Enter a Fairy and PUCK from opposite sides.
How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moony sphere ;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green :
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see.
Those be rubies, fairy favors,
In those freckles live their savors:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits: I'll be gone.
Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
The King doth keep his revels here to-night.
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king:
She never had so sweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy :
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square, that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he,
That fright the maidens of the villagery,
Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn ;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm ;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
Are not you he?
Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal :
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab ;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me ;
Then slip I from her bum; down topples she,
And "tailor" cries, and falls into a cough ;
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But room, Fairy: here comes Oberon.
Enter OBERON, from one side, with his Train, and TITANIA, from the other, with hers.
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
What, jealous Oberon ! Fairies, skip hence :
I have forsworn his bed and company.
Then I must be thy lady; but I know
When thou hast stol'n away from Fairy-land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded? and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.
How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigouna, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Ægle break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa ?
These are the forgeries of jealousy :
And never, since the middle Summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Have every petty river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard :
The fold stands empty in the drowned field ;
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock :
The Nine Men's Morris is fill'd up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread are undistinguishable :
The human mortals want their Winter here,
No night is now with hymn or carol bless'd :
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose ;
And on old Hyems' thin and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The Spring, the Summer,
The childing Autumn, angry Winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
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