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

Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

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

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

All. That would hang us every mother's son. Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will 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

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

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

Quin. Why, what you will.

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

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

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

Bot. Enough: Hold, or cut bow-strings. 7 [Exeunt.

ACT II.

Enter a Fairy at one door, and Puck at another.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs 2
the green:
upon
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone;
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night;
Take heed, the queen come not within his sight,
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:
But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy:
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen *,
But they do square; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite, Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he, That fright the maidens of the villagery;

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I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a silly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab ';
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her, and down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there. →→
But room, Fairy, here comes Oberon.

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

SCENE II.

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

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

Obe. Tarry, rash wanton: Am not I thy lord? Tita. Then I must be thy lady: But I know When thou hast stol'n away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day,

6 Articles required in performing a play. 7 At all events.

3 A term of contempt.

9 Yeast.

& Mill. Wild apple.

Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress, and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Obe. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night,

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

Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy :
And never since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents 3:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable:
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest :
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatick diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyem's chin, and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.

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Obe. Do you amend it then; it lies in you: Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy, To be my henchman. 6

Tita.

Set your heart at rest, The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a vot'ress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side; And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy; And, for her sake, I will not part with him. Obe. How long within this wood intend you stay? Tita. Perchance, till after Theseus' wedding-day.

2 Petty.

;

3 Banks which contain them. 4 Holes made for a game played by boys. 5 Autumn producing flowers unseasonably.

6 Page.

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

Puck.
I remember.
Obe. That very time I saw, but thou could'st not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: A certain aim he took

At a fair vestal, throned by the west;

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

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

It fell upon a little western flower,
Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound-
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once :
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again,
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league.

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

Obe.

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

Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him.
Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander, and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me they were stolen into this wood,
And here am I, and wood 7 within this wood,
Because I cannot meet with Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart

Is true as steel: Leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you.

Dem. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather, do I not in plainest truth

Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?

7 Raving mad.

ANA

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Hel. 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?

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 III.

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Another part of the Wood.

Enter TITANIA, with her train.

Tita. Come, now a roundel 3, and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;

Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;

spirit ;

For I am sick, when I do look on thee.

Hel. And I am sick, when I look not on you. Dem. You do impeach 8 your modesty too much, To leave the city, and commit yourself Into the hands of one that loves you not.

Hel. 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? Dem. I'll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes,

And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you. Run when you will, the story shall be chang'd; 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.

Dem. 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.

Hel. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fye, Demetrius !
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex!
We cannot fight for love, as men may do ;

We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.
I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon 9 the hand I love so well.

[Exeunt DEM. and HEL. Obe. 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.

Obe. I pray thee, give it me. I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where ox-lips' and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania, some time 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

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Some, war with rear-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.

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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. Her. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed, For I upon this bank will rest my head. 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! Lys. 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! Her. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd! [They sleep.

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