tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split:

The raging rocks,

With 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. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

Flu. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
Flu. What is Thisbe ? a wandering knight?
Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

Flu. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.

Quin. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too I'll speak in a monstrous little voice :-Thisne, Thisne,-Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear ;-thy Thisbe dear! and-lady dear! Quin. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisbe.

Bot. Well, proceed.

Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor.

Star. Here, Peter Quince.

[Sulkily.

Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe's mother.Tom Snout, the tinker.

Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

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

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

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

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

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

All. Every mother's son.

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

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

Bot. Well, I will undertake it.

Quin. Here, masters, are your parts: and I am to intreat 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 dogg'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu. Quin. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bot. Enough. [The rest are hurrying to get out past him: he stops them, to pass before them.] Hold, or cut bowstrings.

31

[Exeunt.

SCENE 2.-A WOOD NEAR ATHENS. There is a hillock at C., beside a stream of water. Low, flower-covered rocks and banks are R. and L., near the front.

Enter a FAIRY, plucking flowers. With her wand she switches at a mushroom-growth near C., and from it PUCK appears.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fai. I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.

I must go seck some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl on every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone;
Our queen and all her clves come here anon.

[Plucking flowers.

Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night;

Take heed, the queen come not within his sight,

For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild :
But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,

Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,

Call'd Robin Goodfellow; are you not he,

That frights the maidens of the villagery;
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,
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 beneath, down topples she,

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and swear

A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But room, Faery, here comes Oberon.

[Looking to the R. Fai. [Looking off L.] And here my mistress :-Would that he were gone!

OBERON and his train enter quite quickly from the R., but

beholding the others, who appear at the L., he draws back and holds aloof for a moment until TITANIA enters, with her attendant fairies, who carry a canopy covering the Indian child, reclining on a silver couch.`

Obe. [Advancing.] Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. Tita. [Startled, and staying her train by a gesture.] What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence. [They make a move, all to the L., as if to fly.] I have forsworn his bed and company.

Obc. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
Tita. Why art thou here

Come from the farthest steep of India ?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskined lady and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
To give their union joy and prosperity.

Obe. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolita,

Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,

To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Obe. Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy,

To be my henchman.

[He advances to the canopy. At a gesture from TITANIA the curtains are closed.

Tita.

Set your heart at rest,

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

[OBERON orders his attendants to advance, and he dashes
toward the couch to seize the child. He tears aside the
curtains, and finds that it has disappeared.

Tita. 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;
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.

[Motions to the attendants, who carry the canopy away. Obc. How long within this wood intend you stay? Tita. Perchance, till after Theseus' wedding-day.

If you will patiently dance in our round,

And see our moonlight revels, go with us;

If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
Tita. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away:

We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.

[Exeunt TITANIA and her Train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove,

Till I torment thee for this injury:

My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st

Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,.
To hear the sea-maid's music.

Obe. That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not,)