Egeus.

With duty and desire we follow you. [Exeunt Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, Demetrius, and train.

Lysander.

How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale ?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Hermia.

Belike, for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes. Lysander.

Ah me! for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,

Hermia.

O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low ! Lysander.

Or else misgraffed, in respect of years ;Hermia.

O spite! too old to be engag'd to young!

Lysander.

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends: -
Hermia.

O hell! to choose love by another's eyes!
Lysander.

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied 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.
Hermia.

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 sighs, Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers. Lysander.

[mia.

A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, HerI have a widow aunt, a dowager 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 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.

Hermia.

More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

Sickness is catching; O, 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.
Hermia.

I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
O then, what graces in my love do dwell,
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:

That he hath turn'd a heaven into hell!'
Lysander.

Helen, to you our minds we will unfold.
To-morrow night when Phoebe doth behold
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass.
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,)
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
Hermia.

And in the wood, where often you and 1 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 play fellow: pray thou for us, And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius! -Keep word, Lysunder: we must starve our sight

From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight. [Exit Hermia.

Lysander.

I will, my Hermia. — Helena, adieu : As you on him, Demetrius dote on you. [Exit Lysander.

Helena.

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;

And

Quince.

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, gentlemanlike man; therefore, you must needs play Pyramus.

Bottom.

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

Quince. Why, what you will.

Bottom.

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.

Quince.

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 en. treat 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, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.

Bottom.

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.

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 dew-lap 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;

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Wood near Athens. Enter a Fairy and Puck from opposite sides.

Puck.

HOW now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fairy.
Over hill, over dale,

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

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
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.

laugh,

[swear And waxen in their mirth, and sneeze, and A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But room, Fairy: here comes Oberon.

Titania.

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, 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. Oberon.

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 From Perigenia, whom he ravished? [night And make him with fair Eglé break his faith, With Ariadne, and Antiopa ?

Titania.