Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM, Fairies attending; OBERON behind unseen. TITA. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coya, And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, Bor. Where's Peas-blossom? VOL. I. Do coy. To coy is here to caress. HH PEAS. Ready. Bor. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom.-Where's monsieur Cobweb? COв. Ready. BOT. Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loth to have you overflowna with a honey bag, signior.-Where's monsieur Mustard-seed? MUST. Ready. Bor. Give me your neif, monsieur Mustard-seed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur. MUST. What's your will? BOT. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help cavalero Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for, methinks, I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch. TITA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love? BOT. I have a reasonable good ear in music: let us have the tongs and the bones d. TITA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat. BOT. Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow. TITA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts. BOT. I had rather have a handful, or two, of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. TITA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away. So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist; the female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm 29. O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! [They sleep. Overflown-flooded-drowned. The sense in which this word is here used may explain a passage in Milton, which has been thought corrupt: "Then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine."-(Paradise Lost, book i.) b Neif-fist. Thus in 'Henry IV., Part II.,' Act II., Scene 4:-" Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif.” • Cobweb. This is probably a misprint for Peas-blossom. Cobweb has been sent after the "redhipped humble-bee;" and Peas-blossom has already been appointed to the honoured office in which Mustard-seed is now called to assist him. The folio has here a stage-direction:-" Music, Tongs; Rural music." OBERON advances. Enter PUCK. OBE. Welcome, good Robin. See'st thou this sweet sight? For meeting her of late, behind the wood, And think no more of this night's accidents, But first I will release the fairy queen. Be thou, as thou wast wont to be, [Touching her eyes with an herb. See, as thou wast wont to see: Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower Hath such force and blessed power. Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen. TITA. How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loath his visage now! Than common sleep, of all these five the sense. TITA. Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep. PUCK. When thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peepb. So the folio. The quartos "Be, as thou wast wont to be." So the original copies. The modern editors have inserted now at the beginning of the line. OBE. Sound, music. [Still music.] Come, my queen, take hands with me, And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Now thou and I are new in amity; And will, to-morrow midnight, solemnly, Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be PUCK. Fairy king, attend, and mark; OBE. Then, my queen, in silence sad, We the globe can compass soon, TITA. Come, my lord; and in our flight, That I sleeping here was found, With these mortals on the ground. [Exeunt. [Horns sound within. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train. THE. Go one of you, find out the forester 30; For now our observation is perform'd; We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, Of hounds and echo in conjunction. HIP. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, In Fisher's quarto, prosperity. Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly: Judge, when you hear.-But, soft; what nymphs are these? And this Lysander; this Demetrius is; I wonder of their being here together. But, speak, Egeus; is not this the day That Hermia should give answer of her choice? EGE. It is, my lord. THE. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER, HERMIA, and HELENA, wake and start up. THE. Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past; [He and the rest kneel to THESEUS. Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Lys. Pardon, my lord. THE. I pray you all, stand up. How comes this gentle concord in the world, To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity? Lys. My lord, I shall reply amazedly, Half 'sleep, half waking: But as yet, I swear, I came with Hermia hither: our intent Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be EGE. Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough : They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius, You of your wife, and me of my consent, - Of my consent that she should be your wife. DEM. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, Of this their purpose hither, to this wood; They intended to leave Athens for some place where they might be beyond (without) the perils of the Athenian law. Fisher's quarto, which Mr. Collier follows, omits be, and leaves the sense incomplete. |