The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, ob, methinks, how slow
T is old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man's revenue.
Ilip. Four days will quickly steep themselves
in nights;

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
Df our solemnities.

The.
Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
A wake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals-

The pale companion is not for our pomp. [Exit PHIL.
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.

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.

The. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair
maid;

To you your father should be as a god;
One that compos'd 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.
Her. So is Lysander.

The.

In himself he is:

But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,

The other must be held the worthier.

Hler. I would my father look'd but with my eyes. The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.

Her. I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty,
In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace that
may know

The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

The. 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.

Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;

Or on Diana's alter to protest,

For aye, austerity and single life.

Swift as a sha ow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the colied 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.

Her. 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 sighe Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers.

Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me Hermia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child;

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

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

Ege. Scornful Lysander! true, he bath 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.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd 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 belov'd 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!

The. I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;

But being over-full of self-affairs,

My mind did lose it.-But, Demetrius, come
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, Egrus, go along:

I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial; and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
Ege With duty and desire, we follow you.
[Exeunt THES., HIP., EGE., DEM., and train.
Lys How now, my love? Why is your cheek
so pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Her. Belike for want of rain; which I could well Between them from the tempest of mine eyes.

Lys. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. Bur, either it was different in blood;—

Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low! Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years;Her. O spite! too old to be engig'd to young! Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends; Her O hell! to choose love by another's eye! Lys Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it; Making it monetary as a sound,

And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the shirp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us: If thou lov'st 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.

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 lɔves
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen
When the fal-e Trojan under sail was seen;
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever woman spoke ;-
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee!
Lys Keep promise, love; look, here comes
Helena.

Enter HELENA.

Her. God speed fair Helena! Whither away? Hel Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. Demetrios loves you fair; O happy fair! Your eyes are load-stars; and your tongue's sweet

air

More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear!
Sickness is catching; 0, were favour so
(Your words 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'll give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look; and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move!

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
Hel. Th more I love, the more he hateth me.
Her His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
Hel. None. But your beauty; would that fault

O then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
Lys Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night when Pi cebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal),
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
Her. 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
[Ex HER.
Lys I will, my Hermia! - Helena, adieu:
As you on him, Demetrius dote on yon!

(Exit. Lys.

Hel. 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, holding 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 judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes, figure unneedy haste:
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjur'd everywhere:
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. The same. A Room in a Cottage

Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.

Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.

Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love.

Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest:-Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. The raging rocks, And shivering shocks, Shall break the locks

Of prison-gates; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far,

And make an 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. You must take Thisby on you,

Fu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Fiu. 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 This by too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;"Thisne, Thisne,-Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!"

Quin No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you, Thisby.

Bot. Well, proceed.

Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor.
Star. Here, Pe er Quince.

Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's nother.-Tom Shout, the tinker.

Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father; Soug, 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, it 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

and STARVELING.

Quin. Is all our company here? Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

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

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors, and so grow on to a point.

Quin. Marry, our play i-The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and This by.

Bot. A very good piece of work I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, ca 1 forth your actors by the scroll: Masters, spread your selves.

Quin. Answer, as I call you.-Nick Bottom, the weaver.

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 wou'd 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't were any nightingale.

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

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

Quin Why, what you will.

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

Quin. 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 moon

SCENE I.-A Wood near Athens.

light; there we will 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 bill of properties such as our play wan's. I pray you fail me not.

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehears more obscenely and courageously. Take pains be perfect; adieu. Quin At the duke's oak we meet. Bot. Enough. Hold, or cut bow-strings.

Enter a FAIRY on one side and PUCK on the other.

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

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

Thorough Bood, 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 pensionera 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:
Ad jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:
Bu. she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her
jov:

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.

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;
Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern;
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barın;
Mi-lead 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:

[Exeunt

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 loffe
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there-
But room, Fairy, here comes Oberon.

Fui. And here my mistress-Would that he were gone!

SCENE II.- Enter OBERON on one side, with his train, and TITANIA on the other, with hers.

Obe. Il 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 f Tita. Then I must be thy lady: But I know When thou hast stolen away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day, Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love To amorous Phillada. 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

From Perigenia, whom he ravished ?

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, pipio g to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, fa ling in the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents
The ox hath therefore s'retch'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 farted with the murrain flock,
The nine men's morris is fi I'd up with mud;
And the quaint maz s 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 bless'd:
Therefore, the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature. we see

The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hymens' 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 come
From our debate, from our dissension;-
We are their parents and original.

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

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 th' embarked traders on the flood;
When we have laughed 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, 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' we ding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round.
And see our moonlight reve's, 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. 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 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' 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 berb I show'd thee once; The juice of it on sleeping eyelids 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 as 'eep,
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 overhear their conference.

Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him.

Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander, and fair Herinia? The one I'll stay, the other stayeth me. Thou tolds't me, they were stol'n into this wood, And here am I, and wood within this wood, Because I cannot meet my 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 teel: 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 1 cannot love you?

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?

Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my 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 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.

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 mila 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.