Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss
This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!]
Hel. O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent

To set against me for your merriment:
If you were civil, and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
[Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls2 to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show, 151
You would not use a gentle lady so;
To vow, and swear, and superpraise3 my parts,

Eyne, the old form of the plural of eye.
2 Join in souls, i.e. join heart and soul.

3 Superpraise, i.e. praise to excess.

When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.]

You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To cónjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes
[With your derision! none of noble sort
Would so offend a virgin, and extort
A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.]
Lys. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;
For you love Hermia, this you know I know:
And here, with all good will, with all my
heart,

160

Her. [Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,

The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.] 180
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

Lys. Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?

Her. What love could press Lysander from my side?

Lys. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,

Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.

The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?] Her. You speak not as you think it cannot be.

Hel. Lo, she is one of this confederacy! Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three To fashion this false sport, in spite of me. Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid! Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd

To bait me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel that we too have shar'd, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time 200 For parting us,-O, is all forgot?

All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?

210

[We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,1
Have with our neelds2 created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.]
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
[It is not friendly, 't is not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.]

219

But by your setting on, by your consent? 231)
What though I be not so in grace as you,
So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
But miserable most, to love unlov'd?
This you should pity rather than despise.

And with her personage, her tall personage, Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.

And are you grown so high in his esteem,
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
Hel. I pray you, though you mock me,
gentlemen,

Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;3 300,
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;

I am a right maid for my cowardice: Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,

Because she is something lower than myself, That I can match her.

Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;

Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

I told him of your stealth1 unto this wood. 310
He followed you; for love I followed him;
But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back,
And follow you no farther: let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.
Her. Why, get you gone: who is 't that
hinders you?

Hel. A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.
Her. What, with Lysander?
Hel.
With Demetrius. 320
Lys. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee,
Helen.

Dem. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.

[Hel. O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd !

She was a vixen when she went to school;
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
Her. "Little" again! nothing but "low"
and "little!"

Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.

8

Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
[The starry welkin' cover thou anon
With drooping fog as black as Acheron, ]
And lead these testy rivals so astray
As one come not within another's way.
[Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong; 361
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
And from each other look thou lead them thus,]
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty' wings doth creep:
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his1o might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,
[And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
With league whose date till death shall never
end.

370