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ACT I, SCENE I.

Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants

THESEUS
001: Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
002: Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
003: Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow
004: This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
005: Like to a step-dame or a dowager
006: Long withering out a young man revenue.

HIPPOLYTA
007: Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
008: Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
009: And then the moon, like to a silver bow
010: New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
011: Of our solemnities.

THESEUS
012: Go, Philostrate,
013: Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
014: Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
015: Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
016: The pale companion is not for our pomp.
[Exit PHILOSTRATE]
017: Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
018: And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
019: But I will wed thee in another key,
020: With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.

Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS

EGEUS
021: Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!

THESEUS
022: Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?

EGEUS
023: Full of vexation come I, with complaint
024: Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
025: Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
026: This man hath my consent to marry her.
027: Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,
028: This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;
029: Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
030: And interchanged love-tokens with my child:
031: Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
032: With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
033: And stolen the impression of her fantasy
034: With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
035: Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers
036: Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
037: With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,
038: Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
039: To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,
040: Be it so she; will not here before your grace
041: Consent to marry with Demetrius,
042: I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,
043: As she is mine, I may dispose of her:
044: Which shall be either to this gentleman
045: Or to her death, according to our law
046: Immediately provided in that case.

THESEUS
047: What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:
048: To you your father should be as a god;
049: One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
050: To whom you are but as a form in wax
051: By him imprinted and within his power
052: To leave the figure or disfigure it.
053: Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HERMIA
054: So is Lysander.

THESEUS
055: In himself he is;
056: But in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
057: The other must be held the worthier.

HERMIA
058: I would my father look'd but with my eyes.

THESEUS
059: Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.

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

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

HERMIA
081: So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
082: Ere I will my virgin patent up
083: Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
084: My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

THESEUS
085: Take time to pause; and, by the nest new moon--
086: The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,
087: For everlasting bond of fellowship--
088: Upon that day either prepare to die
089: For disobedience to your father's will,
090: Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;
091: Or on Diana's altar to protest
092: For aye austerity and single life.

DEMETRIUS
093: Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield
094: Thy crazed title to my certain right.

LYSANDER
095: You have her father's love, Demetrius;
096: Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

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

LYSANDER
101: I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
102: As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
103: My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
104: If not with vantage, as Demetrius';
105: And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
106: I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:
107: Why should not I then prosecute my right?
108: Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
109: Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
110: And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
111: Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
112: Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THESEUS
113: I must confess that I have heard so much,
114: And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
115: But, being over-full of self-affairs,
116: My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
117: And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
118: I have some private schooling for you both.
119: For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
120: To fit your fancies to your father's will;
121: Or else the law of Athens yields you up--
122: Which by no means we may extenuate--
123: To death, or to a vow of single life.
124: Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?
125: Demetrius and Egeus, go along:
126: I must employ you in some business
127: Against our nuptial and confer with you
128: Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

EGEUS
129: With duty and desire we follow you.

Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA

LYSANDER
130: How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?
131: How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIA
132: Belike for want of rain, which I could well
133: Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

LYSANDER
134: Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
135: Could ever hear by tale or history,
136: The course of true love never did run smooth;
137: But, either it was different in blood,--

HERMIA
138: O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.

LYSANDER
139: Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--

HERMIA
140: O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDER
141: Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--

HERMIA
142: O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.

LYSANDER
143: Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
144: War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
145: Making it momentany as a sound,
146: Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
147: Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
148: That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
149: And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
150: The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
151: So quick bright things come to confusion.

HERMIA
152: If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
153: It stands as an edict in destiny:
154: Then let us teach our trial patience,
155: Because it is a customary cross,
156: As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
157: Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.

LYSANDER
158: A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.
159: I have a widow aunt, a dowager
160: Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
161: From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
162: And she respects me as her only son.
163: There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
164: And to that place the sharp Athenian law
165: Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
166: Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
167: And in the wood, a league without the town,
168: Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
169: To do observance to a morn of May,
170: There will I stay for thee.

HERMIA
171: My good Lysander!
172: I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,
173: By his best arrow with the golden head,
174: By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
175: By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
176: And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
177: When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
178: By all the vows that ever men have broke,
179: In number more than ever women spoke,
180: In that same place thou hast appointed me,
181: To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

LYSANDER
182: Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter HELENA

HERMIA
183: God speed fair Helena! whither away?

HELENA
184: Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
185: Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
186: Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
187: More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
188: When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
189: Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
190: Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
191: My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
192: My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
193: Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
194: The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
195: O, teach me how you look, and with what art
196: You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

HERMIA
197: I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

HELENA
198: O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

HERMIA
199: I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

HELENA
200: O that my prayers could such affection move!

HERMIA
201: The more I hate, the more he follows me.

HELENA
202: The more I love, the more he hateth me.

HERMIA
203: His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

HELENA
204: None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

HERMIA
205: Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
206: Lysander and myself will fly this place.
207: Before the time I did Lysander see,
208: Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
209: O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
210: That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!

LYSANDER
211: Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
212: To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
213: Her silver visage in the watery glass,
214: Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
215: A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
216: Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.

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

LYSANDER
227: I will, my Hermia.
[Exit HERMIA]
228: Helena, adieu:
229: As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

Exit

HELENA
230: How happy some o'er other some can be!
231: Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
232: But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
233: He will not know what all but he do know:
234: And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
235: So I, admiring of his qualities:
236: Things base and vile, folding no quantity,
237: Love can transpose to form and dignity:
238: Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
239: And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:
240: Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;
241: Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
242: And therefore is Love said to be a child,
243: Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
244: As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
245: So the boy Love is perjured every where:
246: For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
247: He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
248: And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
249: So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
250: I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
251: Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
252: Pursue her; and for this intelligence
253: If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
254: But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
255: To have his sight thither and back again.

Exit

ACT I, SCENE II.

Athens. QUINCE'S house.

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

QUINCE
001: Is all our company here?

BOTTOM
002: You were best to call them generally, man by man,
003: according to the scrip.

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

BOTTOM
008: First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats
009: on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow
010: to a point.

QUINCE
011: Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and
012: most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

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

QUINCE
016: Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

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

QUINCE
018: You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.

BOTTOM
019: What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?

QUINCE
020: A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.

BOTTOM
021: That will ask some tears in the true performing of
022: it: if I do it, let the audience look to their
023: eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some
024: measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a
025: tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to
026: tear a cat in, to make all split.
027: The raging rocks
028: And shivering shocks
029: Shall break the locks
030: Of prison gates;
031: And Phibbus' car
032: Shall shine from far
033: And make and mar
034: The foolish Fates.
035: This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.
036: This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is
037: more condoling.

QUINCE
038: Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

FLUTE
039: Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE
040: Flute, you must take Thisby on you.

FLUTE
041: What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

QUINCE
042: It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

FLUTE
043: Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

QUINCE
044: That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and
045: you may speak as small as you will.

BOTTOM
046: An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll
047: speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne,
048: Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear,
049: and lady dear!'

QUINCE
050: No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby.

BOTTOM
051: Well, proceed.

QUINCE
052: Robin Starveling, the tailor.

STARVELING
053: Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE
054: Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.
055: Tom Snout, the tinker.

SNOUT
056: Here, Peter Quince.

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

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

QUINCE
062: You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

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

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

ALL
070: That would hang us, every mother's son.

BOTTOM
071: I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the
072: ladies out of their wits, they would have no more
073: discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my
074: voice so that I will roar you as gently as any
075: sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any
076: nightingale.

QUINCE
077: You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a
078: sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a
079: summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man:
080: therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

BOTTOM
081: Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best
082: to play it in?

QUINCE
083: Why, what you will.

BOTTOM
084: I will discharge it in either your straw-colour
085: beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain
086: beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your
087: perfect yellow.

QUINCE
088: Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and
089: then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here
090: are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request
091: you and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night;
092: and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the
093: town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if
094: we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with
095: company, and our devices known. In the meantime I
096: will draw a bill of properties, such as our play
097: wants. I pray you, fail me not.

BOTTOM
098: We will meet; and there we may rehearse most
099: obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.

QUINCE
100: At the duke's oak we meet.

BOTTOM
101: Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.

Exeunt

ACT II, SCENE I.

A wood near Athens.

Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK

PUCK
001: How now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fairy
002: Over hill, over dale,
003: Thorough bush, thorough brier,
004: Over park, over pale,
005: Thorough flood, thorough fire,
006: I do wander everywhere,
007: Swifter than the moon's sphere;
008: And I serve the fairy queen,
009: To dew her orbs upon the green.
010: The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
011: In their gold coats spots you see;
012: Those be rubies, fairy favours,
013: In those freckles live their savours:
014: I must go seek some dewdrops here
015: And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
016: Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
017: Our queen and all our elves come here anon.

PUCK
018: The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
019: Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
020: For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
021: Because that she as her attendant hath
022: A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
023: She never had so sweet a changeling;
024: And jealous Oberon would have the child
025: Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
026: But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
027: Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:
028: And now they never meet in grove or green,
029: By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
030: But, they do square, that all their elves for fear
031: Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

Fairy
032: Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
033: Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
034: Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
035: That frights the maidens of the villagery;
036: Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
037: And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
038: And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
039: Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
040: Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
041: You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
042: Are not you he?

PUCK
043: Thou speak'st aright;
044: I am that merry wanderer of the night.
045: I jest to Oberon and make him smile
046: When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
047: Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
048: And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
049: In very likeness of a roasted crab,
050: And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
051: And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
052: The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
053: Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
054: Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
055: And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
056: And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
057: And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
058: A merrier hour was never wasted there.
059: But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.

Fairy
060: And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers

OBERON
061: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

TITANIA
062: What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
063: I have forsworn his bed and company.

OBERON
064: Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?

TITANIA
065: Then I must be thy lady: but I know
066: When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
067: And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
068: Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
069: To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
070: Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
071: But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
072: Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
073: To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
074: To give their bed joy and prosperity.

OBERON
075: How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
076: Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
077: Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
078: Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
079: From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
080: And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
081: With Ariadne and Antiopa?

TITANIA
082: These are the forgeries of jealousy:
083: And never, since the middle summer's spring,
084: Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
085: By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
086: Or in the beached margent of the sea,
087: To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
088: But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
089: Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
090: As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
091: Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
092: Have every pelting river made so proud
093: That they have overborne their continents:
094: The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
095: The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
096: Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
097: The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
098: And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
099: The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
100: And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
101: For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
102: The human mortals want their winter here;
103: No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
104: Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
105: Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
106: That rheumatic diseases do abound:
107: And thorough this distemperature we see
108: The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
109: Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
110: And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
111: An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
112: Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
113: The childing autumn, angry winter, change
114: Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
115: By their increase, now knows not which is which:
116: And this same progeny of evils comes
117: From our debate, from our dissension;
118: We are their parents and original.

OBERON
119: Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
120: Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
121: I do but beg a little changeling boy,
122: To be my henchman.

TITANIA
123: Set your heart at rest:
124: The fairy land buys not the child of me.
125: His mother was a votaress of my order:
126: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
127: Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
128: And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
129: Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
130: When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
131: And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
132: Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
133: Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
134: Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
135: To fetch me trifles, and return again,
136: As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
137: But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
138: And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
139: And for her sake I will not part with him.

OBERON
140: How long within this wood intend you stay?

TITANIA
141: Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
142: If you will patiently dance in our round
143: And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
144: If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

OBERON
145: Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.

TITANIA
146: Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
147: We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.

Exit TITANIA with her train

OBERON
148: Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
149: Till I torment thee for this injury.
150: My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest
151: Since once I sat upon a promontory,
152: And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
153: Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
154: That the rude sea grew civil at her song
155: And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
156: To hear the sea-maid's music.

PUCK
157: I remember.

OBERON
158: That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
159: Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
160: Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
161: At a fair vestal throned by the west,
162: And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
163: As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
164: But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
165: Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
166: And the imperial votaress passed on,
167: In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
168: Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
169: It fell upon a little western flower,
170: Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
171: And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
172: Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
173: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
174: Will make or man or woman madly dote
175: Upon the next live creature that it sees.
176: Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
177: Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

PUCK
178: I'll put a girdle round about the earth
179: In forty minutes.

Exit

OBERON
180: Having once this juice,
181: I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
182: And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
183: The next thing then she waking looks upon,
184: Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
185: On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
186: She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
187: And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
188: As I can take it with another herb,
189: I'll make her render up her page to me.
190: But who comes here? I am invisible;
191: And I will overhear their conference.

Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him

DEMETRIUS
192: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
193: Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
194: The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
195: Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
196: And here am I, and wode within this wood,
197: Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
198: Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

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

DEMETRIUS
203: Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
204: Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
205: Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

HELENA
206: And even for that do I love you the more.
207: I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
208: The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
209: Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
210: Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
211: Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
212: What worser place can I beg in your love,--
213: And yet a place of high respect with me,--
214: Than to be used as you use your dog?

DEMETRIUS
215: Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
216: For I am sick when I do look on thee.

HELENA
217: And I am sick when I look not on you.

DEMETRIUS
218: You do impeach your modesty too much,
219: To leave the city and commit yourself
220: Into the hands of one that loves you not;
221: To trust the opportunity of night
222: And the ill counsel of a desert place
223: With the rich worth of your virginity.

HELENA
224: Your virtue is my privilege: for that
225: It is not night when I do see your face,
226: Therefore I think I am not in the night;
227: Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
228: For you in my respect are all the world:
229: Then how can it be said I am alone,
230: When all the world is here to look on me?

DEMETRIUS
231: I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
232: And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

HELENA
233: The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
234: Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
235: Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
236: The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
237: Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
238: When cowardice pursues and valour flies.

DEMETRIUS
239: I will not stay thy questions; let me go:
240: Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
241: But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.

HELENA
242: Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
243: You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
244: Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:
245: We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
246: We should be wood and were not made to woo.
[Exit DEMETRIUS]
247: I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
248: To die upon the hand I love so well.

Exit

OBERON
249: Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,
250: Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.
[Re-enter PUCK]
251: Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.

PUCK
252: Ay, there it is.

OBERON
253: I pray thee, give it me.
254: I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
255: Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
256: Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
257: With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
258: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
259: Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
260: And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
261: Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
262: And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
263: And make her full of hateful fantasies.
264: Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
265: A sweet Athenian lady is in love
266: With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
267: But do it when the next thing he espies
268: May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
269: By the Athenian garments he hath on.
270: Effect it with some care, that he may prove
271: More fond on her than she upon her love:
272: And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.

PUCK
273: Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.

Exeunt

ACT II, SCENE II. Another part of the wood.

Enter TITANIA, with her train

TITANIA
001: Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
002: Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
003: Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
004: Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
005: To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
006: The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
007: At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
008: Then to your offices and let me rest.
[The Fairies sing]
009: You spotted snakes with double tongue,
010: Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
011: Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
012: Come not near our fairy queen.
013: Philomel, with melody
014: Sing in our sweet lullaby;
015: Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
016: Never harm,
017: Nor spell nor charm,
018: Come our lovely lady nigh;
019: So, good night, with lullaby.
020: Weaving spiders, come not here;
021: Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!
022: Beetles black, approach not near;
023: Worm nor snail, do no offence.
024: Philomel, with melody, &c.

Fairy
025: Hence, away! now all is well:
026: One aloof stand sentinel.

Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps

Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA's eyelids

OBERON
027: What thou seest when thou dost wake,
028: Do it for thy true-love take,
029: Love and languish for his sake:
030: Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
031: Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
032: In thy eye that shall appear
033: When thou wakest, it is thy dear:
034: Wake when some vile thing is near.

Exit

Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA

LYSANDER
035: Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;
036: And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:
037: We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
038: And tarry for the comfort of the day.

HERMIA
039: Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;
040: For I upon this bank will rest my head.

LYSANDER
041: One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
042: One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.

HERMIA
043: Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
044: Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.

LYSANDER
045: O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
046: Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
047: I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit
048: So that but one heart we can make of it;
049: Two bosoms interchained with an oath;
050: So then two bosoms and a single troth.
051: Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
052: For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.

HERMIA
053: Lysander riddles very prettily:
054: Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
055: If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
056: But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
057: Lie further off; in human modesty,
058: Such separation as may well be said
059: Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
060: So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
061: Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!

LYSANDER
062: Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
063: And then end life when I end loyalty!
064: Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!

HERMIA
065: With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!

They sleep

Enter PUCK

PUCK
066: Through the forest have I gone.
067: But Athenian found I none,
068: On whose eyes I might approve
069: This flower's force in stirring love.
070: Night and silence.--Who is here?
071: Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
072: This is he, my master said,
073: Despised the Athenian maid;
074: And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
075: On the dank and dirty ground.
076: Pretty soul! she durst not lie
077: Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
078: Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
079: All the power this charm doth owe.
080: When thou wakest, let love forbid
081: Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
082: So awake when I am gone;
083: For I must now to Oberon.

Exit

Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running

HELENA
084: Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.

DEMETRIUS
085: I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.

HELENA
086: O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.

DEMETRIUS
087: Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.

Exit

HELENA
088: O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
089: The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
090: Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;
091: For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
092: How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:
093: If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.
094: No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;
095: For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
096: Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
097: Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.
098: What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
099: Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
100: But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
101: Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
102: Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.

LYSANDER [Awaking]
103: And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
104: Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
105: That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
106: Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
107: Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

HELENA
108: Do not say so, Lysander; say not so
109: What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
110: Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.

LYSANDER
111: Content with Hermia! No; I do repent
112: The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
113: Not Hermia but Helena I love:
114: Who will not change a raven for a dove?
115: The will of man is by his reason sway'd;
116: And reason says you are the worthier maid.
117: Things growing are not ripe until their season
118: So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
119: And touching now the point of human skill,
120: Reason becomes the marshal to my will
121: And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
122: Love's stories written in love's richest book.

HELENA
123: Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
124: When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
125: Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,
126: That I did never, no, nor never can,
127: Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
128: But you must flout my insufficiency?
129: Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
130: In such disdainful manner me to woo.
131: But fare you well: perforce I must confess
132: I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
133: O, that a lady, of one man refused.
134: Should of another therefore be abused!

Exit

LYSANDER
135: She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:
136: And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
137: For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
138: The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
139: Or as tie heresies that men do leave
140: Are hated most of those they did deceive,
141: So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
142: Of all be hated, but the most of me!
143: And, all my powers, address your love and might
144: To honour Helen and to be her knight!

Exit

HERMIA [Awaking]
145: Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
146: To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
147: Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
148: Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
149: Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
150: And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
151: Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!
152: What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
153: Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;
154: Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
155: No? then I well perceive you all not nigh
156: Either death or you I'll find immediately.

Exit

ACT III, SCENE I.

The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.

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

BOTTOM
001: Are we all met?

QUINCE
002: Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place
003: for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our
004: stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we
005: will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.

BOTTOM
006: Peter Quince,--

QUINCE
007: What sayest thou, bully Bottom?

BOTTOM
008: There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and
009: Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must
010: draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies
011: cannot abide. How answer you that?

SNOUT
012: By'r lakin, a parlous fear.

STARVELING
013: I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

BOTTOM
014: Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.
015: Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to
016: say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that
017: Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more
018: better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not
019: Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them
020: out of fear.

QUINCE
021: Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be
022: written in eight and six.

BOTTOM
023: No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

SNOUT
024: Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

STARVELING
025: I fear it, I promise you.

BOTTOM
026: Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to
027: bring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a
028: most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful
029: wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to
030: look to 't.

SNOUT
031: Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

BOTTOM
032: Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must
033: be seen through the lion's neck: and he himself
034: must speak through, saying thus, or to the same
035: defect,--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish
036: You,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would
037: entreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life
038: for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it
039: were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a
040: man as other men are;' and there indeed let him name
041: his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.

QUINCE
042: Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things;
043: that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for,
044: you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.

SNOUT
045: Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

BOTTOM
046: A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find
047: out moonshine, find out moonshine.

QUINCE
048: Yes, it doth shine that night.

BOTTOM
049: Why, then may you leave a casement of the great
050: chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon
051: may shine in at the casement.

QUINCE
052: Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns
053: and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to
054: present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is
055: another thing: we must have a wall in the great
056: chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did
057: talk through the chink of a wall.

SNOUT
058: You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?

BOTTOM
059: Some man or other must present Wall: and let him
060: have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast
061: about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his
062: fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus
063: and Thisby whisper.

QUINCE
064: If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,
065: every mother's son, and rehearse your parts.
066: Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your
067: speech, enter into that brake: and so every one
068: according to his cue.

Enter PUCK behind

PUCK
069: What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,
070: So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
071: What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;
072: An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.

QUINCE
073: Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.

BOTTOM
074: Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,--

QUINCE
075: Odours, odours.

BOTTOM
076: --odours savours sweet:
077: So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
078: But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,
079: And by and by I will to thee appear.

Exit

PUCK
080: A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.

Exit

FLUTE
081: Must I speak now?

QUINCE
082: Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes
083: but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

FLUTE
084: Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
085: Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
086: Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
087: As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
088: I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.

QUINCE
089: 'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that
090: yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your
091: part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue
092: is past; it is, 'never tire.'

FLUTE
093: O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would
094: never tire.

Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head

BOTTOM
095: If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.

QUINCE
096: O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray,
097: masters! fly, masters! Help!

Exeunt QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

PUCK
098: I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,
099: Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:
100: Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
101: A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
102: And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
103: Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.

Exit

BOTTOM
104: Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to
105: make me afeard.

Re-enter SNOUT

SNOUT
106: O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?

BOTTOM
107: What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do
108: you?

Exit SNOUT

Re-enter QUINCE

QUINCE
109: Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art
110: translated.

Exit

BOTTOM
111: I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me;
112: to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir
113: from this place, do what they can: I will walk up
114: and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear
115: I am not afraid.
[Sings]
116: The ousel cock so black of hue,
117: With orange-tawny bill,
118: The throstle with his note so true,
119: The wren with little quill,--

TITANIA [Awaking]
120: What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?

BOTTOM [Sings]
121: The finch, the sparrow and the lark,
122: The plain-song cuckoo gray,
123: Whose note full many a man doth mark,
124: And dares not answer nay;--
125: for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish
126: a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry
127: 'cuckoo' never so?

TITANIA
128: I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:
129: Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note;
130: So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
131: And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me
132: On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.

BOTTOM
133: Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason
134: for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and
135: love keep little company together now-a-days; the
136: more the pity that some honest neighbours will not
137: make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.

TITANIA
138: Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.

BOTTOM
139: Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out
140: of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.

TITANIA
141: Out of this wood do not desire to go:
142: Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
143: I am a spirit of no common rate;
144: The summer still doth tend upon my state;
145: And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
146: I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
147: And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
148: And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
149: And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
150: That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
151: Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!

Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED

PEASEBLOSSOM
152: Ready.

COBWEB
153: And I.

MOTH
154: And I.

MUSTARDSEED
155: And I.

ALL
156: Where shall we go?

TITANIA
157: Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
158: Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
159: Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
160: With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
161: The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
162: And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
163: And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
164: To have my love to bed and to arise;
165: And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies
166: To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
167: Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

PEASEBLOSSOM
168: Hail, mortal!

COBWEB
169: Hail!

MOTH
170: Hail!

MUSTARDSEED
171: Hail!

BOTTOM
172: I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech your
173: worship's name.

COBWEB
174: Cobweb.

BOTTOM
175: I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
176: Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with
177: you. Your name, honest gentleman?

PEASEBLOSSOM
178: Peaseblossom.

BOTTOM
179: I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your
180: mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good
181: Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more
182: acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?

MUSTARDSEED
183: Mustardseed.

BOTTOM
184: Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well:
185: that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath
186: devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise
187: you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I
188: desire your more acquaintance, good Master
189: Mustardseed.

TITANIA
190: Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
191: The moon methinks looks with a watery eye;
192: And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
193: Lamenting some enforced chastity.
194: Tie up my love's tongue bring him silently.

Exeunt

ACT III, SCENE II.

Another part of the wood.

Enter OBERON

OBERON
001: I wonder if Titania be awaked;
002: Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
003: Which she must dote on in extremity.
[Enter PUCK]
004: Here comes my messenger.
005: How now, mad spirit!
006: What night-rule now about this haunted grove?

PUCK
007: My mistress with a monster is in love.
008: Near to her close and consecrated bower,
009: While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
010: A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
011: That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
012: Were met together to rehearse a play
013: Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.
014: The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
015: Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
016: Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake
017: When I did him at this advantage take,
018: An ass's nole I fixed on his head:
019: Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
020: And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
021: As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
022: Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
023: Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
024: Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
025: So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;
026: And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;
027: He murder cries and help from Athens calls.
028: Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears
029: thus strong,
030: Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
031: For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
032: Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all
033: things catch.
034: I led them on in this distracted fear,
035: And left sweet Pyramus translated there:
036: When in that moment, so it came to pass,
037: Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.

OBERON
038: This falls out better than I could devise.
039: But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes
040: With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?

PUCK
041: I took him sleeping,--that is finish'd too,--
042: And the Athenian woman by his side:
043: That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.

Enter HERMIA and DEMETRIUS

OBERON
044: Stand close: this is the same Athenian.

PUCK
045: This is the woman, but not this the man.

DEMETRIUS
046: O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
047: Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

HERMIA
048: Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse,
049: For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse,
050: If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
051: Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
052: And kill me too.
053: The sun was not so true unto the day
054: As he to me: would he have stolen away
055: From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
056: This whole earth may be bored and that the moon
057: May through the centre creep and so displease
058: Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.
059: It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;
060: So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.

DEMETRIUS
061: So should the murder'd look, and so should I,
062: Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:
063: Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
064: As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.

HERMIA
065: What's this to my Lysander? where is he?
066: Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?

DEMETRIUS
067: I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.

HERMIA
068: Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds
069: Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
070: Henceforth be never number'd among men!
071: O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!
072: Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,
073: And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!
074: Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
075: An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
076: Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.

DEMETRIUS
077: You spend your passion on a misprised mood:
078: I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
079: Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.

HERMIA
080: I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.

DEMETRIUS
081: An if I could, what should I get therefore?

HERMIA
082: A privilege never to see me more.
083: And from thy hated presence part I so:
084: See me no more, whether he be dead or no.

Exit

DEMETRIUS
085: There is no following her in this fierce vein:
086: Here therefore for a while I will remain.
087: So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow
088: For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe:
089: Which now in some slight measure it will pay,
090: If for his tender here I make some stay.

Lies down and sleeps

OBERON
091: What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite
092: And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:
093: Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
094: Some true love turn'd and not a false turn'd true.

PUCK
095: Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,
096: A million fail, confounding oath on oath.

OBERON
097: About the wood go swifter than the wind,
098: And Helena of Athens look thou find:
099: All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,
100: With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear:
101: By some illusion see thou bring her here:
102: I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.

PUCK
103: I go, I go; look how I go,
104: Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.

Exit

OBERON
105: Flower of this purple dye,
106: Hit with Cupid's archery,
107: Sink in apple of his eye.
108: When his love he doth espy,
109: Let her shine as gloriously
110: As the Venus of the sky.
111: When thou wakest, if she be by,
112: Beg of her for remedy.

Re-enter PUCK

PUCK
113: Captain of our fairy band,
114: Helena is here at hand;
115: And the youth, mistook by me,
116: Pleading for a lover's fee.
117: Shall we their fond pageant see?
118: Lord, what fools these mortals be!

OBERON
119: Stand aside: the noise they make
120: Will cause Demetrius to awake.

PUCK
121: Then will two at once woo one;
122: That must needs be sport alone;
123: And those things do best please me
124: That befal preposterously.

Enter LYSANDER and HELENA

LYSANDER
125: Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
126: Scorn and derision never come in tears:
127: Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
128: In their nativity all truth appears.
129: How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
130: Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?

HELENA
131: You do advance your cunning more and more.
132: When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!
133: These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er?
134: Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:
135: Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,
136: Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.

LYSANDER
137: I had no judgment when to her I swore.

HELENA
138: Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.

LYSANDER
139: Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.

DEMETRIUS [Awaking]
140: O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
141: To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
142: Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
143: Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
144: That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,
145: Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
146: When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss
147: This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!

HELENA
148: O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
149: To set against me for your merriment:
150: If you we re civil and knew courtesy,
151: You would not do me thus much injury.
152: Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
153: But you must join in souls to mock me too?
154: If you were men, as men you are in show,
155: You would not use a gentle lady so;
156: To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
157: When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
158: You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
159: And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
160: A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
161: To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes
162: With your derision! none of noble sort
163: Would so offend a virgin, and extort
164: A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.

LYSANDER
165: You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;
166: For you love Hermia; this you know I know:
167: And here, with all good will, with all my heart,
168: In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;
169: And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
170: Whom I do love and will do till my death.

HELENA
171: Never did mockers waste more idle breath.

DEMETRIUS
172: Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none:
173: If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone.
174: My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,
175: And now to Helen is it home return'd,
176: There to remain.

LYSANDER
177: Helen, it is not so.

DEMETRIUS
178: Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
179: Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.
180: Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.

Re-enter HERMIA

HERMIA
181: Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
182: The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
183: Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
184: It pays the hearing double recompense.
185: Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
186: Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound
187: But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

LYSANDER
188: Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?

HERMIA
189: What love could press Lysander from my side?

LYSANDER
190: Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,
191: Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
192: Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light.
193: Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,
194: The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?

HERMIA
195: You speak not as you think: it cannot be.

HELENA
196: Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
197: Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three
198: To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
199: Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
200: Have you conspired, have you with these contrived
201: To bait me with this foul derision?
202: Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
203: The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
204: When we have chid the hasty-footed time
205: For parting us,--O, is it all forgot?
206: All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
207: We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
208: Have with our needles created both one flower,
209: Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
210: Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
211: As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
212: Had been incorporate. So we grow together,
213: Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
214: But yet an union in partition;
215: Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
216: So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
217: Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
218: Due but to one and crowned with one crest.
219: And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
220: To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
221: It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:
222: Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
223: Though I alone do feel the injury.

HERMIA
224: I am amazed at your passionate words.
225: I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.

HELENA
226: Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
227: To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
228: And made your other love, Demetrius,
229: Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
230: To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
231: Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
232: To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander
233: Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
234: And tender me, forsooth, affection,
235: But by your setting on, by your consent?
236: What thought I be not so in grace as you,
237: So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
238: But miserable most, to love unloved?
239: This you should pity rather than despise.

HERMIA
240: I understand not what you mean by this.

HELENA
241: Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
242: Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
243: Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:
244: This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
245: If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
246: You would not make me such an argument.
247: But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault;
248: Which death or absence soon shall remedy.

LYSANDER
249: Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:
250: My love, my life my soul, fair Helena!

HELENA
251: O excellent!

HERMIA
252: Sweet, do not scorn her so.

DEMETRIUS
253: If she cannot entreat, I can compel.

LYSANDER
254: Thou canst compel no more than she entreat:
255: Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.
256: Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do:
257: I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
258: To prove him false that says I love thee not.

DEMETRIUS
259: I say I love thee more than he can do.

LYSANDER
260: If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.

DEMETRIUS
261: Quick, come!

HERMIA
262: Lysander, whereto tends all this?

LYSANDER
263: Away, you Ethiope!

DEMETRIUS
264: No, no; he'll
265: Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,
266: But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!

LYSANDER
267: Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,
268: Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!

HERMIA
269: Why are you grown so rude? what change is this?
270: Sweet love,--

LYSANDER
271: Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!
272: Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!

HERMIA
273: Do you not jest?

HELENA
274: Yes, sooth; and so do you.

LYSANDER
275: Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.

DEMETRIUS
276: I would I had your bond, for I perceive
277: A weak bond holds you: I'll not trust your word.

LYSANDER
278: What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
279: Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.

HERMIA
280: What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
281: Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love!
282: Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?
283: I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
284: Since night you loved me; yet since night you left
285: me:
286: Why, then you left me--O, the gods forbid!--
287: In earnest, shall I say?

LYSANDER
288: Ay, by my life;
289: And never did desire to see thee more.
290: Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;
291: Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest
292: That I do hate thee and love Helena.

HERMIA
293: O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!
294: You thief of love! what, have you come by night
295: And stolen my love's heart from him?

HELENA
296: Fine, i'faith!
297: Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
298: No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
299: Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
300: Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!

HERMIA
301: Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game.
302: Now I perceive that she hath made compare
303: Between our statures; she hath urged her height;
304: And with her personage, her tall personage,
305: Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
306: And are you grown so high in his esteem;
307: Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
308: How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
309: How low am I? I am not yet so low
310: But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

HELENA
311: I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
312: Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;
313: I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
314: I am a right maid for my cowardice:
315: Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
316: Because she is something lower than myself,
317: That I can match her.

HERMIA
318: Lower! hark, again.

HELENA
319: Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
320: I evermore did love you, Hermia,
321: Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;
322: Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
323: I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
324: He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him;
325: But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me
326: To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
327: And now, so you will let me quiet go,
328: To Athens will I bear my folly back
329: And follow you no further: let me go:
330: You see how simple and how fond I am.

HERMIA
331: Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you?

HELENA
332: A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.

HERMIA
333: What, with Lysander?

HELENA
334: With Demetrius.

LYSANDER
335: Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.

DEMETRIUS
336: No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.

HELENA
337: O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!
338: She was a vixen when she went to school;
339: And though she be but little, she is fierce.

HERMIA
340: 'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and 'little'!
341: Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
342: Let me come to her.

LYSANDER
343: Get you gone, you dwarf;
344: You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
345: You bead, you acorn.

DEMETRIUS
346: You are too officious
347: In her behalf that scorns your services.
348: Let her alone: speak not of Helena;
349: Take not her part; for, if thou dost intend
350: Never so little show of love to her,
351: Thou shalt aby it.

LYSANDER
352: Now she holds me not;
353: Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right,
354: Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.

DEMETRIUS
355: Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole.

Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS

HERMIA
356: You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you:
357: Nay, go not back.

HELENA
358: I will not trust you, I,
359: Nor longer stay in your curst company.
360: Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,
361: My legs are longer though, to run away.

Exit

HERMIA
362: I am amazed, and know not what to say.

Exit

OBERON
363: This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest,
364: Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.

PUCK
365: Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
366: Did not you tell me I should know the man
367: By the Athenian garment be had on?
368: And so far blameless proves my enterprise,
369: That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;
370: And so far am I glad it so did sort
371: As this their jangling I esteem a sport.

OBERON
372: Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight:
373: Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
374: The starry welkin cover thou anon
375: With drooping fog as black as Acheron,
376: And lead these testy rivals so astray
377: As one come not within another's way.
378: Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
379: Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
380: And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
381: And from each other look thou lead them thus,
382: Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
383: With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:
384: Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
385: Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
386: To take from thence all error with his might,
387: And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
388: When they next wake, all this derision
389: Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,
390: And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
391: With league whose date till death shall never end.
392: Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
393: I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;
394: And then I will her charmed eye release
395: From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.

PUCK
396: My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
397: For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
398: And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
399: At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
400: Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,
401: That in crossways and floods have burial,
402: Already to their wormy beds are gone;
403: For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
404: They willfully themselves exile from light
405: And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.

OBERON
406: But we are spirits of another sort:
407: I with the morning's love have oft made sport,
408: And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
409: Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
410: Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
411: Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.
412: But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:
413: We may effect this business yet ere day.

Exit

PUCK
414: Up and down, up and down,
415: I will lead them up and down:
416: I am fear'd in field and town:
417: Goblin, lead them up and down.
418: Here comes one.

Re-enter LYSANDER

LYSANDER
419: Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now.

PUCK
420: Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou?

LYSANDER
421: I will be with thee straight.

PUCK
422: Follow me, then,
423: To plainer ground.

Exit LYSANDER, as following the voice

Re-enter DEMETRIUS

DEMETRIUS
424: Lysander! speak again:
425: Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
426: Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?

PUCK
427: Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
428: Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
429: And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child;
430: I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled
431: That draws a sword on thee.

DEMETRIUS
432: Yea, art thou there?

PUCK
433: Follow my voice: we'll try no manhood here.

Exeunt

Re-enter LYSANDER

LYSANDER
434: He goes before me and still dares me on:
435: When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
436: The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I:
437: I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly;
438: That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
439: And here will rest me.
[Lies down]
440: Come, thou gentle day!
441: For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
442: I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.

Sleeps

Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS

PUCK
443: Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not?

DEMETRIUS
444: Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot
445: Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place,
446: And darest not stand, nor look me in the face.
447: Where art thou now?

PUCK
448: Come hither: I am here.

DEMETRIUS
449: Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,
450: If ever I thy face by daylight see:
451: Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
452: To measure out my length on this cold bed.
453: By day's approach look to be visited.

Lies down and sleeps

Re-enter HELENA

HELENA
454: O weary night, O long and tedious night,
455: Abate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east,
456: That I may back to Athens by daylight,
457: From these that my poor company detest:
458: And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
459: Steal me awhile from mine own company.

Lies down and sleeps

PUCK
460: Yet but three? Come one more;
461: Two of both kinds make up four.
462: Here she comes, curst and sad:
463: Cupid is a knavish lad,
464: Thus to make poor females mad.

Re-enter HERMIA

HERMIA
465: Never so weary, never so in woe,
466: Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,
467: I can no further crawl, no further go;
468: My legs can keep no pace with my desires.
469: Here will I rest me till the break of day.
470: Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!

Lies down and sleeps

PUCK
471: On the ground
472: Sleep sound:
473: I'll apply
474: To your eye,
475: Gentle lover, remedy.
[Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER's eyes]
476: When thou wakest,
477: Thou takest
478: True delight
479: In the sight
480: Of thy former lady's eye:
481: And the country proverb known,
482: That every man should take his own,
483: In your waking shall be shown:
484: Jack shall have Jill;
485: Nought shall go ill;
486: The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.

Exit

ACT IV, SCENE I.

The same.

LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA lying asleep.

Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED, and other Fairies attending; OBERON behind unseen

TITANIA
001: Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
002: While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
003: And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
004: And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

BOTTOM
005: Where's Peaseblossom?

PEASEBLOSSOM
006: Ready.

BOTTOM
007: Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?

COBWEB
008: Ready.

BOTTOM
009: Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your
010: weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped
011: humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
012: mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret
013: yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,
014: good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;
015: I would be loath to have you overflown with a
016: honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?

MUSTARDSEED
017: Ready.

BOTTOM
018: Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,
019: leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.

MUSTARDSEED
020: What's your Will?

BOTTOM
021: Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb
022: to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for
023: methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I
024: am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,
025: I must scratch.

TITANIA
026: What, wilt thou hear some music,
027: my sweet love?

BOTTOM
028: I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have
029: the tongs and the bones.

TITANIA
030: Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

BOTTOM
031: Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good
032: dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle
033: of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

TITANIA
034: I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
035: The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

BOTTOM
036: I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.
037: But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I
038: have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

TITANIA
039: Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
040: Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.
[Exeunt fairies]
041: So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
042: Gently entwist; the female ivy so
043: Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
044: O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

They sleep

Enter PUCK

OBERON [Advancing]
045: Welcome, good Robin.
046: See'st thou this sweet sight?
047: Her dotage now I do begin to pity:
048: For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
049: Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,
050: I did upbraid her and fall out with her;
051: For she his hairy temples then had rounded
052: With a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
053: And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
054: Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
055: Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes
056: Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
057: When I had at my pleasure taunted her
058: And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,
059: I then did ask of her her changeling child;
060: Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
061: To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
062: And now I have the boy, I will undo
063: This hateful imperfection of her eyes:
064: And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
065: From off the head of this Athenian swain;
066: That, he awaking when the other do,
067: May all to Athens back again repair
068: And think no more of this night's accidents
069: But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
070: But first I will release the fairy queen.
071: Be as thou wast wont to be;
072: See as thou wast wont to see:
073: Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
074: Hath such force and blessed power.
075: Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.

TITANIA
076: My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
077: Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.

OBERON
078: There lies your love.

TITANIA
079: How came these things to pass?
080: O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

OBERON
081: Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
082: Titania, music call; and strike more dead
083: Than common sleep of all these five the sense.

TITANIA
084: Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!

Music, still

PUCK
085: Now, when thou wakest, with thine
086: own fool's eyes peep.

OBERON
087: Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,
088: And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
089: Now thou and I are new in amity,
090: And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
091: Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
092: And bless it to all fair prosperity:
093: There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
094: Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

PUCK
095: Fairy king, attend, and mark:
096: I do hear the morning lark.

OBERON
097: Then, my queen, in silence sad,
098: Trip we after the night's shade:
099: We the globe can compass soon,
100: Swifter than the wandering moon.

TITANIA
101: Come, my lord, and in our flight
102: Tell me how it came this night
103: That I sleeping here was found
104: With these mortals on the ground.

Exeunt

Horns winded within

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train

THESEUS
105: Go, one of you, find out the forester;
106: For now our observation is perform'd;
107: And since we have the vaward of the day,
108: My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
109: Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:
110: Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
[Exit an Attendant]
111: We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
112: And mark the musical confusion
113: Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIPPOLYTA
114: I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
115: When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
116: With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
117: Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
118: The skies, the fountains, every region near
119: Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
120: So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

THESEUS
121: My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
122: So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung
123: With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
124: Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
125: Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
126: Each under each. A cry more tuneable
127: Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
128: In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
129: Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?

EGEUS
130: My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;
131: And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;
132: This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:
133: I wonder of their being here together.

THESEUS
134: No doubt they rose up early to observe
135: The rite of May, and hearing our intent,
136: Came here in grace our solemnity.
137: But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
138: That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

EGEUS
139: It is, my lord.

THESEUS
140: Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
[Horns and shout within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start up]
141: Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:
142: Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

LYSANDER
143: Pardon, my lord.

THESEUS
144: I pray you all, stand up.
145: I know you two are rival enemies:
146: How comes this gentle concord in the world,
147: That hatred is so far from jealousy,
148: To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?

LYSANDER
149: My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
150: Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,
151: I cannot truly say how I came here;
152: But, as I think,--for truly would I speak,
153: And now do I bethink me, so it is,--
154: I came with Hermia hither: our intent
155: Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
156: Without the peril of the Athenian law.

EGEUS
157: Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:
158: I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
159: They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,
160: Thereby to have defeated you and me,
161: You of your wife and me of my consent,
162: Of my consent that she should be your wife.

DEMETRIUS
163: My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
164: Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
165: And I in fury hither follow'd them,
166: Fair Helena in fancy following me.
167: But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,--
168: But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,
169: Melted as the snow, seems to me now
170: As the remembrance of an idle gaud
171: Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
172: And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
173: The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
174: Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
175: Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:
176: But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;
177: But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
178: Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
179: And will for evermore be true to it.

THESEUS
180: Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
181: Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
182: Egeus, I will overbear your will;
183: For in the temple by and by with us
184: These couples shall eternally be knit:
185: And, for the morning now is something worn,
186: Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.
187: Away with us to Athens; three and three,
188: We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
189: Come, Hippolyta.

Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train

DEMETRIUS
190: These things seem small and undistinguishable,

HERMIA
191: Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
192: When every thing seems double.

HELENA
193: So methinks:
194: And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
195: Mine own, and not mine own.

DEMETRIUS
196: Are you sure
197: That we are awake? It seems to me
198: That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
199: The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

HERMIA
200: Yea; and my father.

HELENA
201: And Hippolyta.

LYSANDER
202: And he did bid us follow to the temple.

DEMETRIUS
203: Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him
204: And by the way let us recount our dreams.

Exeunt

BOTTOM [Awaking]
205: When my cue comes, call me, and I will
206: answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
207: Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
208: the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
209: hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
210: vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
211: say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
212: about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there
213: is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and
214: methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if
215: he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
216: of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
217: seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
218: to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
219: was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
220: this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
221: because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
222: latter end of a play, before the duke:
223: peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
224: sing it at her death.

Exit

ACT IV, SCENE II.

Athens. QUINCE'S house.

Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

QUINCE
001: Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?

STARVELING
002: He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is
003: transported.

FLUTE
004: If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes
005: not forward, doth it?

QUINCE
006: It is not possible: you have not a man in all
007: Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.

FLUTE
008: No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft
009: man in Athens.

QUINCE
010: Yea and the best person too; and he is a very
011: paramour for a sweet voice.

FLUTE
012: You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us,
013: a thing of naught.

Enter SNUG

SNUG
014: Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and
015: there is two or three lords and ladies more married:
016: if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made
017: men.

FLUTE
018: O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a
019: day during his life; he could not have 'scaped
020: sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him
021: sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;
022: he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in
023: Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter BOTTOM

BOTTOM
024: Where are these lads? where are these hearts?

QUINCE
025: Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

BOTTOM
026: Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not
027: what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I
028: will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.

QUINCE
029: Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

BOTTOM
030: Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that
031: the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together,
032: good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your
033: pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look
034: o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our
035: play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have
036: clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion
037: pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the
038: lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions
039: nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I
040: do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet
041: comedy. No more words: away! go, away!

Exeunt

ACT V, SCENE I.

Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants

HIPPOLYTA
001: 'Tis strange my Theseus, that these
002: lovers speak of.

THESEUS
003: More strange than true: I never may believe
004: These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
005: Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
006: Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
007: More than cool reason ever comprehends.
008: The lunatic, the lover and the poet
009: Are of imagination all compact:
010: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
011: That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
012: Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
013: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
014: Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
015: And as imagination bodies forth
016: The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
017: Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
018: A local habitation and a name.
019: Such tricks hath strong imagination,
020: That if it would but apprehend some joy,
021: It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
022: Or in the night, imagining some fear,
023: How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

HIPPOLYTA
024: But all the story of the night told over,
025: And all their minds transfigured so together,
026: More witnesseth than fancy's images
027: And grows to something of great constancy;
028: But, howsoever, strange and admirable.

THESEUS
029: Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
[Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA]
030: Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love
031: Accompany your hearts!

LYSANDER
032: More than to us
033: Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!

THESEUS
034: Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
035: To wear away this long age of three hours
036: Between our after-supper and bed-time?
037: Where is our usual manager of mirth?
038: What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
039: To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
040: Call Philostrate.

PHILOSTRATE
041: Here, mighty Theseus.

THESEUS
042: Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
043: What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
044: The lazy time, if not with some delight?

PHILOSTRATE
045: There is a brief how many sports are ripe:
046: Make choice of which your highness will see first.

Giving a paper

THESEUS
047: [Reads] 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
048: By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
049: We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
050: In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
[Reads]
051: 'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
052: Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
053: That is an old device; and it was play'd
054: When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
[Reads]
055: 'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
056: Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.'
057: That is some satire, keen and critical,
058: Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
[Reads]
059: 'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
060: And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'
061: Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
062: That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
063: How shall we find the concord of this discord?

PHILOSTRATE
064: A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
065: Which is as brief as I have known a play;
066: But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
067: Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
068: There is not one word apt, one player fitted:
069: And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
070: For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
071: Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
072: Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
073: The passion of loud laughter never shed.

THESEUS
074: What are they that do play it?

PHILOSTRATE
075: Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
076: Which never labour'd in their minds till now,
077: And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories
078: With this same play, against your nuptial.

THESEUS
079: And we will hear it.

PHILOSTRATE
080: No, my noble lord;
081: It is not for you: I have heard it over,
082: And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
083: Unless you can find sport in their intents,
084: Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
085: To do you service.

THESEUS
086: I will hear that play;
087: For never anything can be amiss,
088: When simpleness and duty tender it.
089: Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.

Exit PHILOSTRATE

HIPPOLYTA
090: I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged
091: And duty in his service perishing.

THESEUS
092: Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

HIPPOLYTA
093: He says they can do nothing in this kind.

THESEUS
094: The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
095: Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:
096: And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
097: Takes it in might, not merit.
098: Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
099: To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
100: Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
101: Make periods in the midst of sentences,
102: Throttle their practised accent in their fears
103: And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,
104: Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
105: Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
106: And in the modesty of fearful duty
107: I read as much as from the rattling tongue
108: Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
109: Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
110: In least speak most, to my capacity.

Re-enter PHILOSTRATE

PHILOSTRATE
111: So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.

THESEUS
112: Let him approach.

Flourish of trumpets

Enter QUINCE for the Prologue

Prologue
113: If we offend, it is with our good will.
114: That you should think, we come not to offend,
115: But with good will. To show our simple skill,
116: That is the true beginning of our end.
117: Consider then we come but in despite.
118: We do not come as minding to contest you,
119: Our true intent is. All for your delight
120: We are not here. That you should here repent you,
121: The actors are at hand and by their show
122: You shall know all that you are like to know.

THESEUS
123: This fellow doth not stand upon points.

LYSANDER
124: He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows
125: not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not
126: enough to speak, but to speak true.

HIPPOLYTA
127: Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child
128: on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.

THESEUS
129: His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing
130: impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?

Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion

Prologue
131: Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
132: But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
133: This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
134: This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.
135: This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
136: Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;
137: And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content
138: To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
139: This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
140: Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,
141: By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
142: To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
143: This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
144: The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
145: Did scare away, or rather did affright;
146: And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
147: Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
148: Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
149: And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:
150: Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
151: He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;
152: And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
153: His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
154: Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
155: At large discourse, while here they do remain.

Exeunt Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine

THESEUS
156: I wonder if the lion be to speak.

DEMETRIUS
157: No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.

Wall
158: In this same interlude it doth befall
159: That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
160: And such a wall, as I would have you think,
161: That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
162: Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
163: Did whisper often very secretly.
164: This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show
165: That I am that same wall; the truth is so:
166: And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
167: Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.

THESEUS
168: Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?

DEMETRIUS
169: It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard
170: discourse, my lord.

Enter Pyramus

THESEUS
171: Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!

Pyramus
172: O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!
173: O night, which ever art when day is not!
174: O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,
175: I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!
176: And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
177: That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!
178: Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
179: Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
[Wall holds up his fingers]
180: Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
181: But what see I? No Thisby do I see.
182: O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!
183: Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!

THESEUS
184: The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.

Pyramus
185: No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'
186: is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to
187: spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will
188: fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.

Enter Thisbe

Thisbe
189: O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
190: For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
191: My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,
192: Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.

Pyramus
193: I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
194: To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!

Thisbe
195: My love thou art, my love I think.

Pyramus
196: Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;
197: And, like Limander, am I trusty still.

Thisbe
198: And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.

Pyramus
199: Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.

Thisbe
200: As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

Pyramus
201: O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!

Thisbe
202: I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.

Pyramus
203: Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?

Thisbe
204: 'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.

Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe

Wall
205: Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
206: And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

Exit

THESEUS
207: Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.

DEMETRIUS
208: No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear
209: without warning.

HIPPOLYTA
210: This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.

THESEUS
211: The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst
212: are no worse, if imagination amend them.

HIPPOLYTA
213: It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.

THESEUS
214: If we imagine no worse of them than they of
215: themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here
216: come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.

Enter Lion and Moonshine

Lion
217: You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
218: The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
219: May now perchance both quake and tremble here,
220: When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
221: Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
222: A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;
223: For, if I should as lion come in strife
224: Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.

THESEUS
225: A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.

DEMETRIUS
226: The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.

LYSANDER
227: This lion is a very fox for his valour.

THESEUS
228: True; and a goose for his discretion.

DEMETRIUS
229: Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his
230: discretion; and the fox carries the goose.

THESEUS
231: His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;
232: for the goose carries not the fox. It is well:
233: leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.

Moonshine
234: This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;--

DEMETRIUS
235: He should have worn the horns on his head.

THESEUS
236: He is no crescent, and his horns are
237: invisible within the circumference.

Moonshine
238: This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
239: Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.

THESEUS
240: This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man
241: should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the
242: man i' the moon?

DEMETRIUS
243: He dares not come there for the candle; for, you
244: see, it is already in snuff.

HIPPOLYTA
245: I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!

THESEUS
246: It appears, by his small light of discretion, that
247: he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all
248: reason, we must stay the time.

LYSANDER
249: Proceed, Moon.

Moonshine
250: All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the
251: lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this
252: thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

DEMETRIUS
253: Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all
254: these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.

Enter Thisbe

Thisbe
255: This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?

Lion [Roaring]
256: Oh--

Thisbe runs off

DEMETRIUS
257: Well roared, Lion.

THESEUS
258: Well run, Thisbe.

HIPPOLYTA
259: Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a
260: good grace.

The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit

THESEUS
261: Well moused, Lion.

LYSANDER
262: And so the lion vanished.

DEMETRIUS
263: And then came Pyramus.

Enter Pyramus

Pyramus
264: Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
265: I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
266: For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
267: I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
268: But stay, O spite!
269: But mark, poor knight,
270: What dreadful dole is here!
271: Eyes, do you see?
272: How can it be?
273: O dainty duck! O dear!
274: Thy mantle good,
275: What, stain'd with blood!
276: Approach, ye Furies fell!
277: O Fates, come, come,
278: Cut thread and thrum;
279: Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!

THESEUS
280: This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would
281: go near to make a man look sad.

HIPPOLYTA
282: Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.

Pyramus
283: O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
284: Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
285: Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame
286: That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd
287: with cheer.
288: Come, tears, confound;
289: Out, sword, and wound
290: The pap of Pyramus;
291: Ay, that left pap,
292: Where heart doth hop:
[Stabs himself]
293: Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
294: Now am I dead,
295: Now am I fled;
296: My soul is in the sky:
297: Tongue, lose thy light;
298: Moon take thy flight:
[Exit Moonshine]
299: Now die, die, die, die, die.

Dies

DEMETRIUS
300: No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.

LYSANDER
301: Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.

THESEUS
302: With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and
303: prove an ass.

HIPPOLYTA
304: How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes
305: back and finds her lover?

THESEUS
306: She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and
307: her passion ends the play.

Re-enter Thisbe

HIPPOLYTA
308: Methinks she should not use a long one for such a
309: Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.

DEMETRIUS
310: A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which
311: Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us;
312: she for a woman, God bless us.

LYSANDER
313: She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.

DEMETRIUS
314: And thus she means, videlicet:--

Thisbe
315: Asleep, my love?
316: What, dead, my dove?
317: O Pyramus, arise!
318: Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
319: Dead, dead? A tomb
320: Must cover thy sweet eyes.
321: These My lips,
322: This cherry nose,
323: These yellow cowslip cheeks,
324: Are gone, are gone:
325: Lovers, make moan:
326: His eyes were green as leeks.
327: O Sisters Three,
328: Come, come to me,
329: With hands as pale as milk;
330: Lay them in gore,
331: Since you have shore
332: With shears his thread of silk.
333: Tongue, not a word:
334: Come, trusty sword;
335: Come, blade, my breast imbrue:
[Stabs herself]
336: And, farewell, friends;
337: Thus Thisby ends:
338: Adieu, adieu, adieu.

Dies

THESEUS
339: Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.

DEMETRIUS
340: Ay, and Wall too.

BOTTOM [Starting up]
341: No assure you; the wall is down that
342: parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the
343: epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two
344: of our company?

THESEUS
345: No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no
346: excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all
347: dead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he
348: that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself
349: in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine
350: tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably
351: discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your
352: epilogue alone.
[A dance]
353: The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:
354: Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
355: I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn
356: As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
357: This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled
358: The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
359: A fortnight hold we this solemnity,
360: In nightly revels and new jollity.

Exeunt

Enter PUCK

PUCK
361: Now the hungry lion roars,
362: And the wolf behowls the moon;
363: Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
364: All with weary task fordone.
365: Now the wasted brands do glow,
366: Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
367: Puts the wretch that lies in woe
368: In remembrance of a shroud.
369: Now it is the time of night
370: That the graves all gaping wide,
371: Every one lets forth his sprite,
372: In the church-way paths to glide:
373: And we fairies, that do run
374: By the triple Hecate's team,
375: From the presence of the sun,
376: Following darkness like a dream,
377: Now are frolic: not a mouse
378: Shall disturb this hallow'd house:
379: I am sent with broom before,
380: To sweep the dust behind the door.

Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train

OBERON
381: Through the house give gathering light,
382: By the dead and drowsy fire:
383: Every elf and fairy sprite
384: Hop as light as bird from brier;
385: And this ditty, after me,
386: Sing, and dance it trippingly.

TITANIA
387: First, rehearse your song by rote
388: To each word a warbling note:
389: Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
390: Will we sing, and bless this place.

Song and dance

OBERON
391: Now, until the break of day,
392: Through this house each fairy stray.
393: To the best bride-bed will we,
394: Which by us shall blessed be;
395: And the issue there create
396: Ever shall be fortunate.
397: So shall all the couples three
398: Ever true in loving be;
399: And the blots of Nature's hand
400: Shall not in their issue stand;
401: Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
402: Nor mark prodigious, such as are
403: Despised in nativity,
404: Shall upon their children be.
405: With this field-dew consecrate,
406: Every fairy take his gait;
407: And each several chamber bless,
408: Through this palace, with sweet peace;
409: And the owner of it blest
410: Ever shall in safety rest.
411: Trip away; make no stay;
412: Meet me all by break of day.

Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train

PUCK
413: If we shadows have offended,
414: Think but this, and all is mended,
415: That you have but slumber'd here
416: While these visions did appear.
417: And this weak and idle theme,
418: No more yielding but a dream,
419: Gentles, do not reprehend:
420: if you pardon, we will mend:
421: And, as I am an honest Puck,
422: If we have unearned luck
423: Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
424: We will make amends ere long;
425: Else the Puck a liar call;
426: So, good night unto you all.
427: Give me your hands, if we be friends,
428: And Robin shall restore amends.