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<html>
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<title>A Midsummer Night's Dream</title>
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<body>
<h1>A Midsummer Night's Dream</h1>
<i>
ASCII text placed in the public domain by Moby Lexical Tools, 1992.
SGML markup by Jon Bosak, 1992-1994.
XML version by Jon Bosak, 1996-1999.
The XML markup in this version is Copyright © 1999 Jon Bosak.
This work may freely be distributed on condition that it not be
modified or altered in any way.
</i><h2>Parts - Dramatis Personae</h2>
<p><b><i>THESEUS, Duke of Athens.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>EGEUS, father to Hermia.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>LYSANDER</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>DEMETRIUS</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>PHILOSTRATE, master of the revels to Theseus.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>QUINCE, a carpenter.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>SNUG, a joiner.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>BOTTOM, a weaver.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>FLUTE, a bellows-mender.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>SNOUT, a tinker.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>STARVELING, a tailor.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>HIPPOLYTA, queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>HELENA, in love with Demetrius.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>OBERON, king of the fairies.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>TITANIA, queen of the fairies.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>PUCK, or Robin Goodfellow.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>PEASEBLOSSOM</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>COBWEB</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>MOTH</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>MUSTARDSEED</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>Other fairies attending their King and Queen.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i>Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta.</i></b></p>
<h3>ACT I</h3>
<h3>SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.</h3>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour<br>
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in<br>
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow<br>
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,<br>
Like to a step-dame or a dowager<br>
Long withering out a young man revenue.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;<br>
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;<br>
And then the moon, like to a silver bow<br>
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night<br>
Of our solemnities.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Go, Philostrate,<br>
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;<br>
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;<br>
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;<br>
The pale companion is not for our pomp.<br>
Exit PHILOSTRATE
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,<br>
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;<br>
But I will wed thee in another key,<br>
With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.<br>
<p><b>EGEUS</b></p>
Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?<br>
<p><b>EGEUS</b></p>
Full of vexation come I, with complaint<br>
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.<br>
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,<br>
This man hath my consent to marry her.<br>
Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,<br>
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;<br>
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,<br>
And interchanged love-tokens with my child:<br>
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,<br>
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,<br>
And stolen the impression of her fantasy<br>
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,<br>
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers<br>
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:<br>
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,<br>
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,<br>
To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,<br>
Be it so she; will not here before your grace<br>
Consent to marry with Demetrius,<br>
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,<br>
As she is mine, I may dispose of her:<br>
Which shall be either to this gentleman<br>
Or to her death, according to our law<br>
Immediately provided in that case.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:<br>
To you your father should be as a god;<br>
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one<br>
To whom you are but as a form in wax<br>
By him imprinted and within his power<br>
To leave the figure or disfigure it.<br>
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
So is Lysander.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
In himself he is;<br>
But in this kind, wanting your father's voice,<br>
The other must be held the worthier.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
I would my father look'd but with my eyes.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
I do entreat your grace to pardon me.<br>
I know not by what power I am made bold,<br>
Nor how it may concern my modesty,<br>
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;<br>
But I beseech your grace that I may know<br>
The worst that may befall me in this case,<br>
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Either to die the death or to abjure<br>
For ever the society of men.<br>
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;<br>
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,<br>
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,<br>
You can endure the livery of a nun,<br>
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,<br>
To live a barren sister all your life,<br>
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.<br>
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,<br>
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;<br>
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,<br>
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn<br>
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,<br>
Ere I will my virgin patent up<br>
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke<br>
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Take time to pause; and, by the nest new moon--<br>
The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,<br>
For everlasting bond of fellowship--<br>
Upon that day either prepare to die<br>
For disobedience to your father's will,<br>
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;<br>
Or on Diana's altar to protest<br>
For aye austerity and single life.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield<br>
Thy crazed title to my certain right.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
You have her father's love, Demetrius;<br>
Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.<br>
<p><b>EGEUS</b></p>
Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,<br>
And what is mine my love shall render him.<br>
And she is mine, and all my right of her<br>
I do estate unto Demetrius.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
I am, my lord, as well derived as he,<br>
As well possess'd; my love is more than his;<br>
My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,<br>
If not with vantage, as Demetrius';<br>
And, which is more than all these boasts can be,<br>
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:<br>
Why should not I then prosecute my right?<br>
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,<br>
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,<br>
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,<br>
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,<br>
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
I must confess that I have heard so much,<br>
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;<br>
But, being over-full of self-affairs,<br>
My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;<br>
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,<br>
I have some private schooling for you both.<br>
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself<br>
To fit your fancies to your father's will;<br>
Or else the law of Athens yields you up--<br>
Which by no means we may extenuate--<br>
To death, or to a vow of single life.<br>
Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?<br>
Demetrius and Egeus, go along:<br>
I must employ you in some business<br>
Against our nuptial and confer with you<br>
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.<br>
<p><b>EGEUS</b></p>
With duty and desire we follow you.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?<br>
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Belike for want of rain, which I could well<br>
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,<br>
Could ever hear by tale or history,<br>
The course of true love never did run smooth;<br>
But, either it was different in blood,--<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
O spite! too old to be engaged to young.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,<br>
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,<br>
Making it momentany as a sound,<br>
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;<br>
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,<br>
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,<br>
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'<br>
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:<br>
So quick bright things come to confusion.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,<br>
It stands as an edict in destiny:<br>
Then let us teach our trial patience,<br>
Because it is a customary cross,<br>
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,<br>
Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.<br>
I have a widow aunt, a dowager<br>
Of great revenue, and she hath no child:<br>
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;<br>
And she respects me as her only son.<br>
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;<br>
And to that place the sharp Athenian law<br>
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,<br>
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;<br>
And in the wood, a league without the town,<br>
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,<br>
To do observance to a morn of May,<br>
There will I stay for thee.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
My good Lysander!<br>
I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,<br>
By his best arrow with the golden head,<br>
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,<br>
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,<br>
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,<br>
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,<br>
By all the vows that ever men have broke,<br>
In number more than ever women spoke,<br>
In that same place thou hast appointed me,<br>
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
God speed fair Helena! whither away?<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.<br>
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!<br>
Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air<br>
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,<br>
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.<br>
Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,<br>
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;<br>
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,<br>
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.<br>
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,<br>
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.<br>
O, teach me how you look, and with what art<br>
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
I give him curses, yet he gives me love.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O that my prayers could such affection move!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
The more I hate, the more he follows me.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
The more I love, the more he hateth me.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;<br>
Lysander and myself will fly this place.<br>
Before the time I did Lysander see,<br>
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:<br>
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,<br>
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:<br>
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold<br>
Her silver visage in the watery glass,<br>
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,<br>
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,<br>
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
And in the wood, where often you and I<br>
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,<br>
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,<br>
There my Lysander and myself shall meet;<br>
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,<br>
To seek new friends and stranger companies.<br>
Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;<br>
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!<br>
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight<br>
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
I will, my Hermia.<br>
Exit HERMIA
Helena, adieu:<br>
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
How happy some o'er other some can be!<br>
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.<br>
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;<br>
He will not know what all but he do know:<br>
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,<br>
So I, admiring of his qualities:<br>
Things base and vile, folding no quantity,<br>
Love can transpose to form and dignity:<br>
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;<br>
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:<br>
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;<br>
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:<br>
And therefore is Love said to be a child,<br>
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.<br>
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,<br>
So the boy Love is perjured every where:<br>
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,<br>
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;<br>
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,<br>
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.<br>
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:<br>
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night<br>
Pursue her; and for this intelligence<br>
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:<br>
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,<br>
To have his sight thither and back again.<br>
<h3>SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house.</h3>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Is all our company here?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
You were best to call them generally, man by man,<br>
according to the scrip.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is<br>
thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our<br>
interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his<br>
wedding-day at night.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats<br>
on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow<br>
to a point.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and<br>
most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a<br>
merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your<br>
actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
That will ask some tears in the true performing of<br>
it: if I do it, let the audience look to their<br>
eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some<br>
measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a<br>
tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to<br>
tear a cat in, to make all split.<br>
The raging rocks<br>
And shivering shocks<br>
Shall break the locks<br>
Of prison gates;<br>
And Phibbus' car<br>
Shall shine from far<br>
And make and mar<br>
The foolish Fates.<br>
This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.<br>
This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is<br>
more condoling.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
Here, Peter Quince.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Flute, you must take Thisby on you.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
What is Thisby? a wandering knight?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and<br>
you may speak as small as you will.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll<br>
speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne,<br>
Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear,<br>
and lady dear!'<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Well, proceed.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Robin Starveling, the tailor.<br>
<p><b>STARVELING</b></p>
Here, Peter Quince.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.<br>
Tom Snout, the tinker.<br>
<p><b>SNOUT</b></p>
Here, Peter Quince.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby's father:<br>
Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I<br>
hope, here is a play fitted.<br>
<p><b>SNUG</b></p>
Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it<br>
be, give it me, for I am slow of study.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will<br>
do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar,<br>
that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again,<br>
let him roar again.'<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
An you should do it too terribly, you would fright<br>
the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek;<br>
and that were enough to hang us all.<br>
<p><b>ALL</b></p>
That would hang us, every mother's son.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the<br>
ladies out of their wits, they would have no more<br>
discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my<br>
voice so that I will roar you as gently as any<br>
sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any<br>
nightingale.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a<br>
sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a<br>
summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man:<br>
therefore you must needs play Pyramus.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best<br>
to play it in?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Why, what you will.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I will discharge it in either your straw-colour<br>
beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain<br>
beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your<br>
perfect yellow.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and<br>
then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here<br>
are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request<br>
you and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night;<br>
and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the<br>
town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if<br>
we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with<br>
company, and our devices known. In the meantime I<br>
will draw a bill of properties, such as our play<br>
wants. I pray you, fail me not.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
We will meet; and there we may rehearse most<br>
obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
At the duke's oak we meet.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.<br>
<h3>ACT II</h3>
<h3>SCENE I. A wood near Athens.</h3>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
How now, spirit! whither wander you?<br>
<p><b>Fairy</b></p>
Over hill, over dale,<br>
Thorough bush, thorough brier,<br>
Over park, over pale,<br>
Thorough flood, thorough fire,<br>
I do wander everywhere,<br>
Swifter than the moon's sphere;<br>
And I serve the fairy queen,<br>
To dew her orbs upon the green.<br>
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:<br>
In their gold coats spots you see;<br>
Those be rubies, fairy favours,<br>
In those freckles live their savours:<br>
I must go seek some dewdrops here<br>
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.<br>
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:<br>
Our queen and all our elves come here anon.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
The king doth keep his revels here to-night:<br>
Take heed the queen come not within his sight;<br>
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,<br>
Because that she as her attendant hath<br>
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;<br>
She never had so sweet a changeling;<br>
And jealous Oberon would have the child<br>
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;<br>
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,<br>
Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:<br>
And now they never meet in grove or green,<br>
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,<br>
But, they do square, that all their elves for fear<br>
Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.<br>
<p><b>Fairy</b></p>
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,<br>
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite<br>
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he<br>
That frights the maidens of the villagery;<br>
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern<br>
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;<br>
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;<br>
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?<br>
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,<br>
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:<br>
Are not you he?<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Thou speak'st aright;<br>
I am that merry wanderer of the night.<br>
I jest to Oberon and make him smile<br>
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,<br>
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:<br>
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,<br>
In very likeness of a roasted crab,<br>
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob<br>
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.<br>
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,<br>
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;<br>
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,<br>
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;<br>
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,<br>
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear<br>
A merrier hour was never wasted there.<br>
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.<br>
<p><b>Fairy</b></p>
And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:<br>
I have forsworn his bed and company.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Then I must be thy lady: but I know<br>
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,<br>
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,<br>
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love<br>
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,<br>
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?<br>
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,<br>
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,<br>
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come<br>
To give their bed joy and prosperity.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,<br>
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,<br>
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?<br>
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night<br>
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?<br>
And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,<br>
With Ariadne and Antiopa?<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
These are the forgeries of jealousy:<br>
And never, since the middle summer's spring,<br>
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,<br>
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,<br>
Or in the beached margent of the sea,<br>
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,<br>
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.<br>
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,<br>
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea<br>
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land<br>
Have every pelting river made so proud<br>
That they have overborne their continents:<br>
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,<br>
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn<br>
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;<br>
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,<br>
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;<br>
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,<br>
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green<br>
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:<br>
The human mortals want their winter here;<br>
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:<br>
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,<br>
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,<br>
That rheumatic diseases do abound:<br>
And thorough this distemperature we see<br>
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts<br>
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,<br>
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown<br>
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds<br>
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,<br>
The childing autumn, angry winter, change<br>
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,<br>
By their increase, now knows not which is which:<br>
And this same progeny of evils comes<br>
From our debate, from our dissension;<br>
We are their parents and original.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Do you amend it then; it lies in you:<br>
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?<br>
I do but beg a little changeling boy,<br>
To be my henchman.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Set your heart at rest:<br>
The fairy land buys not the child of me.<br>
His mother was a votaress of my order:<br>
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,<br>
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,<br>
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,<br>
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,<br>
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive<br>
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;<br>
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait<br>
Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--<br>
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,<br>
To fetch me trifles, and return again,<br>
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.<br>
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;<br>
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,<br>
And for her sake I will not part with him.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
How long within this wood intend you stay?<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.<br>
If you will patiently dance in our round<br>
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;<br>
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!<br>
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove<br>
Till I torment thee for this injury.<br>
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest<br>
Since once I sat upon a promontory,<br>
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back<br>
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath<br>
That the rude sea grew civil at her song<br>
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,<br>
To hear the sea-maid's music.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
I remember.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,<br>
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,<br>
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took<br>
At a fair vestal throned by the west,<br>
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,<br>
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;<br>
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft<br>
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,<br>
And the imperial votaress passed on,<br>
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.<br>
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:<br>
It fell upon a little western flower,<br>
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,<br>
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.<br>
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:<br>
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid<br>
Will make or man or woman madly dote<br>
Upon the next live creature that it sees.<br>
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again<br>
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
I'll put a girdle round about the earth<br>
In forty minutes.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Having once this juice,<br>
I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,<br>
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.<br>
The next thing then she waking looks upon,<br>
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,<br>
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,<br>
She shall pursue it with the soul of love:<br>
And ere I take this charm from off her sight,<br>
As I can take it with another herb,<br>
I'll make her render up her page to me.<br>
But who comes here? I am invisible;<br>
And I will overhear their conference.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.<br>
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?<br>
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.<br>
Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;<br>
And here am I, and wode within this wood,<br>
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.<br>
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;<br>
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart<br>
Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,<br>
And I shall have no power to follow you.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?<br>
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth<br>
Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
And even for that do I love you the more.<br>
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,<br>
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:<br>
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,<br>
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,<br>
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.<br>
What worser place can I beg in your love,--<br>
And yet a place of high respect with me,--<br>
Than to be used as you use your dog?<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;<br>
For I am sick when I do look on thee.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
And I am sick when I look not on you.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
You do impeach your modesty too much,<br>
To leave the city and commit yourself<br>
Into the hands of one that loves you not;<br>
To trust the opportunity of night<br>
And the ill counsel of a desert place<br>
With the rich worth of your virginity.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Your virtue is my privilege: for that<br>
It is not night when I do see your face,<br>
Therefore I think I am not in the night;<br>
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,<br>
For you in my respect are all the world:<br>
Then how can it be said I am alone,<br>
When all the world is here to look on me?<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,<br>
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.<br>
Run when you will, the story shall be changed:<br>
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;<br>
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind<br>
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,<br>
When cowardice pursues and valour flies.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
I will not stay thy questions; let me go:<br>
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe<br>
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,<br>
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!<br>
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:<br>
We cannot fight for love, as men may do;<br>
We should be wood and were not made to woo.<br>
Exit DEMETRIUS
I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,<br>
To die upon the hand I love so well.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,<br>
Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.<br>
Re-enter PUCK
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Ay, there it is.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
I pray thee, give it me.<br>
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,<br>
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,<br>
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,<br>
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:<br>
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,<br>
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;<br>
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,<br>
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:<br>
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,<br>
And make her full of hateful fantasies.<br>
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:<br>
A sweet Athenian lady is in love<br>
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;<br>
But do it when the next thing he espies<br>
May be the lady: thou shalt know the man<br>
By the Athenian garments he hath on.<br>
Effect it with some care, that he may prove<br>
More fond on her than she upon her love:<br>
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.<br>
<h3>SCENE II. Another part of the wood.</h3>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;<br>
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;<br>
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,<br>
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,<br>
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back<br>
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders<br>
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;<br>
Then to your offices and let me rest.<br>
The Fairies sing
You spotted snakes with double tongue,<br>
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;<br>
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,<br>
Come not near our fairy queen.<br>
Philomel, with melody<br>
Sing in our sweet lullaby;<br>
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:<br>
Never harm,<br>
Nor spell nor charm,<br>
Come our lovely lady nigh;<br>
So, good night, with lullaby.<br>
Weaving spiders, come not here;<br>
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!<br>
Beetles black, approach not near;<br>
Worm nor snail, do no offence.<br>
Philomel, with melody, &c.<br>
<p><b>Fairy</b></p>
Hence, away! now all is well:<br>
One aloof stand sentinel.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
What thou seest when thou dost wake,<br>
Do it for thy true-love take,<br>
Love and languish for his sake:<br>
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,<br>
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,<br>
In thy eye that shall appear<br>
When thou wakest, it is thy dear:<br>
Wake when some vile thing is near.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;<br>
And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:<br>
We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,<br>
And tarry for the comfort of the day.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;<br>
For I upon this bank will rest my head.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;<br>
One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,<br>
Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!<br>
Love takes the meaning in love's conference.<br>
I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit<br>
So that but one heart we can make of it;<br>
Two bosoms interchained with an oath;<br>
So then two bosoms and a single troth.<br>
Then by your side no bed-room me deny;<br>
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Lysander riddles very prettily:<br>
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,<br>
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.<br>
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy<br>
Lie further off; in human modesty,<br>
Such separation as may well be said<br>
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,<br>
So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:<br>
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;<br>
And then end life when I end loyalty!<br>
Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Through the forest have I gone.<br>
But Athenian found I none,<br>
On whose eyes I might approve<br>
This flower's force in stirring love.<br>
Night and silence.--Who is here?<br>
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:<br>
This is he, my master said,<br>
Despised the Athenian maid;<br>
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,<br>
On the dank and dirty ground.<br>
Pretty soul! she durst not lie<br>
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.<br>
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw<br>
All the power this charm doth owe.<br>
When thou wakest, let love forbid<br>
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:<br>
So awake when I am gone;<br>
For I must now to Oberon.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!<br>
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.<br>
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;<br>
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.<br>
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:<br>
If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.<br>
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;<br>
For beasts that meet me run away for fear:<br>
Therefore no marvel though Demetrius<br>
Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.<br>
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine<br>
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?<br>
But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!<br>
Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.<br>
Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Awaking And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.<br>
Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,<br>
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.<br>
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word<br>
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Do not say so, Lysander; say not so<br>
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?<br>
Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Content with Hermia! No; I do repent<br>
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.<br>
Not Hermia but Helena I love:<br>
Who will not change a raven for a dove?<br>
The will of man is by his reason sway'd;<br>
And reason says you are the worthier maid.<br>
Things growing are not ripe until their season<br>
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;<br>
And touching now the point of human skill,<br>
Reason becomes the marshal to my will<br>
And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook<br>
Love's stories written in love's richest book.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?<br>
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?<br>
Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,<br>
That I did never, no, nor never can,<br>
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,<br>
But you must flout my insufficiency?<br>
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,<br>
In such disdainful manner me to woo.<br>
But fare you well: perforce I must confess<br>
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.<br>
O, that a lady, of one man refused.<br>
Should of another therefore be abused!<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:<br>
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!<br>
For as a surfeit of the sweetest things<br>
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,<br>
Or as tie heresies that men do leave<br>
Are hated most of those they did deceive,<br>
So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,<br>
Of all be hated, but the most of me!<br>
And, all my powers, address your love and might<br>
To honour Helen and to be her knight!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Awaking Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best<br>
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!<br>
Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!<br>
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:<br>
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,<br>
And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.<br>
Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!<br>
What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?<br>
Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;<br>
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.<br>
No? then I well perceive you all not nigh<br>
Either death or you I'll find immediately.<br>
<h3>ACT III</h3>
<h3>SCENE I. The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.</h3>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Are we all met?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place<br>
for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our<br>
stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we<br>
will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Peter Quince,--<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
What sayest thou, bully Bottom?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and<br>
Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must<br>
draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies<br>
cannot abide. How answer you that?<br>
<p><b>SNOUT</b></p>
By'r lakin, a parlous fear.<br>
<p><b>STARVELING</b></p>
I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.<br>
Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to<br>
say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that<br>
Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more<br>
better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not<br>
Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them<br>
out of fear.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be<br>
written in eight and six.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.<br>
<p><b>SNOUT</b></p>
Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?<br>
<p><b>STARVELING</b></p>
I fear it, I promise you.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to<br>
bring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a<br>
most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful<br>
wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to<br>
look to 't.<br>
<p><b>SNOUT</b></p>
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must<br>
be seen through the lion's neck: and he himself<br>
must speak through, saying thus, or to the same<br>
defect,--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish<br>
You,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would<br>
entreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life<br>
for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it<br>
were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a<br>
man as other men are;' and there indeed let him name<br>
his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things;<br>
that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for,<br>
you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.<br>
<p><b>SNOUT</b></p>
Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find<br>
out moonshine, find out moonshine.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Yes, it doth shine that night.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Why, then may you leave a casement of the great<br>
chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon<br>
may shine in at the casement.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns<br>
and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to<br>
present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is<br>
another thing: we must have a wall in the great<br>
chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did<br>
talk through the chink of a wall.<br>
<p><b>SNOUT</b></p>
You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Some man or other must present Wall: and let him<br>
have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast<br>
about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his<br>
fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus<br>
and Thisby whisper.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,<br>
every mother's son, and rehearse your parts.<br>
Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your<br>
speech, enter into that brake: and so every one<br>
according to his cue.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,<br>
So near the cradle of the fairy queen?<br>
What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;<br>
An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,--<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Odours, odours.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
--odours savours sweet:<br>
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.<br>
But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,<br>
And by and by I will to thee appear.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
Must I speak now?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes<br>
but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,<br>
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,<br>
Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,<br>
As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,<br>
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that<br>
yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your<br>
part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue<br>
is past; it is, 'never tire.'<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would<br>
never tire.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray,<br>
masters! fly, masters! Help!<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,<br>
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:<br>
Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,<br>
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;<br>
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,<br>
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to<br>
make me afeard.<br>
<p><b>SNOUT</b></p>
O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do<br>
you?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art<br>
translated.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me;<br>
to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir<br>
from this place, do what they can: I will walk up<br>
and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear<br>
I am not afraid.<br>
Sings
The ousel cock so black of hue,<br>
With orange-tawny bill,<br>
The throstle with his note so true,<br>
The wren with little quill,--<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Awaking What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Sings<br>
The finch, the sparrow and the lark,<br>
The plain-song cuckoo gray,<br>
Whose note full many a man doth mark,<br>
And dares not answer nay;--<br>
for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish<br>
a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry<br>
'cuckoo' never so?<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:<br>
Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note;<br>
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;<br>
And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me<br>
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason<br>
for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and<br>
love keep little company together now-a-days; the<br>
more the pity that some honest neighbours will not<br>
make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out<br>
of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Out of this wood do not desire to go:<br>
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.<br>
I am a spirit of no common rate;<br>
The summer still doth tend upon my state;<br>
And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;<br>
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,<br>
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,<br>
And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;<br>
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so<br>
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.<br>
Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!<br>
<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p>
Ready.<br>
<p><b>COBWEB</b></p>
And I.<br>
<p><b>MOTH</b></p>
And I.<br>
<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p>
And I.<br>
<p><b>ALL</b></p>
Where shall we go?<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;<br>
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;<br>
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,<br>
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;<br>
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,<br>
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs<br>
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,<br>
To have my love to bed and to arise;<br>
And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies<br>
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:<br>
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.<br>
<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p>
Hail, mortal!<br>
<p><b>COBWEB</b></p>
Hail!<br>
<p><b>MOTH</b></p>
Hail!<br>
<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p>
Hail!<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech your<br>
worship's name.<br>
<p><b>COBWEB</b></p>
Cobweb.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master<br>
Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with<br>
you. Your name, honest gentleman?<br>
<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p>
Peaseblossom.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your<br>
mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good<br>
Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more<br>
acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?<br>
<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p>
Mustardseed.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well:<br>
that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath<br>
devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise<br>
you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I<br>
desire your more acquaintance, good Master<br>
Mustardseed.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.<br>
The moon methinks looks with a watery eye;<br>
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,<br>
Lamenting some enforced chastity.<br>
Tie up my love's tongue bring him silently.<br>
<h3>SCENE II. Another part of the wood.</h3>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
I wonder if Titania be awaked;<br>
Then, what it was that next came in her eye,<br>
Which she must dote on in extremity.<br>
Enter PUCK
Here comes my messenger.<br>
How now, mad spirit!<br>
What night-rule now about this haunted grove?<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
My mistress with a monster is in love.<br>
Near to her close and consecrated bower,<br>
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,<br>
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,<br>
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,<br>
Were met together to rehearse a play<br>
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.<br>
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,<br>
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport<br>
Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake<br>
When I did him at this advantage take,<br>
An ass's nole I fixed on his head:<br>
Anon his Thisbe must be answered,<br>
And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,<br>
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,<br>
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,<br>
Rising and cawing at the gun's report,<br>
Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,<br>
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;<br>
And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;<br>
He murder cries and help from Athens calls.<br>
Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears<br>
thus strong,<br>
Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;<br>
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;<br>
Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all<br>
things catch.<br>
I led them on in this distracted fear,<br>
And left sweet Pyramus translated there:<br>
When in that moment, so it came to pass,<br>
Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
This falls out better than I could devise.<br>
But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes<br>
With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
I took him sleeping,--that is finish'd too,--<br>
And the Athenian woman by his side:<br>
That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Stand close: this is the same Athenian.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
This is the woman, but not this the man.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?<br>
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse,<br>
For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse,<br>
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,<br>
Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,<br>
And kill me too.<br>
The sun was not so true unto the day<br>
As he to me: would he have stolen away<br>
From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon<br>
This whole earth may be bored and that the moon<br>
May through the centre creep and so displease<br>
Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.<br>
It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;<br>
So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
So should the murder'd look, and so should I,<br>
Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:<br>
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,<br>
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
What's this to my Lysander? where is he?<br>
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds<br>
Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?<br>
Henceforth be never number'd among men!<br>
O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!<br>
Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,<br>
And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!<br>
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?<br>
An adder did it; for with doubler tongue<br>
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
You spend your passion on a misprised mood:<br>
I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;<br>
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
An if I could, what should I get therefore?<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
A privilege never to see me more.<br>
And from thy hated presence part I so:<br>
See me no more, whether he be dead or no.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
There is no following her in this fierce vein:<br>
Here therefore for a while I will remain.<br>
So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow<br>
For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe:<br>
Which now in some slight measure it will pay,<br>
If for his tender here I make some stay.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite<br>
And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:<br>
Of thy misprision must perforce ensue<br>
Some true love turn'd and not a false turn'd true.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,<br>
A million fail, confounding oath on oath.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
About the wood go swifter than the wind,<br>
And Helena of Athens look thou find:<br>
All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,<br>
With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear:<br>
By some illusion see thou bring her here:<br>
I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
I go, I go; look how I go,<br>
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Flower of this purple dye,<br>
Hit with Cupid's archery,<br>
Sink in apple of his eye.<br>
When his love he doth espy,<br>
Let her shine as gloriously<br>
As the Venus of the sky.<br>
When thou wakest, if she be by,<br>
Beg of her for remedy.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Captain of our fairy band,<br>
Helena is here at hand;<br>
And the youth, mistook by me,<br>
Pleading for a lover's fee.<br>
Shall we their fond pageant see?<br>
Lord, what fools these mortals be!<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Stand aside: the noise they make<br>
Will cause Demetrius to awake.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Then will two at once woo one;<br>
That must needs be sport alone;<br>
And those things do best please me<br>
That befal preposterously.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?<br>
Scorn and derision never come in tears:<br>
Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,<br>
In their nativity all truth appears.<br>
How can these things in me seem scorn to you,<br>
Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
You do advance your cunning more and more.<br>
When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!<br>
These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er?<br>
Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:<br>
Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,<br>
Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
I had no judgment when to her I swore.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Awaking O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!<br>
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?<br>
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show<br>
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!<br>
That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,<br>
Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow<br>
When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss<br>
This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent<br>
To set against me for your merriment:<br>
If you we re civil and knew courtesy,<br>
You would not do me thus much injury.<br>
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,<br>
But you must join in souls to mock me too?<br>
If you were men, as men you are in show,<br>
You would not use a gentle lady so;<br>
To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,<br>
When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.<br>
You both are rivals, and love Hermia;<br>
And now both rivals, to mock Helena:<br>
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,<br>
To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes<br>
With your derision! none of noble sort<br>
Would so offend a virgin, and extort<br>
A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;<br>
For you love Hermia; this you know I know:<br>
And here, with all good will, with all my heart,<br>
In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;<br>
And yours of Helena to me bequeath,<br>
Whom I do love and will do till my death.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Never did mockers waste more idle breath.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none:<br>
If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone.<br>
My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,<br>
And now to Helen is it home return'd,<br>
There to remain.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Helen, it is not so.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,<br>
Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.<br>
Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,<br>
The ear more quick of apprehension makes;<br>
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,<br>
It pays the hearing double recompense.<br>
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;<br>
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound<br>
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
What love could press Lysander from my side?<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,<br>
Fair Helena, who more engilds the night<br>
Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light.<br>
Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,<br>
The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
You speak not as you think: it cannot be.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!<br>
Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three<br>
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.<br>
Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!<br>
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived<br>
To bait me with this foul derision?<br>
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,<br>
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,<br>
When we have chid the hasty-footed time<br>
For parting us,--O, is it all forgot?<br>
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?<br>
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,<br>
Have with our needles created both one flower,<br>
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,<br>
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,<br>
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,<br>
Had been incorporate. So we grow together,<br>
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,<br>
But yet an union in partition;<br>
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;<br>
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;<br>
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,<br>
Due but to one and crowned with one crest.<br>
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,<br>
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?<br>
It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:<br>
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,<br>
Though I alone do feel the injury.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
I am amazed at your passionate words.<br>
I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,<br>
To follow me and praise my eyes and face?<br>
And made your other love, Demetrius,<br>
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,<br>
To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,<br>
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this<br>
To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander<br>
Deny your love, so rich within his soul,<br>
And tender me, forsooth, affection,<br>
But by your setting on, by your consent?<br>
What thought I be not so in grace as you,<br>
So hung upon with love, so fortunate,<br>
But miserable most, to love unloved?<br>
This you should pity rather than despise.<br>
<p><b>HERNIA</b></p>
I understand not what you mean by this.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,<br>
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;<br>
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:<br>
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.<br>
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,<br>
You would not make me such an argument.<br>
But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault;<br>
Which death or absence soon shall remedy.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:<br>
My love, my life my soul, fair Helena!<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O excellent!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Sweet, do not scorn her so.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
If she cannot entreat, I can compel.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Thou canst compel no more than she entreat:<br>
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.<br>
Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do:<br>
I swear by that which I will lose for thee,<br>
To prove him false that says I love thee not.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
I say I love thee more than he can do.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Quick, come!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Lysander, whereto tends all this?<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Away, you Ethiope!<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
No, no; he'll<br>
Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,<br>
But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,<br>
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Why are you grown so rude? what change is this?<br>
Sweet love,--<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!<br>
Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Do you not jest?<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Yes, sooth; and so do you.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
I would I had your bond, for I perceive<br>
A weak bond holds you: I'll not trust your word.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?<br>
Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
What, can you do me greater harm than hate?<br>
Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love!<br>
Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?<br>
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.<br>
Since night you loved me; yet since night you left<br>
me:<br>
Why, then you left me--O, the gods forbid!--<br>
In earnest, shall I say?<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Ay, by my life;<br>
And never did desire to see thee more.<br>
Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;<br>
Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest<br>
That I do hate thee and love Helena.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!<br>
You thief of love! what, have you come by night<br>
And stolen my love's heart from him?<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Fine, i'faith!<br>
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,<br>
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear<br>
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?<br>
Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game.<br>
Now I perceive that she hath made compare<br>
Between our statures; she hath urged her height;<br>
And with her personage, her tall personage,<br>
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.<br>
And are you grown so high in his esteem;<br>
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?<br>
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;<br>
How low am I? I am not yet so low<br>
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,<br>
Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;<br>
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;<br>
I am a right maid for my cowardice:<br>
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,<br>
Because she is something lower than myself,<br>
That I can match her.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Lower! hark, again.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.<br>
I evermore did love you, Hermia,<br>
Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;<br>
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,<br>
I told him of your stealth unto this wood.<br>
He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him;<br>
But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me<br>
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:<br>
And now, so you will let me quiet go,<br>
To Athens will I bear my folly back<br>
And follow you no further: let me go:<br>
You see how simple and how fond I am.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you?<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
What, with Lysander?<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
With Demetrius.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!<br>
She was a vixen when she went to school;<br>
And though she be but little, she is fierce.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and 'little'!<br>
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?<br>
Let me come to her.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Get you gone, you dwarf;<br>
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;<br>
You bead, you acorn.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
You are too officious<br>
In her behalf that scorns your services.<br>
Let her alone: speak not of Helena;<br>
Take not her part; for, if thou dost intend<br>
Never so little show of love to her,<br>
Thou shalt aby it.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Now she holds me not;<br>
Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right,<br>
Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you:<br>
Nay, go not back.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
I will not trust you, I,<br>
Nor longer stay in your curst company.<br>
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,<br>
My legs are longer though, to run away.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
I am amazed, and know not what to say.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest,<br>
Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.<br>
Did not you tell me I should know the man<br>
By the Athenian garment be had on?<br>
And so far blameless proves my enterprise,<br>
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;<br>
And so far am I glad it so did sort<br>
As this their jangling I esteem a sport.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight:<br>
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;<br>
The starry welkin cover thou anon<br>
With drooping fog as black as Acheron,<br>
And lead these testy rivals so astray<br>
As one come not within another's way.<br>
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,<br>
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;<br>
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;<br>
And from each other look thou lead them thus,<br>
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep<br>
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:<br>
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;<br>
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,<br>
To take from thence all error with his might,<br>
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.<br>
When they next wake, all this derision<br>
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,<br>
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,<br>
With league whose date till death shall never end.<br>
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,<br>
I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;<br>
And then I will her charmed eye release<br>
From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,<br>
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,<br>
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;<br>
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,<br>
Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,<br>
That in crossways and floods have burial,<br>
Already to their wormy beds are gone;<br>
For fear lest day should look their shames upon,<br>
They willfully themselves exile from light<br>
And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
But we are spirits of another sort:<br>
I with the morning's love have oft made sport,<br>
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,<br>
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,<br>
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,<br>
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.<br>
But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:<br>
We may effect this business yet ere day.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Up and down, up and down,<br>
I will lead them up and down:<br>
I am fear'd in field and town:<br>
Goblin, lead them up and down.<br>
Here comes one.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou?<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
I will be with thee straight.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Follow me, then,<br>
To plainer ground.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Lysander! speak again:<br>
Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?<br>
Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,<br>
Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,<br>
And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child;<br>
I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled<br>
That draws a sword on thee.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Yea, art thou there?<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Follow my voice: we'll try no manhood here.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
He goes before me and still dares me on:<br>
When I come where he calls, then he is gone.<br>
The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I:<br>
I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly;<br>
That fallen am I in dark uneven way,<br>
And here will rest me.<br>
Lies down
Come, thou gentle day!<br>
For if but once thou show me thy grey light,<br>
I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not?<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot<br>
Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place,<br>
And darest not stand, nor look me in the face.<br>
Where art thou now?<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Come hither: I am here.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,<br>
If ever I thy face by daylight see:<br>
Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me<br>
To measure out my length on this cold bed.<br>
By day's approach look to be visited.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
O weary night, O long and tedious night,<br>
Abate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east,<br>
That I may back to Athens by daylight,<br>
From these that my poor company detest:<br>
And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,<br>
Steal me awhile from mine own company.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Yet but three? Come one more;<br>
Two of both kinds make up four.<br>
Here she comes, curst and sad:<br>
Cupid is a knavish lad,<br>
Thus to make poor females mad.<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Never so weary, never so in woe,<br>
Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,<br>
I can no further crawl, no further go;<br>
My legs can keep no pace with my desires.<br>
Here will I rest me till the break of day.<br>
Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
On the ground<br>
Sleep sound:<br>
I'll apply<br>
To your eye,<br>
Gentle lover, remedy.<br>
Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER's eyes
When thou wakest,<br>
Thou takest<br>
True delight<br>
In the sight<br>
Of thy former lady's eye:<br>
And the country proverb known,<br>
That every man should take his own,<br>
In your waking shall be shown:<br>
Jack shall have Jill;<br>
Nought shall go ill;<br>
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.<br>
<h3>ACT IV</h3>
<h3>SCENE I. The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA lying asleep.</h3>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,<br>
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,<br>
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,<br>
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Where's Peaseblossom?<br>
<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p>
Ready.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?<br>
<p><b>COBWEB</b></p>
Ready.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your<br>
weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped<br>
humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good<br>
mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret<br>
yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,<br>
good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;<br>
I would be loath to have you overflown with a<br>
honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?<br>
<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p>
Ready.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,<br>
leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.<br>
<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p>
What's your Will?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb<br>
to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for<br>
methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I<br>
am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,<br>
I must scratch.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
What, wilt thou hear some music,<br>
my sweet love?<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have<br>
the tongs and the bones.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good<br>
dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle<br>
of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
I have a venturous fairy that shall seek<br>
The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.<br>
But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I<br>
have an exposition of sleep come upon me.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.<br>
Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.<br>
Exeunt fairies
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle<br>
Gently entwist; the female ivy so<br>
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.<br>
O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Advancing Welcome, good Robin.<br>
See'st thou this sweet sight?<br>
Her dotage now I do begin to pity:<br>
For, meeting her of late behind the wood,<br>
Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,<br>
I did upbraid her and fall out with her;<br>
For she his hairy temples then had rounded<br>
With a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;<br>
And that same dew, which sometime on the buds<br>
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,<br>
Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes<br>
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.<br>
When I had at my pleasure taunted her<br>
And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,<br>
I then did ask of her her changeling child;<br>
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent<br>
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.<br>
And now I have the boy, I will undo<br>
This hateful imperfection of her eyes:<br>
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp<br>
From off the head of this Athenian swain;<br>
That, he awaking when the other do,<br>
May all to Athens back again repair<br>
And think no more of this night's accidents<br>
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.<br>
But first I will release the fairy queen.<br>
Be as thou wast wont to be;<br>
See as thou wast wont to see:<br>
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower<br>
Hath such force and blessed power.<br>
Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
My Oberon! what visions have I seen!<br>
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
There lies your love.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
How came these things to pass?<br>
O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.<br>
Titania, music call; and strike more dead<br>
Than common sleep of all these five the sense.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Now, when thou wakest, with thine<br>
own fool's eyes peep.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,<br>
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.<br>
Now thou and I are new in amity,<br>
And will to-morrow midnight solemnly<br>
Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,<br>
And bless it to all fair prosperity:<br>
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be<br>
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Fairy king, attend, and mark:<br>
I do hear the morning lark.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Then, my queen, in silence sad,<br>
Trip we after the night's shade:<br>
We the globe can compass soon,<br>
Swifter than the wandering moon.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
Come, my lord, and in our flight<br>
Tell me how it came this night<br>
That I sleeping here was found<br>
With these mortals on the ground.<br>
Exeunt
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Go, one of you, find out the forester;<br>
For now our observation is perform'd;<br>
And since we have the vaward of the day,<br>
My love shall hear the music of my hounds.<br>
Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:<br>
Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.<br>
Exit an Attendant
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,<br>
And mark the musical confusion<br>
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,<br>
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear<br>
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear<br>
Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,<br>
The skies, the fountains, every region near<br>
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard<br>
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,<br>
So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung<br>
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;<br>
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;<br>
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,<br>
Each under each. A cry more tuneable<br>
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,<br>
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:<br>
Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?<br>
<p><b>EGEUS</b></p>
My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;<br>
And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;<br>
This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:<br>
I wonder of their being here together.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
No doubt they rose up early to observe<br>
The rite of May, and hearing our intent,<br>
Came here in grace our solemnity.<br>
But speak, Egeus; is not this the day<br>
That Hermia should give answer of her choice?<br>
<p><b>EGEUS</b></p>
It is, my lord.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.<br>
Horns and shout within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS,
HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start up
Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:<br>
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Pardon, my lord.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
I pray you all, stand up.<br>
I know you two are rival enemies:<br>
How comes this gentle concord in the world,<br>
That hatred is so far from jealousy,<br>
To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
My lord, I shall reply amazedly,<br>
Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,<br>
I cannot truly say how I came here;<br>
But, as I think,--for truly would I speak,<br>
And now do I bethink me, so it is,--<br>
I came with Hermia hither: our intent<br>
Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,<br>
Without the peril of the Athenian law.<br>
<p><b>EGEUS</b></p>
Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:<br>
I beg the law, the law, upon his head.<br>
They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,<br>
Thereby to have defeated you and me,<br>
You of your wife and me of my consent,<br>
Of my consent that she should be your wife.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,<br>
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;<br>
And I in fury hither follow'd them,<br>
Fair Helena in fancy following me.<br>
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,--<br>
But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,<br>
Melted as the snow, seems to me now<br>
As the remembrance of an idle gaud<br>
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;<br>
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,<br>
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,<br>
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,<br>
Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:<br>
But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;<br>
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,<br>
Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,<br>
And will for evermore be true to it.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:<br>
Of this discourse we more will hear anon.<br>
Egeus, I will overbear your will;<br>
For in the temple by and by with us<br>
These couples shall eternally be knit:<br>
And, for the morning now is something worn,<br>
Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.<br>
Away with us to Athens; three and three,<br>
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.<br>
Come, Hippolyta.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
These things seem small and undistinguishable,<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Methinks I see these things with parted eye,<br>
When every thing seems double.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
So methinks:<br>
And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,<br>
Mine own, and not mine own.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Are you sure<br>
That we are awake? It seems to me<br>
That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think<br>
The duke was here, and bid us follow him?<br>
<p><b>HERMIA</b></p>
Yea; and my father.<br>
<p><b>HELENA</b></p>
And Hippolyta.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
And he did bid us follow to the temple.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him<br>
And by the way let us recount our dreams.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Awaking When my cue comes, call me, and I will<br>
answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!<br>
Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,<br>
the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen<br>
hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare<br>
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to<br>
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go<br>
about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there<br>
is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and<br>
methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if<br>
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye<br>
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not<br>
seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue<br>
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream<br>
was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of<br>
this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,<br>
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the<br>
latter end of a play, before the duke:<br>
peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall<br>
sing it at her death.<br>
<h3>SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house.</h3>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?<br>
<p><b>STARVELING</b></p>
He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is<br>
transported.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes<br>
not forward, doth it?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
It is not possible: you have not a man in all<br>
Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft<br>
man in Athens.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Yea and the best person too; and he is a very<br>
paramour for a sweet voice.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us,<br>
a thing of naught.<br>
<p><b>SNUG</b></p>
Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and<br>
there is two or three lords and ladies more married:<br>
if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made<br>
men.<br>
<p><b>FLUTE</b></p>
O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a<br>
day during his life; he could not have 'scaped<br>
sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him<br>
sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;<br>
he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in<br>
Pyramus, or nothing.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Where are these lads? where are these hearts?<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not<br>
what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I<br>
will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.<br>
<p><b>QUINCE</b></p>
Let us hear, sweet Bottom.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that<br>
the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together,<br>
good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your<br>
pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look<br>
o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our<br>
play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have<br>
clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion<br>
pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the<br>
lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions<br>
nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I<br>
do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet<br>
comedy. No more words: away! go, away!<br>
<h3>ACT V</h3>
<h3>SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.</h3>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
'Tis strange my Theseus, that these<br>
lovers speak of.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
More strange than true: I never may believe<br>
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.<br>
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,<br>
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend<br>
More than cool reason ever comprehends.<br>
The lunatic, the lover and the poet<br>
Are of imagination all compact:<br>
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,<br>
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,<br>
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:<br>
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,<br>
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;<br>
And as imagination bodies forth<br>
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen<br>
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing<br>
A local habitation and a name.<br>
Such tricks hath strong imagination,<br>
That if it would but apprehend some joy,<br>
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;<br>
Or in the night, imagining some fear,<br>
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
But all the story of the night told over,<br>
And all their minds transfigured so together,<br>
More witnesseth than fancy's images<br>
And grows to something of great constancy;<br>
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.<br>
Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA
Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love<br>
Accompany your hearts!<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
More than to us<br>
Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,<br>
To wear away this long age of three hours<br>
Between our after-supper and bed-time?<br>
Where is our usual manager of mirth?<br>
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,<br>
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?<br>
Call Philostrate.<br>
<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p>
Here, mighty Theseus.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?<br>
What masque? what music? How shall we beguile<br>
The lazy time, if not with some delight?<br>
<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p>
There is a brief how many sports are ripe:<br>
Make choice of which your highness will see first.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Reads 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung<br>
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'<br>
We'll none of that: that have I told my love,<br>
In glory of my kinsman Hercules.<br>
Reads
'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,<br>
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'<br>
That is an old device; and it was play'd<br>
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.<br>
Reads
'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death<br>
Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.'<br>
That is some satire, keen and critical,<br>
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.<br>
Reads
'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus<br>
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'<br>
Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!<br>
That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.<br>
How shall we find the concord of this discord?<br>
<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p>
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,<br>
Which is as brief as I have known a play;<br>
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,<br>
Which makes it tedious; for in all the play<br>
There is not one word apt, one player fitted:<br>
And tragical, my noble lord, it is;<br>
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.<br>
Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,<br>
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears<br>
The passion of loud laughter never shed.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
What are they that do play it?<br>
<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p>
Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,<br>
Which never labour'd in their minds till now,<br>
And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories<br>
With this same play, against your nuptial.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
And we will hear it.<br>
<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p>
No, my noble lord;<br>
It is not for you: I have heard it over,<br>
And it is nothing, nothing in the world;<br>
Unless you can find sport in their intents,<br>
Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,<br>
To do you service.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
I will hear that play;<br>
For never anything can be amiss,<br>
When simpleness and duty tender it.<br>
Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged<br>
And duty in his service perishing.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
He says they can do nothing in this kind.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.<br>
Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:<br>
And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect<br>
Takes it in might, not merit.<br>
Where I have come, great clerks have purposed<br>
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;<br>
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,<br>
Make periods in the midst of sentences,<br>
Throttle their practised accent in their fears<br>
And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,<br>
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,<br>
Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;<br>
And in the modesty of fearful duty<br>
I read as much as from the rattling tongue<br>
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.<br>
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity<br>
In least speak most, to my capacity.<br>
<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p>
So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Let him approach.<br>
<p><b>Prologue</b></p>
If we offend, it is with our good will.<br>
That you should think, we come not to offend,<br>
But with good will. To show our simple skill,<br>
That is the true beginning of our end.<br>
Consider then we come but in despite.<br>
We do not come as minding to contest you,<br>
Our true intent is. All for your delight<br>
We are not here. That you should here repent you,<br>
The actors are at hand and by their show<br>
You shall know all that you are like to know.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
This fellow doth not stand upon points.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows<br>
not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not<br>
enough to speak, but to speak true.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child<br>
on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing<br>
impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?<br>
<p><b>Prologue</b></p>
Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;<br>
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.<br>
This man is Pyramus, if you would know;<br>
This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.<br>
This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present<br>
Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;<br>
And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content<br>
To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.<br>
This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,<br>
Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,<br>
By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn<br>
To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.<br>
This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,<br>
The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,<br>
Did scare away, or rather did affright;<br>
And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,<br>
Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.<br>
Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,<br>
And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:<br>
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,<br>
He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;<br>
And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,<br>
His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,<br>
Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain<br>
At large discourse, while here they do remain.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
I wonder if the lion be to speak.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.<br>
<p><b>Wall</b></p>
In this same interlude it doth befall<br>
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;<br>
And such a wall, as I would have you think,<br>
That had in it a crannied hole or chink,<br>
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,<br>
Did whisper often very secretly.<br>
This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show<br>
That I am that same wall; the truth is so:<br>
And this the cranny is, right and sinister,<br>
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard<br>
discourse, my lord.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!<br>
O night, which ever art when day is not!<br>
O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,<br>
I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!<br>
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,<br>
That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!<br>
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,<br>
Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!<br>
Wall holds up his fingers
Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!<br>
But what see I? No Thisby do I see.<br>
O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!<br>
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'<br>
is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to<br>
spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will<br>
fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,<br>
For parting my fair Pyramus and me!<br>
My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,<br>
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
I see a voice: now will I to the chink,<br>
To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
My love thou art, my love I think.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;<br>
And, like Limander, am I trusty still.<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.<br>
<p><b>Wall</b></p>
Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;<br>
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear<br>
without warning.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst<br>
are no worse, if imagination amend them.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
If we imagine no worse of them than they of<br>
themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here<br>
come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.<br>
<p><b>Lion</b></p>
You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear<br>
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,<br>
May now perchance both quake and tremble here,<br>
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.<br>
Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am<br>
A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;<br>
For, if I should as lion come in strife<br>
Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
This lion is a very fox for his valour.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
True; and a goose for his discretion.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his<br>
discretion; and the fox carries the goose.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;<br>
for the goose carries not the fox. It is well:<br>
leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.<br>
<p><b>Moonshine</b></p>
This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;--<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
He should have worn the horns on his head.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
He is no crescent, and his horns are<br>
invisible within the circumference.<br>
<p><b>Moonshine</b></p>
This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;<br>
Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man<br>
should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the<br>
man i' the moon?<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
He dares not come there for the candle; for, you<br>
see, it is already in snuff.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
It appears, by his small light of discretion, that<br>
he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all<br>
reason, we must stay the time.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Proceed, Moon.<br>
<p><b>Moonshine</b></p>
All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the<br>
lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this<br>
thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all<br>
these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?<br>
<p><b>Lion</b></p>
Roaring Oh--<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Well roared, Lion.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Well run, Thisbe.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a<br>
good grace.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Well moused, Lion.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
And so the lion vanished.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
And then came Pyramus.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;<br>
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;<br>
For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,<br>
I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.<br>
But stay, O spite!<br>
But mark, poor knight,<br>
What dreadful dole is here!<br>
Eyes, do you see?<br>
How can it be?<br>
O dainty duck! O dear!<br>
Thy mantle good,<br>
What, stain'd with blood!<br>
Approach, ye Furies fell!<br>
O Fates, come, come,<br>
Cut thread and thrum;<br>
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would<br>
go near to make a man look sad.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.<br>
<p><b>Pyramus</b></p>
O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?<br>
Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:<br>
Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame<br>
That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd<br>
with cheer.<br>
Come, tears, confound;<br>
Out, sword, and wound<br>
The pap of Pyramus;<br>
Ay, that left pap,<br>
Where heart doth hop:<br>
Stabs himself
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.<br>
Now am I dead,<br>
Now am I fled;<br>
My soul is in the sky:<br>
Tongue, lose thy light;<br>
Moon take thy flight:<br>
Exit Moonshine
Now die, die, die, die, die.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and<br>
prove an ass.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes<br>
back and finds her lover?<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and<br>
her passion ends the play.<br>
<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p>
Methinks she should not use a long one for such a<br>
Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which<br>
Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us;<br>
she for a woman, God bless us.<br>
<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p>
She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
And thus she means, videlicet:--<br>
<p><b>Thisbe</b></p>
Asleep, my love?<br>
What, dead, my dove?<br>
O Pyramus, arise!<br>
Speak, speak. Quite dumb?<br>
Dead, dead? A tomb<br>
Must cover thy sweet eyes.<br>
These My lips,<br>
This cherry nose,<br>
These yellow cowslip cheeks,<br>
Are gone, are gone:<br>
Lovers, make moan:<br>
His eyes were green as leeks.<br>
O Sisters Three,<br>
Come, come to me,<br>
With hands as pale as milk;<br>
Lay them in gore,<br>
Since you have shore<br>
With shears his thread of silk.<br>
Tongue, not a word:<br>
Come, trusty sword;<br>
Come, blade, my breast imbrue:<br>
Stabs herself
And, farewell, friends;<br>
Thus Thisby ends:<br>
Adieu, adieu, adieu.<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.<br>
<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p>
Ay, and Wall too.<br>
<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p>
Starting up No assure you; the wall is down that<br>
parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the<br>
epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two<br>
of our company?<br>
<p><b>THESEUS</b></p>
No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no<br>
excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all<br>
dead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he<br>
that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself<br>
in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine<br>
tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably<br>
discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your<br>
epilogue alone.<br>
A dance
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:<br>
Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.<br>
I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn<br>
As much as we this night have overwatch'd.<br>
This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled<br>
The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.<br>
A fortnight hold we this solemnity,<br>
In nightly revels and new jollity.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
Now the hungry lion roars,<br>
And the wolf behowls the moon;<br>
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,<br>
All with weary task fordone.<br>
Now the wasted brands do glow,<br>
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,<br>
Puts the wretch that lies in woe<br>
In remembrance of a shroud.<br>
Now it is the time of night<br>
That the graves all gaping wide,<br>
Every one lets forth his sprite,<br>
In the church-way paths to glide:<br>
And we fairies, that do run<br>
By the triple Hecate's team,<br>
From the presence of the sun,<br>
Following darkness like a dream,<br>
Now are frolic: not a mouse<br>
Shall disturb this hallow'd house:<br>
I am sent with broom before,<br>
To sweep the dust behind the door.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Through the house give gathering light,<br>
By the dead and drowsy fire:<br>
Every elf and fairy sprite<br>
Hop as light as bird from brier;<br>
And this ditty, after me,<br>
Sing, and dance it trippingly.<br>
<p><b>TITANIA</b></p>
First, rehearse your song by rote<br>
To each word a warbling note:<br>
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,<br>
Will we sing, and bless this place.<br>
<p><b>OBERON</b></p>
Now, until the break of day,<br>
Through this house each fairy stray.<br>
To the best bride-bed will we,<br>
Which by us shall blessed be;<br>
And the issue there create<br>
Ever shall be fortunate.<br>
So shall all the couples three<br>
Ever true in loving be;<br>
And the blots of Nature's hand<br>
Shall not in their issue stand;<br>
Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,<br>
Nor mark prodigious, such as are<br>
Despised in nativity,<br>
Shall upon their children be.<br>
With this field-dew consecrate,<br>
Every fairy take his gait;<br>
And each several chamber bless,<br>
Through this palace, with sweet peace;<br>
And the owner of it blest<br>
Ever shall in safety rest.<br>
Trip away; make no stay;<br>
Meet me all by break of day.<br>
<p><b>PUCK</b></p>
If we shadows have offended,<br>
Think but this, and all is mended,<br>
That you have but slumber'd here<br>
While these visions did appear.<br>
And this weak and idle theme,<br>
No more yielding but a dream,<br>
Gentles, do not reprehend:<br>
if you pardon, we will mend:<br>
And, as I am an honest Puck,<br>
If we have unearned luck<br>
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,<br>
We will make amends ere long;<br>
Else the Puck a liar call;<br>
So, good night unto you all.<br>
Give me your hands, if we be friends,<br>
And Robin shall restore amends.<br>
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