Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;

Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

I told him of your stealth1 unto this wood. 310
He followed you; for love I followed him;
But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back,
And follow you no farther: let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.
Her. Why, get you gone: who is 't that
hinders you?

Hel. A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.
Her. What, with Lysander?
Hel.
With Demetrius. 320
Lys. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee,
Helen.

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;
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
Her. "Little" again! nothing but "low"
and "little!"

Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.

Her. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say. [Exit.

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.]

6

351

Obe. Thou see'st 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,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong; 361
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.

9

370

11

Bot. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I have an exposition1 of sleep come upon me.

Tita. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.[Exeunt fairies. [So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist; the female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.

O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!] 50

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!

Puck. Now, when thou wak'st, with thine! own fool's eyes peep.]

[Puck takes the ass's head off Bottom, and

flies away.

Obe. Sound, music! [Soft music.] Come, my queen, take hands with me,

90

And rock the ground whereon these sleepers

be.

Now thou and I are new in amity,

And will to-morrow midnight solemnly 6
Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair posterity:

[There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.]
Puck. Fairy king, attend, and mark:
I do hear the morning lark.
Obe. Then, my queen, in silence sad,?
Trip we after the night's shade:
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wandering moon.
Tita. Come, my lord; and in our flight,
Tell me how it came this night,
That I sleeping here was found,
With these mortals, on the ground.

100