User:Icebob99/Sandbox/A Midsummer Night's Dream

Act I

Scene I: Athens. The Palace of Theseus

• Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants
• THESEUS
• Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
• Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
• Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow
• This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
• Like to a step-dame or a dowager
• Long withering out a young man revenue.
• HIPPOLYTA
• Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
• Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
• And then the moon, like to a silver bow
• New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
• Of our solemnities.
• THESEUS
• Go, Philostrate,
• Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
• Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
• Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
• The pale companion is not for our pomp.
• Exit PHILOSTRATE
• Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
• And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
• But I will wed thee in another key,
• With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.
• Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS
• EGEUS
• Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!
• THESEUS
• Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?
• EGEUS
• Full of vexation come I, with complaint
• Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
• Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
• This man hath my consent to marry her.
• Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,
• This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;
• Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
• And interchanged love-tokens with my child:
• Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
• With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
• And stolen the impression of her fantasy
• With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
• Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers
• Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
• With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,
• Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
• To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,
• Be it so she; will not here before your grace
• Consent to marry with Demetrius,
• I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,
• As she is mine, I may dispose of her:
• Which shall be either to this gentleman
• Or to her death, according to our law
• Immediately provided in that case.
• THESEUS
• What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:
• To you your father should be as a god;
• One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
• To whom you are but as a form in wax
• By him imprinted and within his power
• To leave the figure or disfigure it.
• Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
• HERMIA
• So is Lysander.
• THESEUS
• In himself he is;
• But in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
• The other must be held the worthier.
• HERMIA
• I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
• THESEUS
• Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
• HERMIA
• I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
• I know not by what power I am made bold,
• Nor how it may concern my modesty,
• In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
• But I beseech your grace that I may know
• The worst that may befall me in this case,
• If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
• THESEUS
• Either to die the death or to abjure
• For ever the society of men.
• Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
• Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
• Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
• You can endure the livery of a nun,
• For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
• To live a barren sister all your life,
• Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
• Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
• To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
• But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
• Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
• Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.
• HERMIA
• So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
• Ere I will my virgin patent up
• Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
• My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
• THESEUS
• Take time to pause; and, by the next new moon--
• The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,
• For everlasting bond of fellowship--
• Upon that day either prepare to die
• For disobedience to your father's will,
• Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;
• Or on Diana's altar to protest
• For aye austerity and single life.
• DEMETRIUS
• Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield
• Thy crazed title to my certain right.
• LYSANDER
• You have her father's love, Demetrius;
• Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.
• EGEUS
• Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,
• And what is mine my love shall render him.
• And she is mine, and all my right of her
• I do estate unto Demetrius.
• LYSANDER
• I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
• As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
• My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
• If not with vantage, as Demetrius';
• And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
• I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:
• Why should not I then prosecute my right?
• Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
• Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
• And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
• Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
• Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
• THESEUS
• I must confess that I have heard so much,
• And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
• But, being over-full of self-affairs,
• My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
• And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
• I have some private schooling for you both.
• For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
• To fit your fancies to your father's will;
• Or else the law of Athens yields you up--
• Which by no means we may extenuate--
• To death, or to a vow of single life.
• Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?
• Demetrius and Egeus, go along:
• I must employ you in some business
• Against our nuptial and confer with you
• Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
• EGEUS
• With duty and desire we follow you.
• Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA
• LYSANDER
• How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?
• How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
• HERMIA
• Belike for want of rain, which I could well
• Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
• LYSANDER
• Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
• Could ever hear by tale or history,
• The course of true love never did run smooth;
• But, either it was different in blood,--
• HERMIA
• O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
• LYSANDER
• Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--
• HERMIA
• O spite! too old to be engaged to young.
• LYSANDER
• Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--
• HERMIA
• O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
• LYSANDER
• Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
• War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
• Making it momentany as a sound,
• Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
• Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
• That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
• And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
• The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
• So quick bright things come to confusion.
• HERMIA
• If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
• It stands as an edict in destiny:
• Then let us teach our trial patience,
• Because it is a customary cross,
• As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
• Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.
• LYSANDER
• A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.
• I have a widow aunt, a dowager
• Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
• From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
• And she respects me as her only son.
• There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
• And to that place the sharp Athenian law
• Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
• Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
• And in the wood, a league without the town,
• Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
• To do observance to a morn of May,
• There will I stay for thee.
• HERMIA
• My good Lysander!
• I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,
• By his best arrow with the golden head,
• By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
• By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
• And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
• When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
• By all the vows that ever men have broke,
• In number more than ever women spoke,
• In that same place thou hast appointed me,
• To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
• LYSANDER
• Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
• Enter HELENA
• HERMIA
• God speed fair Helena! whither away?
• HELENA
• Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
• Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
• Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
• More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
• When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
• Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
• Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
• My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
• My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
• Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
• The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
• O, teach me how you look, and with what art
• You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.
• HERMIA
• I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
• HELENA
• O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
• HERMIA
• I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
• HELENA
• O that my prayers could such affection move!
• HERMIA
• The more I hate, the more he follows me.
• HELENA
• The more I love, the more he hateth me.
• HERMIA
• His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
• HELENA
• None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!
• HERMIA
• Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
• Lysander and myself will fly this place.
• Before the time I did Lysander see,
• Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
• O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
• That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
• LYSANDER
• Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
• To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
• Her silver visage in the watery glass,
• Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
• A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
• Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.
• HERMIA
• And in the wood, where often you and I
• Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,
• Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
• There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
• And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
• To seek new friends and stranger companies.
• Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;
• And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
• Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
• From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
• LYSANDER
• I will, my Hermia.
• Exit HERMIA
• Helena, adieu:
• As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
• Exit
• HELENA
• How happy some o'er other some can be!
• Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
• But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
• He will not know what all but he do know:
• And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
• So I, admiring of his qualities:
• Things base and vile, folding no quantity,
• Love can transpose to form and dignity:
• Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
• And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:
• Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;
• Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
• And therefore is Love said to be a child,
• Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
• As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
• So the boy Love is perjured every where:
• For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
• He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
• And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
• So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
• I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
• Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
• Pursue her; and for this intelligence
• If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
• But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
• To have his sight thither and back again.
• Exit

Scene II: Athens. Quince's House

• Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING
• QUINCE
• Is all our company here?
• BOTTOM
• You were best to call them generally, man by man,
• according to the scrip.
• QUINCE
• Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is
• thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our
• interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his
• wedding-day at night.
• BOTTOM
• First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats
• on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow
• to a point.
• QUINCE
• Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and
• most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.
• BOTTOM
• A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a
• merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your
• actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
• QUINCE
• Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
• BOTTOM
• Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
• QUINCE
• You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
• BOTTOM
• What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?
• QUINCE
• A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
• BOTTOM
• That will ask some tears in the true performing of
• it: if I do it, let the audience look to their
• eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some
• measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a
• tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to
• tear a cat in, to make all split.
• The raging rocks
• And shivering shocks
• Shall break the locks
• Of prison gates;
• And Phibbus' car
• Shall shine from far
• And make and mar
• The foolish Fates.
• This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.
• This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is
• more condoling.
• QUINCE
• Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
• FLUTE
• Here, Peter Quince.
• QUINCE
• Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
• FLUTE
• What is Thisby? a wandering knight?
• QUINCE
• It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
• FLUTE
• Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.
• QUINCE
• That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and
• you may speak as small as you will.
• BOTTOM
• An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll
• speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne,
• Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear,
• and lady dear!'
• QUINCE
• No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby.
• BOTTOM
• Well, proceed.
• QUINCE
• Robin Starveling, the tailor.
• STARVELING
• Here, Peter Quince.
• QUINCE
• Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.
• Tom Snout, the tinker.
• SNOUT
• Here, Peter Quince.
• QUINCE
• You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby's father:
• Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I
• hope, here is a play fitted.
• SNUG
• Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it
• be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
• QUINCE
• You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
• BOTTOM
• Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will
• do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar,
• that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again,
• let him roar again.'
• QUINCE
• An you should do it too terribly, you would fright
• the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek;
• and that were enough to hang us all.
• ALL
• That would hang us, every mother's son.
• BOTTOM
• I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the
• ladies out of their wits, they would have no more
• discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my
• voice so that I will roar you as gently as any
• sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any
• nightingale.
• QUINCE
• You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a
• sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a
• summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man:
• therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
• BOTTOM
• Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best
• to play it in?
• QUINCE
• Why, what you will.
• BOTTOM
• I will discharge it in either your straw-colour
• beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain
• beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your
• perfect yellow.
• QUINCE
• Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and
• then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here
• are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request
• you and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night;
• and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the
• town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if
• we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with
• company, and our devices known. In the meantime I
• will draw a bill of properties, such as our play
• wants. I pray you, fail me not.
• BOTTOM
• We will meet; and there we may rehearse most
• obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.
• QUINCE
• At the duke's oak we meet.
• BOTTOM
• Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.
• Exeunt

Act II

Scene I: A wood near Athens

• Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK
• PUCK
• How now, spirit! whither wander you?
• Fairy
• Over hill, over dale,
• Thorough bush, thorough brier,
• Over park, over pale,
• Thorough flood, thorough fire,
• I do wander everywhere,
• Swifter than the moon's sphere;
• And I serve the fairy queen,
• To dew her orbs upon the green.
• The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
• In their gold coats spots you see;
• Those be rubies, fairy favours,
• In those freckles live their savours:
• I must go seek some dewdrops here
• And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
• Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
• Our queen and all our elves come here anon.
• PUCK
• The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
• Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
• For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
• Because that she as her attendant hath
• A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
• She never had so sweet a changeling;
• And jealous Oberon would have the child
• Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
• But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
• Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:
• And now they never meet in grove or green,
• By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
• But, they do square, that all their elves for fear
• Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
• Fairy
• Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
• Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
• Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
• That frights the maidens of the villagery;
• Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
• And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
• And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
• Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
• Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
• You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
• Are not you he?
• PUCK
• Thou speak'st aright;
• I am that merry wanderer of the night.
• I jest to Oberon and make him smile
• When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
• Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
• And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
• In very likeness of a roasted crab,
• And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
• And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
• The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
• Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
• Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
• And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
• And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
• And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
• A merrier hour was never wasted there.
• But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
• Fairy
• And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
• Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers
• OBERON
• Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
• TITANIA
• What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
• I have forsworn his bed and company.
• OBERON
• Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?
• TITANIA
• Then I must be thy lady: but I know
• When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
• And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
• Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
• To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
• Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
• But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
• Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
• To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
• To give their bed joy and prosperity.
• OBERON
• How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
• Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
• Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
• Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
• From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
• And make him with fair Aegle break his faith,
• With Ariadne and Antiopa?
• TITANIA
• These are the forgeries of jealousy:
• And never, since the middle summer's spring,
• Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
• By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
• Or in the beached margent of the sea,
• To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
• But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
• Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
• As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
• Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
• Have every pelting river made so proud
• That they have overborne their continents:
• The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
• The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
• Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
• The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
• And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
• The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
• And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
• For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
• The human mortals want their winter here;
• No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
• Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
• Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
• That rheumatic diseases do abound:
• And thorough this distemperature we see
• The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
• Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
• And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
• An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
• Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
• The childing autumn, angry winter, change
• Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
• By their increase, now knows not which is which:
• And this same progeny of evils comes
• From our debate, from our dissension;
• We are their parents and original.
• OBERON
• Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
• Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
• I do but beg a little changeling boy,
• To be my henchman.
• TITANIA
• Set your heart at rest:
• The fairy land buys not the child of me.
• His mother was a votaress of my order:
• And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
• Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
• And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
• Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
• When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
• And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
• Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
• Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
• Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
• To fetch me trifles, and return again,
• As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
• But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
• And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
• And for her sake I will not part with him.
• OBERON
• How long within this wood intend you stay?
• TITANIA
• Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
• If you will patiently dance in our round
• And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
• If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
• OBERON
• Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
• TITANIA
• Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
• We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.
• Exit TITANIA with her train
• OBERON
• Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
• Till I torment thee for this injury.
• My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest
• Since once I sat upon a promontory,
• And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
• Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
• That the rude sea grew civil at her song
• And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
• To hear the sea-maid's music.
• PUCK
• I remember.
• OBERON
• That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
• Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
• Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
• At a fair vestal throned by the west,
• And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
• As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
• But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
• Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
• And the imperial votaress passed on,
• In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
• Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
• It fell upon a little western flower,
• Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
• And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
• Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
• The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
• Will make or man or woman madly dote
• Upon the next live creature that it sees.
• Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
• Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
• PUCK
• I'll put a girdle round about the earth
• In forty minutes.
• Exit
• OBERON
• Having once this juice,
• I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
• And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
• The next thing then she waking looks upon,
• Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
• On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
• She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
• And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
• As I can take it with another herb,
• I'll make her render up her page to me.
• But who comes here? I am invisible;
• And I will overhear their conference.
• Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him
• DEMETRIUS
• I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
• Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
• The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
• Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
• And here am I, and wode within this wood,
• Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
• Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
• HELENA
• You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
• But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
• Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
• And I shall have no power to follow you.
• DEMETRIUS
• Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
• Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
• Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?
• HELENA
• And even for that do I love you the more.
• I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
• The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
• Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
• Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
• Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
• What worser place can I beg in your love,--
• And yet a place of high respect with me,--
• Than to be used as you use your dog?
• DEMETRIUS
• Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
• For I am sick when I do look on thee.
• HELENA
• And I am sick when I look not on you.
• DEMETRIUS
• You do impeach your modesty too much,
• To leave the city and commit yourself
• Into the hands of one that loves you not;
• To trust the opportunity of night
• And the ill counsel of a desert place
• With the rich worth of your virginity.
• HELENA
• Your virtue is my privilege: for that
• It is not night when I do see your face,
• Therefore I think I am not in the night;
• Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
• For you in my respect are all the world:
• Then how can it be said I am alone,
• When all the world is here to look on me?
• DEMETRIUS
• I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
• And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
• HELENA
• The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
• Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
• Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
• The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
• Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
• When cowardice pursues and valour flies.
• DEMETRIUS
• I will not stay thy questions; let me go:
• Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
• But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
• HELENA
• Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
• You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
• Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:
• We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
• We should be wood and were not made to woo.
• Exit DEMETRIUS
• I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
• To die upon the hand I love so well.
• Exit
• OBERON
• Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,
• Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.
• Re-enter PUCK
• Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
• PUCK
• Ay, there it is.
• OBERON
• I pray thee, give it me.
• I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
• Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
• Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
• With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
• There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
• Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
• And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
• Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
• And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
• And make her full of hateful fantasies.
• Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
• A sweet Athenian lady is in love
• With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
• But do it when the next thing he espies
• May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
• By the Athenian garments he hath on.
• Effect it with some care, that he may prove
• More fond on her than she upon her love:
• And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
• PUCK
• Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
• Exeunt

Scene II: Another part of the wood

• Enter TITANIA, with her train
• TITANIA
• Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
• Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
• Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
• Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
• To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
• The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
• At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
• Then to your offices and let me rest.
• The Fairies sing
• You spotted snakes with double tongue,
• Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
• Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
• Come not near our fairy queen.
• Philomel, with melody
• Sing in our sweet lullaby;
• Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
• Never harm,
• Nor spell nor charm,
• Come our lovely lady nigh;
• So, good night, with lullaby.
• Weaving spiders, come not here;
• Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!
• Beetles black, approach not near;
• Worm nor snail, do no offence.
• Philomel, with melody, & c.
• Fairy
• Hence, away! now all is well:
• One aloof stand sentinel.
• Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps
• Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA's eyelids
• OBERON
• What thou seest when thou dost wake,
• Do it for thy true-love take,
• Love and languish for his sake:
• Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
• Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
• In thy eye that shall appear
• When thou wakest, it is thy dear:
• Wake when some vile thing is near.
• Exit
• Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA
• LYSANDER
• Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;
• And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:
• We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
• And tarry for the comfort of the day.
• HERMIA
• Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;
• For I upon this bank will rest my head.
• LYSANDER
• One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
• One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.
• HERMIA
• Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
• Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.
• LYSANDER
• O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
• Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
• I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit
• So that but one heart we can make of it;
• Two bosoms interchained with an oath;
• So then two bosoms and a single troth.
• Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
• For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
• HERMIA
• Lysander riddles very prettily:
• Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
• If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
• But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
• Lie further off; in human modesty,
• Such separation as may well be said
• Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
• So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
• Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
• LYSANDER
• Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
• And then end life when I end loyalty!
• Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!
• HERMIA
• With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!
• They sleep
• Enter PUCK
• PUCK
• Through the forest have I gone.
• But Athenian found I none,
• On whose eyes I might approve
• This flower's force in stirring love.
• Night and silence.--Who is here?
• Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
• This is he, my master said,
• Despised the Athenian maid;
• And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
• On the dank and dirty ground.
• Pretty soul! she durst not lie
• Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
• Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
• All the power this charm doth owe.
• When thou wakest, let love forbid
• Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
• So awake when I am gone;
• For I must now to Oberon.
• Exit
• Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running
• HELENA
• Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
• DEMETRIUS
• I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
• HELENA
• O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.
• DEMETRIUS
• Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.
• Exit
• HELENA
• O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
• The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
• Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;
• For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
• How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:
• If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.
• No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;
• For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
• Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
• Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.
• What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
• Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
• But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
• Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
• Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.
• LYSANDER
• (Awaking) And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
• Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
• That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
• Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
• Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
• HELENA
• Do not say so, Lysander; say not so
• What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
• Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.
• LYSANDER
• Content with Hermia! No; I do repent
• The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
• Not Hermia but Helena I love:
• Who will not change a raven for a dove?
• The will of man is by his reason sway'd;
• And reason says you are the worthier maid.
• Things growing are not ripe until their season
• So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
• And touching now the point of human skill,
• Reason becomes the marshal to my will
• And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
• Love's stories written in love's richest book.
• HELENA
• Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
• When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
• Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,
• That I did never, no, nor never can,
• Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
• But you must flout my insufficiency?
• Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
• In such disdainful manner me to woo.
• But fare you well: perforce I must confess
• I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
• O, that a lady, of one man refused.
• Should of another therefore be abused!
• Exit
• LYSANDER
• She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:
• And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
• For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
• The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
• Or as tie heresies that men do leave
• Are hated most of those they did deceive,
• So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
• Of all be hated, but the most of me!
• And, all my powers, address your love and might
• To honour Helen and to be her knight!
• Exit
• HERMIA
• (Awaking) Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
• To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
• Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
• Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
• Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
• And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
• Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!
• What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
• Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;
• Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
• No? then I well perceive you all not nigh
• 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
• Are we all met?
• QUINCE
• Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place
• for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our
• stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we
• will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.
• BOTTOM
• Peter Quince,--
• QUINCE
• What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
• BOTTOM
• There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and
• Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must
• draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies
• cannot abide. How answer you that?
• SNOUT
• By'r lakin, a parlous fear.
• STARVELING
• I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.
• BOTTOM
• Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.
• Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to
• say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that
• Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more
• better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not
• Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them
• out of fear.
• QUINCE
• Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be
• written in eight and six.
• BOTTOM
• No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.
• SNOUT
• Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
• STARVELING
• I fear it, I promise you.
• BOTTOM
• Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to
• bring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a
• most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful
• wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to
• look to 't.
• SNOUT
• Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
• BOTTOM
• Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must
• be seen through the lion's neck: and he himself
• must speak through, saying thus, or to the same
• defect,--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish
• You,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would
• entreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life
• for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it
• were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a
• man as other men are;' and there indeed let him name
• his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
• QUINCE
• Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things;
• that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for,
• you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.
• SNOUT
• Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
• BOTTOM
• A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find
• out moonshine, find out moonshine.
• QUINCE
• Yes, it doth shine that night.
• BOTTOM
• Why, then may you leave a casement of the great
• chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon
• may shine in at the casement.
• QUINCE
• Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns
• and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to
• present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is
• another thing: we must have a wall in the great
• chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did
• talk through the chink of a wall.
• SNOUT
• You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
• BOTTOM
• Some man or other must present Wall: and let him
• have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast
• about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his
• fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus
• and Thisby whisper.
• QUINCE
• If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,
• every mother's son, and rehearse your parts.
• Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your
• speech, enter into that brake: and so every one
• according to his cue.
• Enter PUCK behind
• PUCK
• What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,
• So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
• What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;
• An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.
• QUINCE
• Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
• BOTTOM
• Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,--
• QUINCE
• Odours, odours.
• BOTTOM
• --odours savours sweet:
• So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
• But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,
• And by and by I will to thee appear.
• Exit
• PUCK
• A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.
• Exit
• FLUTE
• Must I speak now?
• QUINCE
• Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes
• but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
• FLUTE
• Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
• Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
• Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
• As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
• I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
• QUINCE
• 'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that
• yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your
• part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue
• is past; it is, 'never tire.'
• FLUTE
• O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would
• never tire.
• Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head
• BOTTOM
• If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.
• QUINCE
• O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray,
• masters! fly, masters! Help!
• Exeunt QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING
• PUCK
• I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,
• Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:
• Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
• A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
• And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
• Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
• Exit
• BOTTOM
• Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to
• make me afeard.
• Re-enter SNOUT
• SNOUT
• O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?
• BOTTOM
• What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do
• you?
• Exit SNOUT
• Re-enter QUINCE
• QUINCE
• Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art
• translated.
• Exit
• BOTTOM
• I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me;
• to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir
• from this place, do what they can: I will walk up
• and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear
• I am not afraid.
• Sings
• The ousel cock so black of hue,
• With orange-tawny bill,
• The throstle with his note so true,
• The wren with little quill,--
• TITANIA
• (Awaking) What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
• BOTTOM
• (Sings)
• The finch, the sparrow and the lark,
• The plain-song cuckoo gray,
• Whose note full many a man doth mark,
• And dares not answer nay;--
• for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish
• a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry
• 'cuckoo' never so?
• TITANIA
• I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:
• Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note;
• So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
• And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me
• On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
• BOTTOM
• Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason
• for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and
• love keep little company together now-a-days; the
• more the pity that some honest neighbours will not
• make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
• TITANIA
• Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
• BOTTOM
• Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out
• of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
• TITANIA
• Out of this wood do not desire to go:
• Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
• I am a spirit of no common rate;
• The summer still doth tend upon my state;
• And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
• I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
• And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
• And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
• And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
• That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
• Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!
• Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED
• PEASEBLOSSOM
• Ready.
• COBWEB
• And I.
• MOTH
• And I.
• MUSTARDSEED
• And I.
• ALL
• Where shall we go?
• TITANIA
• Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
• Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
• Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
• With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
• The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
• And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
• And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
• To have my love to bed and to arise;
• And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies
• To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
• Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
• PEASEBLOSSOM
• Hail, mortal!
• COBWEB
• Hail!
• MOTH
• Hail!
• MUSTARDSEED
• Hail!
• BOTTOM
• I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech your
• worship's name.
• COBWEB
• Cobweb.
• BOTTOM
• I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
• Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with
• you. Your name, honest gentleman?
• PEASEBLOSSOM
• Peaseblossom.
• BOTTOM
• I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your
• mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good
• Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more
• acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?
• MUSTARDSEED
• Mustardseed.
• BOTTOM
• Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well:
• that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath
• devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise
• you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I
• desire your more acquaintance, good Master
• Mustardseed.
• TITANIA
• Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
• The moon methinks looks with a watery eye;
• And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
• Lamenting some enforced chastity.
• Tie up my love's tongue bring him silently.
• Exeunt

Scene II: Another part of the wood

• Enter OBERON
• OBERON
• I wonder if Titania be awaked;
• Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
• Which she must dote on in extremity.
• Enter PUCK
• Here comes my messenger.
• How now, mad spirit!
• What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
• PUCK
• My mistress with a monster is in love.
• Near to her close and consecrated bower,
• While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
• A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
• That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
• Were met together to rehearse a play
• Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.
• The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
• Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
• Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake
• When I did him at this advantage take,
• An ass's nole I fixed on his head:
• Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
• And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
• As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
• Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
• Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
• Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
• So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;
• And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;
• He murder cries and help from Athens calls.
• Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears
• thus strong,
• Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
• For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
• Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all
• things catch.
• I led them on in this distracted fear,
• And left sweet Pyramus translated there:
• When in that moment, so it came to pass,
• Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.
• OBERON
• This falls out better than I could devise.
• But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes
• With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?
• PUCK
• I took him sleeping,--that is finish'd too,--
• And the Athenian woman by his side:
• That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.
• Enter HERMIA and DEMETRIUS
• OBERON
• Stand close: this is the same Athenian.
• PUCK
• This is the woman, but not this the man.
• DEMETRIUS
• O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
• Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
• HERMIA
• Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse,
• For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse,
• If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
• Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
• And kill me too.
• The sun was not so true unto the day
• As he to me: would he have stolen away
• From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
• This whole earth may be bored and that the moon
• May through the centre creep and so displease
• Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.
• It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;
• So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.
• DEMETRIUS
• So should the murder'd look, and so should I,
• Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:
• Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
• As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
• HERMIA
• What's this to my Lysander? where is he?
• Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
• DEMETRIUS
• I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
• HERMIA
• Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds
• Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
• Henceforth be never number'd among men!
• O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!
• Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,
• And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!
• Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
• An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
• Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
• DEMETRIUS
• You spend your passion on a misprised mood:
• I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
• Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
• HERMIA
• I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
• DEMETRIUS
• An if I could, what should I get therefore?
• HERMIA
• A privilege never to see me more.
• And from thy hated presence part I so:
• See me no more, whether he be dead or no.
• Exit
• DEMETRIUS
• There is no following her in this fierce vein:
• Here therefore for a while I will remain.
• So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow
• For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe:
• Which now in some slight measure it will pay,
• If for his tender here I make some stay.
• Lies down and sleeps
• OBERON
• What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite
• And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:
• Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
• Some true love turn'd and not a false turn'd true.
• PUCK
• Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,
• A million fail, confounding oath on oath.
• OBERON
• About the wood go swifter than the wind,
• And Helena of Athens look thou find:
• All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,
• With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear:
• By some illusion see thou bring her here:
• I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.
• PUCK
• I go, I go; look how I go,
• Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.
• Exit
• OBERON
• Flower of this purple dye,
• Hit with Cupid's archery,
• Sink in apple of his eye.
• When his love he doth espy,
• Let her shine as gloriously
• As the Venus of the sky.
• When thou wakest, if she be by,
• Beg of her for remedy.
• Re-enter PUCK
• PUCK
• Captain of our fairy band,
• Helena is here at hand;
• And the youth, mistook by me,
• Pleading for a lover's fee.
• Shall we their fond pageant see?
• Lord, what fools these mortals be!
• OBERON
• Stand aside: the noise they make
• Will cause Demetrius to awake.
• PUCK
• Then will two at once woo one;
• That must needs be sport alone;
• And those things do best please me
• That befal preposterously.
• Enter LYSANDER and HELENA
• LYSANDER
• Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
• Scorn and derision never come in tears:
• Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
• In their nativity all truth appears.
• How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
• Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?
• HELENA
• You do advance your cunning more and more.
• When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!
• These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er?
• Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:
• Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,
• Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.
• LYSANDER
• I had no judgment when to her I swore.
• HELENA
• Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.
• LYSANDER
• Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
• DEMETRIUS
• (Awaking) O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
• To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
• Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
• Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
• That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,
• Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
• When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss
• This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
• HELENA
• O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
• To set against me for your merriment:
• If you were civil and knew courtesy,
• You would not do me thus much injury.
• Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
• But you must join in souls to mock me too?
• If you were men, as men you are in show,
• You would not use a gentle lady so;
• To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
• When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
• You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
• And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
• A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
• To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes
• With your derision! none of noble sort
• Would so offend a virgin, and extort
• A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.
• LYSANDER
• You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;
• For you love Hermia; this you know I know:
• And here, with all good will, with all my heart,
• In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;
• And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
• Whom I do love and will do till my death.
• HELENA
• Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
• DEMETRIUS
• Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none:
• If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone.
• My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,
• And now to Helen is it home return'd,
• There to remain.
• LYSANDER
• Helen, it is not so.
• DEMETRIUS
• Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
• Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.
• Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.
• Re-enter HERMIA
• HERMIA
• Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
• The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
• Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
• It pays the hearing double recompense.
• Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
• Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound
• But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
• LYSANDER
• Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?
• HERMIA
• What love could press Lysander from my side?
• LYSANDER
• Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,
• Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
• Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light.
• Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,
• The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?
• HERMIA
• You speak not as you think: it cannot be.
• HELENA
• Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
• Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three
• To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
• Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
• Have you conspired, have you with these contrived
• To bait me with this foul derision?
• Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
• The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
• When we have chid the hasty-footed time
• For parting us,--O, is it all forgot?
• All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
• We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
• Have with our needles created both one flower,
• Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
• Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
• As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
• Had been incorporate. So we grow together,
• Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
• But yet an union in partition;
• Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
• So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
• Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
• Due but to one and crowned with one crest.
• And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
• To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
• It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:
• Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
• Though I alone do feel the injury.
• HERMIA
• I am amazed at your passionate words.
• I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.
• HELENA
• Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
• To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
• And made your other love, Demetrius,
• Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
• To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
• Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
• To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander
• Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
• And tender me, forsooth, affection,
• But by your setting on, by your consent?
• What thought I be not so in grace as you,
• So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
• But miserable most, to love unloved?
• This you should pity rather than despise.
• HERMIA
• I understand not what you mean by this.
• HELENA
• Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
• Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
• Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:
• This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
• If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
• You would not make me such an argument.
• But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault;
• Which death or absence soon shall remedy.
• LYSANDER
• Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:
• My love, my life my soul, fair Helena!
• HELENA
• O excellent!
• HERMIA
• Sweet, do not scorn her so.
• DEMETRIUS
• If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
• LYSANDER
• Thou canst compel no more than she entreat:
• Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.
• Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do:
• I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
• To prove him false that says I love thee not.
• DEMETRIUS
• I say I love thee more than he can do.
• LYSANDER
• If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
• DEMETRIUS
• Quick, come!
• HERMIA
• Lysander, whereto tends all this?
• LYSANDER
• Away, you Ethiope!
• DEMETRIUS
• No, no; he'll Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,
• But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!
• LYSANDER
• Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,
• Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!
• HERMIA
• Why are you grown so rude? what change is this Sweet love?
• LYSANDER
• Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!
• Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!
• HERMIA
• Do you not jest?
• HELENA
• Yes, sooth; and so do you.
• LYSANDER
• Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
• DEMETRIUS
• I would I had your bond, for I perceive
• A weak bond holds you: I'll not trust your word.
• LYSANDER
• What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
• Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.
• HERMIA
• What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
• Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love!
• Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?
• I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
• Since night you loved me; yet since night you left
• me:
• Why, then you left me--O, the gods forbid!--
• In earnest, shall I say?
• LYSANDER
• Ay, by my life;
• And never did desire to see thee more.
• Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;
• Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest
• That I do hate thee and love Helena.
• HERMIA
• O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!
• You thief of love! what, have you come by night
• And stolen my love's heart from him?
• HELENA
• Fine, i'faith!
• Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
• No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
• Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
• Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!
• HERMIA
• Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game.
• Now I perceive that she hath made compare
• Between our statures; she hath urged her height;
• And with her personage, her tall personage,
• Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
• And are you grown so high in his esteem;
• Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
• How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
• How low am I? I am not yet so low
• But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
• HELENA
• I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
• Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;
• I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
• I am a right maid for my cowardice:
• Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
• Because she is something lower than myself,
• That I can match her.
• HERMIA
• Lower! hark, again.
• HELENA
• Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
• I evermore did love you, Hermia,
• Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;
• Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
• I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
• He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him;
• But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me
• To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
• And now, so you will let me quiet go,
• To Athens will I bear my folly back
• And follow you no further: let me go:
• You see how simple and how fond I am.
• HERMIA
• Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you?
• HELENA
• A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.
• HERMIA
• What, with Lysander?
• HELENA
• With Demetrius.
• LYSANDER
• Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.
• DEMETRIUS
• No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
• HELENA
• O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!
• She was a vixen when she went to school;
• And though she be but little, she is fierce.
• HERMIA
• 'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and 'little'!
• Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
• Let me come to her.
• LYSANDER
• Get you gone, you dwarf;
• You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
• You bead, you acorn.
• DEMETRIUS
• You are too officious
• In her behalf that scorns your services.
• Let her alone: speak not of Helena;
• Take not her part; for, if thou dost intend
• Never so little show of love to her,
• Thou shalt aby it.
• LYSANDER
• Now she holds me not;
• Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right,
• Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
• DEMETRIUS
• Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole.
• Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS
• HERMIA
• You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you:
• Nay, go not back.
• HELENA
• I will not trust you, I,
• Nor longer stay in your curst company.
• Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,
• My legs are longer though, to run away.
• Exit
• HERMIA
• I am amazed, and know not what to say.
• Exit
• OBERON
• This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest,
• Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.
• PUCK
• Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
• Did not you tell me I should know the man
• By the Athenian garment be had on?
• And so far blameless proves my enterprise,
• That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;
• And so far am I glad it so did sort
• As this their jangling I esteem a sport.
• OBERON
• Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight:
• Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
• The starry welkin cover thou anon
• With drooping fog as black as Acheron,
• And lead these testy rivals so astray
• As one come not within another's way.
• Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
• Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
• And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
• And from each other look thou lead them thus,
• Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
• With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:
• Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
• Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
• To take from thence all error with his might,
• And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
• When they next wake, all this derision
• Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,
• And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
• With league whose date till death shall never end.
• Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
• I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;
• And then I will her charmed eye release
• From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.
• PUCK
• My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
• For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
• And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
• At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
• Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,
• That in crossways and floods have burial,
• Already to their wormy beds are gone;
• For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
• They willfully themselves exile from light
• And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.
• OBERON
• But we are spirits of another sort:
• I with the morning's love have oft made sport,
• And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
• Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
• Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
• Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.
• But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:
• We may effect this business yet ere day.
• Exit
• PUCK
• Up and down, up and down,
• I will lead them up and down:
• I am fear'd in field and town:
• Goblin, lead them up and down.
• Here comes one.
• Re-enter LYSANDER
• LYSANDER
• Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now.
• PUCK
• Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou?
• LYSANDER
• I will be with thee straight.
• PUCK
• Follow me, then,
• To plainer ground.
• Exit LYSANDER, as following the voice
• Re-enter DEMETRIUS
• DEMETRIUS
• Lysander! speak again:
• Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
• Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
• PUCK
• Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
• Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
• And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child;
• I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled
• That draws a sword on thee.
• DEMETRIUS
• Yea, art thou there?
• PUCK
• Follow my voice: we'll try no manhood here.
• Exeunt
• Re-enter LYSANDER
• LYSANDER
• He goes before me and still dares me on:
• When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
• The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I:
• I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly;
• That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
• And here will rest me.
• Lies down
• Come, thou gentle day!
• For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
• I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.
• Sleeps
• Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS
• PUCK
• Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not?
• DEMETRIUS
• Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot
• Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place,
• And darest not stand, nor look me in the face.
• Where art thou now?
• PUCK
• Come hither: I am here.
• DEMETRIUS
• Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,
• If ever I thy face by daylight see:
• Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
• To measure out my length on this cold bed.
• By day's approach look to be visited.
• Lies down and sleeps
• Re-enter HELENA
• HELENA
• O weary night, O long and tedious night,
• Abate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east,
• That I may back to Athens by daylight,
• From these that my poor company detest:
• And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
• Steal me awhile from mine own company.
• Lies down and sleeps
• PUCK
• Yet but three? Come one more;
• Two of both kinds make up four.
• Here she comes, curst and sad:
• Cupid is a knavish lad,
• Thus to make poor females mad.
• Re-enter HERMIA
• HERMIA
• Never so weary, never so in woe,
• Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,
• I can no further crawl, no further go;
• My legs can keep no pace with my desires.
• Here will I rest me till the break of day.
• Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!
• Lies down and sleeps
• PUCK
• On the ground
• Sleep sound:
• I'll apply
• To your eye,
• Gentle lover, remedy.
• Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER's eyes
• When thou wakest,
• Thou takest
• True delight
• In the sight
• Of thy former lady's eye:
• And the country proverb known,
• That every man should take his own,
• In your waking shall be shown:
• Jack shall have Jill;
• Nought shall go ill;
• 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
• Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
• While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
• And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
• And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
• BOTTOM
• Where's Peaseblossom?
• PEASEBLOSSOM
• Ready.
• BOTTOM
• Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Monsieur Cobweb?
• COBWEB
• Ready.
• BOTTOM
• Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get you your
• weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped
• humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
• monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret
• yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and,
• good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;
• I would be loath to have you overflown with a
• honey-bag, signior. Where's Monsieur Mustardseed?
• MUSTARDSEED
• Ready.
• BOTTOM
• Give me your neaf, Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,
• leave your courtesy, good monsieur.
• MUSTARDSEED
• What's your Will?
• BOTTOM
• Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb
• to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for
• methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I
• am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,
• I must scratch.
• TITANIA
• What, wilt thou hear some music,
• my sweet love?
• BOTTOM
• I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have
• the tongs and the bones.
• TITANIA
• Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
• BOTTOM
• Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good
• dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle
• of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
• TITANIA
• I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
• The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
• BOTTOM
• I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.
• But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I
• have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
• TITANIA
• Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
• Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.
• Exeunt fairies
• So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
• Gently entwist; the female ivy so
• Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
• O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!
• They sleep
• Enter PUCK
• OBERON
• (Advancing) Welcome, good Robin.
• See'st thou this sweet sight?
• Her dotage now I do begin to pity:
• For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
• Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,
• I did upbraid her and fall out with her;
• For she his hairy temples then had rounded
• With a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
• And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
• Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
• Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes
• Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
• When I had at my pleasure taunted her
• And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,
• I then did ask of her her changeling child;
• Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
• To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
• And now I have the boy, I will undo
• This hateful imperfection of her eyes:
• And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
• From off the head of this Athenian swain;
• That, he awaking when the other do,
• May all to Athens back again repair
• And think no more of this night's accidents
• But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
• But first I will release the fairy queen.
• Be as thou wast wont to be;
• See as thou wast wont to see:
• Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
• Hath such force and blessed power.
• Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
• TITANIA
• My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
• Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
• OBERON
• There lies your love.
• TITANIA
• How came these things to pass?
• O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
• OBERON
• Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
• Titania, music call; and strike more dead
• Than common sleep of all these five the sense.
• TITANIA
• Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!
• Music, still
• PUCK
• Now, when thou wakest, with thine
• own fool's eyes peep.
• OBERON
• Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,
• And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
• Now thou and I are new in amity,
• And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
• Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
• And bless it to all fair prosperity:
• There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
• Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
• PUCK
• Fairy king, attend, and mark:
• I do hear the morning lark.
• OBERON
• Then, my queen, in silence sad,
• Trip we after the night's shade:
• We the globe can compass soon,
• Swifter than the wandering moon.
• TITANIA
• Come, my lord, and in our flight
• Tell me how it came this night
• That I sleeping here was found
• With these mortals on the ground.
• Exeunt
• Horns winded within
• Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train
• THESEUS
• Go, one of you, find out the forester;
• For now our observation is perform'd;
• And since we have the vaward of the day,
• My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
• Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:
• Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
• Exit an Attendant
• We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
• And mark the musical confusion
• Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
• HIPPOLYTA
• I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
• When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
• With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
• Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
• The skies, the fountains, every region near
• Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
• So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
• THESEUS
• My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
• So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung
• With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
• Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
• Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
• Each under each. A cry more tuneable
• Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
• In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
• Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?
• EGEUS
• My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;
• And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;
• This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:
• I wonder of their being here together.
• THESEUS
• No doubt they rose up early to observe
• The rite of May, and hearing our intent,
• Came here in grace our solemnity.
• But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
• That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
• EGEUS
• It is, my lord.
• THESEUS
• Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
• Horns and shout within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start up
• Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:
• Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
• LYSANDER
• Pardon, my lord.
• THESEUS
• I pray you all, stand up.
• I know you two are rival enemies:
• How comes this gentle concord in the world,
• That hatred is so far from jealousy,
• To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
• LYSANDER
• My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
• Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,
• I cannot truly say how I came here;
• But, as I think,--for truly would I speak,
• And now do I bethink me, so it is,--
• I came with Hermia hither: our intent
• Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
• Without the peril of the Athenian law.
• EGEUS
• Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:
• I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
• They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,
• Thereby to have defeated you and me,
• You of your wife and me of my consent,
• Of my consent that she should be your wife.
• DEMETRIUS
• My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
• Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
• And I in fury hither follow'd them,
• Fair Helena in fancy following me.
• But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,--
• But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,
• Melted as the snow, seems to me now
• As the remembrance of an idle gaud
• Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
• And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
• The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
• Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
• Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:
• But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;
• But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
• Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
• And will for evermore be true to it.
• THESEUS
• Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
• Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
• Egeus, I will overbear your will;
• For in the temple by and by with us
• These couples shall eternally be knit:
• And, for the morning now is something worn,
• Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.
• Away with us to Athens; three and three,
• We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
• Come, Hippolyta.
• Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train
• DEMETRIUS
• These things seem small and undistinguishable,
• HERMIA
• Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
• When every thing seems double.
• HELENA
• So methinks:
• And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
• Mine own, and not mine own.
• DEMETRIUS
• Are you sure
• That we are awake? It seems to me
• That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
• The duke was here, and bid us follow him?
• HERMIA
• Yea; and my father.
• HELENA
• And Hippolyta.
• LYSANDER
• And he did bid us follow to the temple.
• DEMETRIUS
• Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him
• And by the way let us recount our dreams.
• Exeunt
• BOTTOM
• (Awaking) When my cue comes, call me, and I will
• answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
• Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
• the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
• hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
• vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
• say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
• about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there
• is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and
• methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if
• he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
• of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
• seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
• to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
• was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
• this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
• because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
• latter end of a play, before the duke:
• peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
• sing it at her death.
• Exit

Scene II: Athens. Quince's house

• Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING
• QUINCE
• Have you sent to Bottom's house ? is he come home yet?
• STARVELING
• He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is
• transported.
• FLUTE
• If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes
• not forward, doth it?
• QUINCE
• It is not possible: you have not a man in all
• Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.
• FLUTE
• No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft
• man in Athens.
• QUINCE
• Yea and the best person too; and he is a very
• paramour for a sweet voice.
• FLUTE
• You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us,
• a thing of naught.
• Enter SNUG
• SNUG
• Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and
• there is two or three lords and ladies more married:
• if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made
• men.
• FLUTE
• O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a
• day during his life; he could not have 'scaped
• sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him
• sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;
• he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in
• Pyramus, or nothing.
• Enter BOTTOM
• BOTTOM
• Where are these lads? where are these hearts?
• QUINCE
• Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!
• BOTTOM
• Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not
• what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I
• will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.
• QUINCE
• Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
• BOTTOM
• Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that
• the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together,
• good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your
• pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look
• o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our
• play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have
• clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion
• pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the
• lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions
• nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I
• do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet
• comedy. No more words: away! go, away!
• Exeunt

Act 5

Scene I: Athens. The Palace of Theseus

• Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants
• HIPPOLYTA
• 'Tis strange my Theseus, that these
• lovers speak of.
• THESEUS
• More strange than true: I never may believe
• These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
• Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
• Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
• More than cool reason ever comprehends.
• The lunatic, the lover and the poet
• Are of imagination all compact:
• One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
• That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
• Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
• The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
• Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
• And as imagination bodies forth
• The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
• Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
• A local habitation and a name.
• Such tricks hath strong imagination,
• That if it would but apprehend some joy,
• It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
• Or in the night, imagining some fear,
• How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
• HIPPOLYTA
• But all the story of the night told over,
• And all their minds transfigured so together,
• More witnesseth than fancy's images
• And grows to something of great constancy;
• But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
• THESEUS
• Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
• Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA
• Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love
• Accompany your hearts!
• LYSANDER
• More than to us
• Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
• THESEUS
• Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
• To wear away this long age of three hours
• Between our after-supper and bed-time?
• Where is our usual manager of mirth?
• What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
• To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
• Call Philostrate.
• PHILOSTRATE
• Here, mighty Theseus.
• THESEUS
• Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
• What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
• The lazy time, if not with some delight?
• PHILOSTRATE
• There is a brief how many sports are ripe:
• Make choice of which your highness will see first.
• Giving a paper
• THESEUS
• (Reads) 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
• By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
• We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
• In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
• Reads
• 'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
• Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
• That is an old device; and it was play'd
• When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
• Reads
• 'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
• Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.'
• That is some satire, keen and critical,
• Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
• Reads
• 'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
• And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'
• Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
• That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
• How shall we find the concord of this discord?
• PHILOSTRATE
• A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
• Which is as brief as I have known a play;
• But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
• Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
• There is not one word apt, one player fitted:
• And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
• For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
• Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
• Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
• The passion of loud laughter never shed.
• THESEUS
• What are they that do play it?
• PHILOSTRATE
• Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
• Which never labour'd in their minds till now,
• And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories
• With this same play, against your nuptial.
• THESEUS
• And we will hear it.
• PHILOSTRATE
• No, my noble lord;
• It is not for you: I have heard it over,
• And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
• Unless you can find sport in their intents,
• Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
• To do you service.
• THESEUS
• I will hear that play;
• For never anything can be amiss,
• When simpleness and duty tender it.
• Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
• Exit PHILOSTRATE
• HIPPOLYTA
• I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged
• And duty in his service perishing.
• THESEUS
• Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
• HIPPOLYTA
• He says they can do nothing in this kind.
• THESEUS
• The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
• Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:
• And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
• Takes it in might, not merit.
• Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
• To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
• Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
• Make periods in the midst of sentences,
• Throttle their practised accent in their fears
• And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,
• Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
• Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
• And in the modesty of fearful duty
• I read as much as from the rattling tongue
• Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
• Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
• In least speak most, to my capacity.
• Re-enter PHILOSTRATE
• PHILOSTRATE
• So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.
• THESEUS
• Let him approach.
• Flourish of trumpets
• Enter QUINCE for the Prologue
• Prologue
• If we offend, it is with our good will.
• That you should think, we come not to offend,
• But with good will. To show our simple skill,
• That is the true beginning of our end.
• Consider then we come but in despite.
• We do not come as minding to contest you,
• Our true intent is. All for your delight
• We are not here. That you should here repent you,
• The actors are at hand and by their show
• You shall know all that you are like to know.
• THESEUS
• This fellow doth not stand upon points.
• LYSANDER
• He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows
• not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not
• enough to speak, but to speak true.
• HIPPOLYTA
• Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child
• on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.
• THESEUS
• His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing
• impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?
• Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion
• Prologue
• Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
• But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
• This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
• This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.
• This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
• Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;
• And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content
• To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
• This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
• Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,
• By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
• To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
• This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
• The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
• Did scare away, or rather did affright;
• And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
• Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
• Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
• And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:
• Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
• He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;
• And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
• His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
• Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
• At large discourse, while here they do remain.
• Exeunt Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine
• THESEUS
• I wonder if the lion be to speak.
• DEMETRIUS
• No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.
• Wall
• In this same interlude it doth befall
• That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
• And such a wall, as I would have you think,
• That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
• Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
• Did whisper often very secretly.
• This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show
• That I am that same wall; the truth is so:
• And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
• Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
• THESEUS
• Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
• DEMETRIUS
• It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard
• discourse, my lord.
• Enter Pyramus
• THESEUS
• Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!
• Pyramus
• O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!
• O night, which ever art when day is not!
• O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,
• I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!
• And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
• That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!
• Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
• Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
• Wall holds up his fingers
• Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
• But what see I? No Thisby do I see.
• O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!
• Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
• THESEUS
• The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
• Pyramus
• No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'
• is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to
• spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will
• fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
• Enter Thisbe
• Thisbe
• O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
• For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
• My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,
• Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
• Pyramus
• I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
• To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!
• Thisbe
• My love thou art, my love I think.
• Pyramus
• Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;
• And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
• Thisbe
• And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
• Pyramus
• Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
• Thisbe
• As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
• Pyramus
• O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
• Thisbe
• I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
• Pyramus
• Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
• Thisbe
• 'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.
• Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe
• Wall
• Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
• And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
• Exit
• THESEUS
• Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
• DEMETRIUS
• No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear
• without warning.
• HIPPOLYTA
• This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
• THESEUS
• The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst
• are no worse, if imagination amend them.
• HIPPOLYTA
• It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
• THESEUS
• If we imagine no worse of them than they of
• themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here
• come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
• Enter Lion and Moonshine
• Lion
• You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
• The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
• May now perchance both quake and tremble here,
• When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
• Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
• A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;
• For, if I should as lion come in strife
• Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.
• THESEUS
• A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.
• DEMETRIUS
• The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.
• LYSANDER
• This lion is a very fox for his valour.
• THESEUS
• True; and a goose for his discretion.
• DEMETRIUS
• Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his
• discretion; and the fox carries the goose.
• THESEUS
• His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;
• for the goose carries not the fox. It is well:
• leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.
• Moonshine
• This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;--
• DEMETRIUS
• He should have worn the horns on his head.
• THESEUS
• He is no crescent, and his horns are
• invisible within the circumference.
• Moonshine
• This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
• Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.
• THESEUS
• This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man
• should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the
• man i' the moon?
• DEMETRIUS
• He dares not come there for the candle; for, you
• see, it is already in snuff.
• HIPPOLYTA
• I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!
• THESEUS
• It appears, by his small light of discretion, that
• he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all
• reason, we must stay the time.
• LYSANDER
• Proceed, Moon.
• Moonshine
• All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the
• lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this
• thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
• DEMETRIUS
• Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all
• these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.
• Enter Thisbe
• Thisbe
• This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?
• Lion
• (Roaring) Oh--
• Thisbe runs off
• DEMETRIUS
• Well roared, Lion.
• THESEUS
• Well run, Thisbe.
• HIPPOLYTA
• Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a
• good grace.
• The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit
• THESEUS
• Well moused, Lion.
• LYSANDER
• And so the lion vanished.
• DEMETRIUS
• And then came Pyramus.
• Enter Pyramus
• Pyramus
• Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
• I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
• For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
• I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
• But stay, O spite!
• But mark, poor knight,
• What dreadful dole is here!
• Eyes, do you see?
• How can it be?
• O dainty duck! O dear!
• Thy mantle good,
• What, stain'd with blood!
• Approach, ye Furies fell!
• O Fates, come, come,
• Cut thread and thrum;
• Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
• THESEUS
• This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would
• go near to make a man look sad.
• HIPPOLYTA
• Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
• Pyramus
• O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
• Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
• Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame
• That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd
• with cheer.
• Come, tears, confound;
• Out, sword, and wound
• The pap of Pyramus;
• Ay, that left pap,
• Where heart doth hop:
• Stabs himself
• Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
• Now am I dead,
• Now am I fled;
• My soul is in the sky:
• Tongue, lose thy light;
• Moon take thy flight:
• Exit Moonshine
• Now die, die, die, die, die.
• Dies
• DEMETRIUS
• No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.
• LYSANDER
• Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.
• THESEUS
• With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and
• prove an ass.
• HIPPOLYTA
• How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes
• back and finds her lover?
• THESEUS
• She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and
• her passion ends the play.
• Re-enter Thisbe
• HIPPOLYTA
• Methinks she should not use a long one for such a
• Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.
• DEMETRIUS
• A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which
• Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us;
• she for a woman, God bless us.
• LYSANDER
• She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
• DEMETRIUS
• And thus she means, videlicet:--
• Thisbe
• Asleep, my love?
• What, dead, my dove?
• O Pyramus, arise!
• Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
• Dead, dead? A tomb
• Must cover thy sweet eyes.
• These My lips,
• This cherry nose,
• These yellow cowslip cheeks,
• Are gone, are gone:
• Lovers, make moan:
• His eyes were green as leeks.
• O Sisters Three,
• Come, come to me,
• With hands as pale as milk;
• Lay them in gore,
• Since you have shore
• With shears his thread of silk.
• Tongue, not a word:
• Come, trusty sword;
• Come, blade, my breast imbrue:
• Stabs herself
• And, farewell, friends;
• Thus Thisby ends:
• Adieu, adieu, adieu.
• Dies
• THESEUS
• Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
• DEMETRIUS
• Ay, and Wall too.
• BOTTOM
• (Starting up) No assure you; the wall is down that
• parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the
• epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two
• of our company?
• THESEUS
• No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no
• excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all
• dead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he
• that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself
• in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine
• tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably
• discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your
• epilogue alone.
• A dance
• The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:
• Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
• I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn
• As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
• This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled
• The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
• A fortnight hold we this solemnity,
• In nightly revels and new jollity.
• Exeunt
• Enter PUCK
• PUCK
• Now the hungry lion roars,
• And the wolf behowls the moon;
• Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
• All with weary task fordone.
• Now the wasted brands do glow,
• Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
• Puts the wretch that lies in woe
• In remembrance of a shroud.
• Now it is the time of night
• That the graves all gaping wide,
• Every one lets forth his sprite,
• In the church-way paths to glide:
• And we fairies, that do run
• By the triple Hecate's team,
• From the presence of the sun,
• Following darkness like a dream,
• Now are frolic: not a mouse
• Shall disturb this hallow'd house:
• I am sent with broom before,
• To sweep the dust behind the door.
• Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train
• OBERON
• Through the house give gathering light,
• By the dead and drowsy fire:
• Every elf and fairy sprite
• Hop as light as bird from brier;
• And this ditty, after me,
• Sing, and dance it trippingly.
• TITANIA
• First, rehearse your song by rote
• To each word a warbling note:
• Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
• Will we sing, and bless this place.
• Song and dance
• OBERON
• Now, until the break of day,
• Through this house each fairy stray.
• To the best bride-bed will we,
• Which by us shall blessed be;
• And the issue there create
• Ever shall be fortunate.
• So shall all the couples three
• Ever true in loving be;
• And the blots of Nature's hand
• Shall not in their issue stand;
• Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
• Nor mark prodigious, such as are
• Despised in nativity,
• Shall upon their children be.
• With this field-dew consecrate,
• Every fairy take his gait;
• And each several chamber bless,
• Through this palace, with sweet peace;
• And the owner of it blest
• Ever shall in safety rest.
• Trip away; make no stay;
• Meet me all by break of day.
• Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train
• PUCK
• If we shadows have offended,
• Think but this, and all is mended,
• That you have but slumber'd here
• While these visions did appear.
• And this weak and idle theme,
• No more yielding but a dream,
• Gentles, do not reprehend:
• if you pardon, we will mend:
• And, as I am an honest Puck,
• If we have unearned luck
• Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
• We will make amends ere long;
• Else the Puck a liar call;
• So, good night unto you all.
• Give me your hands, if we be friends,
• And Robin shall restore amends.