SCENE I.- Athens. Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, fairies. Other fairies attending their King and Queen. Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE - Athens, and a wood near it. [For an Analysis of the Plot of this Play, see Page XLVII.] ACT The palace of Theseus. Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, and Attendants. The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Long withering out a young man's revenue. [night; Go, Philostrate, The. 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. Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke! The. Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee? Ege. 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: I. With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, The. What say you, Hermia? be advised, fair maid: The. Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes. The. Either to die the death or to abjure Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Ere I will yield my virgin patent up Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield 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 hath my love, Lys. I am, my lord, as well derived as he, And, which is more than all these boasts can be, Why should not I then prosecute my right? 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; I must employ you in some business [Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia. Lys. 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; Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low. Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict in destiny: As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Lys. A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, I have a widow aunt, a dowager [Hermia. 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. Her. My good Lysander! I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, By all the vows that ever men have broke, [ena. [air Her. God speed fair Helena! whither away? Hel. 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 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'ld 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. The more I love, the more he hateth me. Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. [mine! Hel. None, but your beauty: would that fault were Her. 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! Lys, Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, Her. And in the wood, where often you and I [Exit Herm. Helena, adieu: As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [Exit. 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; Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, To have his sight thither and back again. SCENE II.- Athens. Quince's house. [Exit. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Quin. Flute, you must take Thisby on you. 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 Thisby 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, Peter Quince. Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. Snout. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. 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 Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. 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 to a point. Quin. Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. Bot. 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 your selves. 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 't were 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. What beard were I best to play it in? Quin. Why, what you will. Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-ingrain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. 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. 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; hold or cut bow-strings. [Exeunt. 135 ACT SCENE I.-A wood near Athens. Thorough bush, thorough brier, Thorough flood, thorough fire, Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite. 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. [gone! Fai. And here my mistress. Would that he were Enter, from one side, Oberon, with his train; from the other, Titania, with hers. Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. Tita. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, 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 stolen away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day, II. Playing on pipes of corn and versing love Obe. How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, And make him with fair Ægle break his faith, Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy: We are their parents and original. Obe. Do you amend it then; it lies in you: Tita. If you will patiently dance in our round 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. [Exit Titania with her train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this Till I torment thee for this injury. [grove 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. Obe. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league. 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 from off her sight, I'll make her render up her page to me. [Exit. Enter Demetrius, Helena following him. Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood; Dem. Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? Hel. And even for that do I love you the more. What worser place can I beg in your love,- 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 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. 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, I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, [Exit. Obe. Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love. [grove, Re-enter Puck. Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. I pray thee, give it me. Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; So. SCENE II.-Another part of the wood. Enter Titania, with her train. Tita. 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. |