Her. O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom! You thief of love! what! have you come by night And stol'n my love's heart from him? Hel. 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! Her. Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the game. Now I perceive that she hath made compare 290 300 Hel. 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, 310 I told him of your stealth unto this wood. Her. Why, get you gone. Who is 't that hinders you? Hel. A foolish heart, that I leave here behind. With Demetrius. 320 Lys. Be not afraid she shall not harm thee, Helena. Dem. No, sir; she shall not, though you take her part. Hel. O! when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd. She was a vixen when she went to school: 'little'! 350 Obe. This is thy negligence: still thou mistak'st, 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 garments he 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. Obe. Thou seest 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, 380 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, 370 For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all, 390 I with the morning's love have oft made sport; Puck. Here, villain! drawn and ready. Where Here will I rest me till the break of day. Lys. I will be with thee straight. To plainer ground. Dem. Follow me, then, Puck. On the ground Sleep sound: Exit LYSANDER as following the voice. Re-enter 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 Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, Lys. He goes before me and still dares me on; Lies down. Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS. Puck. Ho! ho! ho! Coward, why com'st thou not? Dem. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place, And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face. Where art thou now? Puck. I'll apply To your eye, Gentle lover, remedy. 450 Squeezes the juice on LYSANDER's eyes. When thou wak'st, Thou tak'st True delight In the sight Of thy former lady's eye: And the country proverb known, That every man should take his own, The man shall have his mare again, ACT IV. SCENE I.-A Wood. 460 Exit. Bot. Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle ; Come hither: I am here.and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Dem. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt Do not fret yourself too much in the action, buy this dear, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not: I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustard-seed? Re-enter HELENA. From these that my poor company detest: Lies down and sleeps. Thus to make poor females mad. Re-enter HERMIA. 440 Her. Never so weary, never so in woe, Tita. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts. 50 60 Her dotage now I do begin to pity; Be as thou wast wont to be; See as thou wast wont to see: Hath such force and blessed power. 70 Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen. Tita. 80 How came these things to pass? O! how mine eyes do loathe his visage now. Obe. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head. Titania, music call; and strike more dead Than common sleep of all these five the sense. Tita. Music, ho! music! such as charmeth sleep. Music. Puck. Now, when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep. Obe. Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me, 90 And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Obe. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and The. Go, one of you, find out the forester; We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, And mark the musical confusion Of hounds and echo in conjunction. Hip. 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. 111 120 The. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER, HERMIA, and HELENA, wake and start up. Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Lys. Pardon, my lord. The. He and the rest kneel to THESEUS. I came with Hermia hither: our intent Ege. Enough, enough, my lord; you have | if he will offer to say what methought I had. enough: I beg the law, the law, upon his head. 160 Thereby to have defeated you and me; Of this their purpose hither, to this wood; But, my good lord, I wot not by what power, But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food; 170 The. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: 180 For in the temple, by and by, with us And, for the morning now is something worn, Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train. Dem. These things seem small and undistinguishable, 190 Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. And Hippolyta. Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple. Dem. Why then, we are awake. Let's follow him; And by the way let us recount our dreams. 201 Exeunt. Bot. Araking. 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 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. 224 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. Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts? Quin. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour! 29 Bot. 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. Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom. Bot. 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 pare 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. 47 SCENE I.-Athens. ACT V. An Apartment in the Palace of THESEUS. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords, and Attendants. Hip. "Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. The. More strange than true: I never may believe These antick fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. 61 Which is as brief as I have known a play; 70 Which never labour'd in their minds till now, Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing|With this same play, against your nuptial. A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, 20 Hip. But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigur'd so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images, And grows to something of great constancy, But, howsoever, strange and admirable. The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love More than to us 30 Lys. To wear away this long age of three hours Phil. Here, mighty Theseus. The. Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? 41 What masque, what music? How shall we beguile 50 The. And we will hear it. No, my noble lord; 81 The. I will hear that play; For never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it. Go, bring them in and take your places, ladies. Exit PHILOSTRATE. Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing. The. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing. Hip. He says they can do nothing in this kind. The. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. Our sport shall be to take what they mistake: 90 Where I have come, great clerks have purposed I read as much as from the rattling tongue Re-enter PHILOSTRATE. Phil. So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd. The. Let him approach. Flourish of trumpets. |