTHESEUS She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and\nher passion ends the play.\n[Re-enter Thisbe]\nHIPPOLYTA Methinks she should not use a long one for such a\nPyramus: I hope she will be brief.\nDEMETRIUS A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which\nThisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us;\nshe for a woman, God bless us.\nLYSANDER She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.\nDEMETRIUS And thus she means, videlicet:--\nThisbe Asleep, my love?\nWhat, dead, my dove?\nO Pyramus, arise!\nSpeak, speak. Quite dumb?\nDead, dead? A tomb\nMust cover thy sweet eyes.\nThese My lips,\nThis cherry nose,\nThese yellow cowslip cheeks,\nAre gone, are gone:\nLovers, make moan:\nHis eyes were green as leeks.\nO Sisters Three,\nCome, come to me,\nWith hands as pale as milk;\nLay them in gore,\nSince you have shore\nWith shears his thread of silk.\nTongue, not a word:\nCome, trusty sword;\nCome, blade, my breast imbrue:\n[Stabs herself]\nAnd, farewell, friends;\nThus Thisby ends:\nAdieu, adieu, adieu.\n[Dies]\nTHESEUS Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.\nDEMETRIUS Ay, and Wall too.\nBOTTOM [Starting up] No assure you; the wall is down that\nparted their fathers. Will it please you to see the\nepilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two\nof our company?\nTHESEUS No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no\nexcuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all\ndead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he\nthat writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself\nin Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine\ntragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably\ndischarged. But come, your Bergomask: let your\nepilogue alone.\n[A dance]\nThe iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:\nLovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.\nI fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn\nAs much as we this night have overwatch'd.\nThis palpable-gross play hath well beguiled\nThe heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.\nA fortnight hold we this solemnity,\nIn nightly revels and new jollity.\n[Exeunt]\n[Enter PUCK]\nPUCK Now the hungry lion roars,\nAnd the wolf behowls the moon;\nWhilst the heavy ploughman snores,\nAll with weary task fordone.\nNow the wasted brands do glow,\nWhilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,\nPuts the wretch that lies in woe\nIn remembrance of a shroud.\nNow it is the time of night\nThat the graves all gaping wide,\nEvery one lets forth his sprite,\nIn the church-way paths to glide:\nAnd we fairies, that do run\nBy the triple Hecate's team,\nFrom the presence of the sun,\nFollowing darkness like a dream,\nNow are frolic: not a mouse\nShall disturb this hallow'd house:\nI am sent with broom before,\nTo sweep the dust behind the door.\n[Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train]\nOBERON Through the house give gathering light,\nBy the dead and drowsy fire:\nEvery elf and fairy sprite\nHop as light as bird from brier;\nAnd this ditty, after me,\nSing, and dance it trippingly.\nTITANIA First, rehearse your song by rote\nTo each word a warbling note:\nHand in hand, with fairy grace,\nWill we sing, and bless this place.\n[Song and dance]\nOBERON Now, until the break of day,\nThrough this house each fairy stray.\nTo the best bride-bed will we,\nWhich by us shall blessed be;\nAnd the issue there create\nEver shall be fortunate.\nSo shall all the couples three\nEver true in loving be;\nAnd the blots of Nature's hand\nShall not in their issue stand;\nNever mole, hare lip, nor scar,\nNor mark prodigious, such as are\nDespised in nativity,\nShall upon their children be.\nWith this field-dew consecrate,\nEvery fairy take his gait;\nAnd each several chamber bless,\nThrough this palace, with sweet peace;\nAnd the owner of it blest\nEver shall in safety rest.\nTrip away; make no stay;\nMeet me all by break of day.\n[Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train]\nPUCK If we shadows have offended,\nThink but this, and all is mended,\nThat you have but slumber'd here\nWhile these visions did appear.\nAnd this weak and idle theme,\nNo more yielding but a dream,\nGentles, do not reprehend:\nif you pardon, we will mend:\nAnd, as I am an honest Puck,\nIf we have unearned luck\nNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,\nWe will make amends ere long;\nElse the Puck a liar call;\nSo, good night unto you all.\nGive me your hands, if we be friends,\nAnd Robin shall restore amends.","title":"Midsummers' Night Dream","type":"page"}