Theseus.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants.

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, oh, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man's revenue.

Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke! The. Thanks, good Egeus: What's the news with

thee?

Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius; - My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her: Stand forth, Lysander; - and, my gracious duke, This hath betwich'd the bosom of my child:

nights;

And interchang'd love-tokens with my child :
Thou hast by moon-light at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweet-meats; messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harshness: - And, my gracious duke,
Be it so she will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens;
As she is mine, I may dispose of her :
Which shall be either to this gentleman,

Or to her death; according to our law, Immediately provided in that case.

The. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid:

The. I must confess, that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; But, being over-full of self-affairs,

But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.

Her. I would, my father look'd but with my eyes. The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.

Her. I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold;
Nor how it may concern my modesty,
In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befal me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

The. Either to die the death, or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun;
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage :
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

The. Take time to pause; and, by the next new

moon,

(The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, For everlasting bond of fellowship,) Upon that day either prepare to die,

For disobedience to your father's will;

Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would:

Or on Diana's altar to protest,

For aye, austerity and single life.

My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate,)
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta; What cheer, my love?
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along:
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial; and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
Ege. With duty, and desire, we follow you.

[Exeunt THES. HIP. EGE. DEM. and train.
Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
Her. Belike, for want of rain; which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes.

Lys. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth: But, either it was different in blood; Or else misgraffed, in respect of years; Or else it stood upon the choice of friends: Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it; Making it momentany 5 as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied 4 night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, The jaws of darkness do devour it up :

Behold!

yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius:

Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

Ege. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him :
And she is mine; and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
If not with vantage, as Demetrius';

And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia:

Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,

Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us: If thou lov'st me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,

There will I stay for thee.

Her.

My good Lysander!

Wicked.

Lys. Keep promise, love: Look, here comes Helena.

Enter HELENA.

Her. God speed fair Helena! Whither away? Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. Demetrius loves you fair: O happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars6; and your tongue's sweet air More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching; O, were favour 7 so! Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go; My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody. Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, The rest I'll give to be to you translated. O, teach me how you look; and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
Hel. None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault
were mine!

Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face, Lysander and myself will fly this place.

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: To-morrow night when Phœbe doth behold Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, (A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,) Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.

Her. And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet; There my Lysander and myself shall meet: And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes, To seek new friends and stranger companies. Farewell, sweet play-fellow; pray thou for us, And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius! Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight.

[Exit HERM.

Lys. I will, my Hermia. - Helena, adieu: As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [Erit Lys. Hel. How happy some, o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd. As waggish boys in game 8 themselves forswear, So the boy love is perjur'd every where: For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne 9, He hail'd down oaths, that he was only mine; I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight; Then to the wood will he, to-morrow night, Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expence:

But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither, and back again. [Exit.

SCENE II. The same. A Room in a Cottage.

Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING.

Quin. Is all our company here?

Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and duchess, on his wedding-day at night.

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.

Quin. Marry, our play is-The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. - Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll: Masters, spread yourselves.

Quin. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

Bot. Ready: Name what part I am for, and proceed.

Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant. Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly

for love.

Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself Thisby's father; - Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part : and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bot. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again, Let him roar again.

Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek: and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us every mother's son. Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will ag gravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.

Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as

one shall see in a summer's day: a most lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

Quin. Why, what you will.

Bot. I will discharge it in either your strawcoloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your perfect yellow.

Quin. Masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse: for if we meet in the city, we shall be dog'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time, I will draw a bill of properties 6, such as our play wants. you, fail me not.

I pray

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu. Quin. At the duke's oak we meet. Bot. Enough: Hold, or cut bow-strings. 7

[Excunt.

SCENE I. A Wood near Athens.

Enter a Fairy at one door, and Puck at another.
Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones 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 favours,

In those freckles live their savours:

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.

Puck. 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 star-light sheen 4,
But they do square; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.

Fai. 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 labour in the quern 8, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; And sometimes make the drink to bear no barın 9; 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?

Puck.

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 silly 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, and down topples she, And tailor cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips, and lofte; And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there. But room, Fairy, here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my mistress:-'Would that he were gone!

SCENE II.

Enter OBERON, at one door, with his train, and TITANIA, at another, with hers.

Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. Tita. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company.

Obe. Tarry, rash wanton: Am not I thy lord?
Tita. 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.

Obe. 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,

And make him with fair Æglé break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

Tita. 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 pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents 3:
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 blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatick 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 Hyem's chin, 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
From our debate, from our dissension;

We are their parents and original.

Obe. Do you amend it then; it lies in you:

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy,

To be my henchman. 6

Tita.

Set your heart at rest,

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

His mother was a vot'ress of my order:
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood;
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy;
And, for her sake, I will not part with him.

Obe. How long within this wood intend you stay?
Tita. Perchance, till after Theseus' wedding-day.

If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
Tita. Not for thy kingdom. - Faries, away:

We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.

[Exeunt TITANIA, and her train.

Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove,

Till I torment thee for this injury. -
My gentle Puck, come hither: Thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's musick.

Obe. That very time I saw, but thou could'st not,

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: A certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west;

And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,

Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound -
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.

Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once :
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again,
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league.

Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes. [Exit Puck.

Obe.

Having once this juice,

I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes :

The next thing then she waking looks upon,
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,)
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm off from her sight,
(As I can take it with another herb,)
I'll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will over-hear their conference.

Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.

Where is Lysander, and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me they were stolen into this wood,
And here am I, and wood 7 within this wood,
Because I cannot meet with Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel: Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.

Dem. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather, do I not in plainest truth Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?