The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon: but, O, 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. Four nights will quickly dream away the time; The 10 Go, Philostrate, Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke! The. Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee? 21 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 man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child: Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander. HELENA, in love with Demetrius. OBERON, king of the fairies. MUSTARDSEED, } fairies. Other fairies attending their King and Queen. Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE: Athens, and a wood near it. 30 And interchanged love-tokens with my child: 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, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, 40 The. What say you, Hermia? be advised, fair maid: To you your father should be as a god; 50 One that composed your beauties, yea, and one The. Rather your eyes must with his judgement 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 befall me in this case, If I refuse to wed Demetrius. 60 The. Either to die the death or to abjure For ever the society of men. 70 Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; 80 Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. 130 Lys. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, The course of true love never did run smooth; Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low. The. Take time to pause; and, by the next Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; 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; For aye austerity and single life. 90 Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, 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 And what is mine my love shall render him. I do estate unto Demetrius. Lys. I am, my lord, as well derived as he, And, which is more than all these boasts can be, 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, My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come; 120 I must employ you in some business Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, So quick bright things come to confusion. Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, Then let us teach our trial patience, 151 As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, I have a widow aunt, a dowager 160 Of great revenue, and she hath no child: Her. 170 My good Lysander! Enter HELENA. Her. God speed fair Helena! whither away? air More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, 210 O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, 221 230 As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [Exit. SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE's house. Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, 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 the 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. ΙΟ 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. 21 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 gallant for love. Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. The raging rocks And shivering shocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far 250 To have his sight thither and back again. [Exit. Quin. You, Pyramus' 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. 71 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 aggravate 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 strawcolour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crowncolour beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. But, 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 dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. pray you, fail me not. I Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu. Quin. At the duke's oak we meet. ACT II. [Exeunt. SCENE I. A wood near Athens. Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK. Thorough bush, thorough brier, Thorough flood, thorough fire, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dewdrops here 20 Take heed the queen come not within his sight; 30 And now they never meet in grove or green, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Puck. 50 I am that merry wanderer of the night. Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers. Obe. Il met by moonlight, proud Titania. 60 Tita. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, 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 stolen 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 steppe of India? ΙΟ 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. 70 We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exit Titania with her train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury. 150 My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest 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 in 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: 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 murrion 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 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 Hiems' 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 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. 100 120 Tita. Would imitate, and sail upon the land, But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And for her sake do I rear up her boy, And for her sake I will not part with him. 131 Puck. not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; 160 But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress 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. 170 Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: [Exit. Obe. On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, 180 Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. Obe. How long within this wood intend you Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, stay? And I shall have no power to follow you. |