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SCENE I. A Wood near Athens.

Enter a Fairy at one Door, and Puck at another.
Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

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

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones 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.
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:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
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.

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 be,
That fright 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 harm;
Mislead 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 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;

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, Faery, here comes Oberon.
Fai. And here my mistress :-Would that he
were gone!

SCENE II.

Enter Oberon, at one Door, with his Train, and Titania, at another, 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?
Tita. 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.

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 Egle 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 beachy 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, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagions fogs; which, falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'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 fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;
And the quaint mazes 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 blest:-
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 Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: The spring, the summer,
The chiding 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 comes
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,
Fall often hath she gossip'd by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood;
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,
And grow big-bellied, with the wanton wind:
Which she, with pretty aud with swimming gait,
(Following her womb, then rich with my young

'squire,)

Puck.

I remember.

Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon? And the imperial vot'ress 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 herb I show'd thee once;
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make a 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.

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 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 over-hear their conference.

[Exit.

Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.
Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thon told'st me, they were stol'n into this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood,
Because I cannot meet with Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not fron, for my heart
Is true as steel: 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 I 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 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,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:
We cannot fight for love, as men may do:
We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.
I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.

[Exeunt Dem. and Hel. Obe. Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,

Thou shalt fly him, and be shall seek thy love.

Obe.

Re-enter Pack.

Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
Puck. Ay, there it is.
I pray thee, give it me.
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skín,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.

Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
But do it, when the next thing he espies
May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care; that he may prove
More fond on her, than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
Puck. Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III. 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 rear-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.

SONG.

1 Fai. You spotted snakes, with double tongue, Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen; Newts, and blind worms, do no wrong; Come not near our fairy queen:

Chorus. Philomel, with melody,

Sing in our sweet lullaby;

Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm, nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;

So, good night, with lullaby.

II.

2 Fai. Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence:
Beetles black, approach not near:
Worm, nor snail, do no offence.
Chorns. Philomel, with melody, &c.

2 Fai. Hence, away; now all is well:
One, aloof, stand sentinel.

[Exeunt Fairies. Titania sleeps. Enter Oberon.

Obe. What thou seest when thou dost wake,
[Squeezes the Flower on Titania's Eyelids.

Do it for thy true love take;
Love, and languish for his sake:
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak'st, it is thy dear:
Wake, when some vile thing is near.

Enter Lysander and Hermia.

[Exit.

Lys. Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;

And, to speak truth, I have forgot our way;
We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
Her. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.

Lys. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
Her. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.

Lys. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence: Love takes the meaning, in love's conference. I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit, So that but one heart we can make of it: Two bosoms interchained with an oath; So then, two bosoms, and a single troth. Then, by your side no bed-room me deny; For, lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.

Enter Puck.

Puck. Through the forest have I gone,
But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower's force in stirring love.
Night and silence! who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;

And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie

Near this lack-love, kill courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw

All the power this charm doth owe:
When thou wak'st, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
So awake, when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.

sake.

[Waking. Transparent Helena! Nature here shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart. Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word Is that vile name, to perish on my sword! Hel. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so: What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.

Lys. Content with Hermia? No: I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia, but Helena I love :
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
The will of man is by his reason sway'd;
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season:
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
And leads me to your eyes; where I o'erlook
Love's stories written in love's richest book.
Hel. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When, at your hands, did I deserve this scorn?
Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can,
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare you well: perforce I must confess,
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.

O, that a lady, of one man refus'd,
Should, of another, therefore be abus'd!

[Exit.

Lys. She sees not Hermia :-Hermia, sleep thou there;

And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings;
Or, as the heresies, that men do leave,
Are hated most of those they did deceive;
So thou, my surfeit, and my heresy,
Of all be hated; but the most of me!
And all my powers, address your love and might,
To honour Helen, and to be her knight ! (Exit.
Her. [Starting.] Help me, Lysander, help me!
do thy best,

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ah me, for pity!-what a dream was here!
Lysander, look, how I do quake with fear:
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey:-
Lysander! what, remov'd? Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? speak, an if you hear;
Speak, of all loves; I swoon almost with fear.
No?-then I well perceive you are not nigh:
Either death, or you, I'll find immediately. [Exit.

Quin. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal: this green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tyring house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the duke.

Bot. Peter Quince,

Quin. What sayst thou, bully Bottom?

Bot. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby, that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

Snout. By'rlakin, a parlous fear.

Star. I believe, we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

Bot. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue: and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords; and that Pyramus is not killed indeed, and for the more better assurance, tell them, that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear.

Quin. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.

Bot. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion ?
Star. I fear it, I promise you.

selves: to bring in, God shield us! a lion among Bot. Masters, you ought to consider with yourladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion, living; and we ought to look to it.

Snout. Therefore, another prologue must tell be is not a lion.

Bot. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,-Ladies, or fair ladies, I would wish you, or, I would request you, or I would entreat you, not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no, I am no such thing; I am a man as his name; and tell them plainly, he is Snug the other men are:-and there, indeed, let him name joiner.

Quin. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber: for you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.

Snug. Doth the moon shine, that night we play our play?

Bot. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanack; find out moonshine, find out moonshine. Quin. Yes, it doth shine that night.

Bot. Why, then you may leave a casement of the

Puck. My mistress with a monster is in love.
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play,
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
Forsook his scene, and enter'd in a brake:
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's now! I fixed on his head;
Anon, his Thisbe must be answered,

And forth my mimic comes: when they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report

Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky;
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly:

And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;
He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.
Their sense, thus weak, lost with their fears, thus
strong,

Made senseless things begin to do them wrong:
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
Some, sleeves; some, hats: from yielders all things.

catch.

I led them on in this distracted fear,
And left sweet Pyramus translated there :
When in that moment (so it came to pass,)
Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.

Obe. This falls out better than I could devise.
But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes
With the love-juice, as I bid thee do?

Puck. I took him sleeping.-that is finish'd too,-And the Athenian woman by his side; That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey❜d. Enter Demetrius and Hermia.

Obe. Stand close; this is the same Athenian. Puck. This the woman, but not this the man. Dem. O, why rebuke you him that loves yon so? Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

Her. Now I but chide, but I should use thee

worse;

For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
And kill me too.

The sun was not so true unto the day,
As he to me: Would he have stol'n away
From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon,
This whole earth may be bor'd; and that the moon
May through the centre creep, and so displease
Her brother's noon-tide with the Antipodes.
It cannot be, but thou hast murder'd him;
So should a murderer look; so dead, so grim.

Dem. So should the murder'd look; and so should I,

Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty:
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.

Her. What's this to my Lysander! where is he? Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?

Dem. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.

Obe. What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite,

And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight: Of thy misprision must perforce ensue

Some true-love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true. Puck. Then fate o'er-rules; that, one man holding

troth,

A million fail, confounding oath on oath.

Obe. About the wood go swifter than the wind, And Helena of Athens look thou find :

All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer

With sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear:
By some illusion see thou bring her here;
I'll charm his eyes, against she do appear.
Puck. I go, I go; look, how I go;

Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.
Obe. Flower of this purple die,
Hit with Cupid's archery,
Sink in apple of his eye!
When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously
As the Venus of the sky.-
When thou wak'st, if she be by,
Beg of her for remedy.

Re-enter Puck.

Puck. Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand;

And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee;

Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!

[Exit.

Obe. Stand aside the noise they make,

Will cause Demetrius to awake.

Puck. Then will two, at once, woo one;
That must needs be sport alone;
And those things do best please me,
That befall preposterously.

Enter Lysander and Helena.

Lys. Why should you think, that I should woo in

scorn?

Scorn and derision never come in tears:
Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
In their nativity all truth appears.

How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true!

Hel. You do advance your cunning more and more.
When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray !
These vows are Hermia's; Will you give her o'er?
Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh;
Your vows, to her and me, put in two scales,
Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.

Lys. I had no judgment, when to her I swore. Hel. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er. Lys. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you. Dem. [Awaking.] O Helen, goddess, nymph, per

fect divine!

the bounds

Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him then?
Henceforth be never namber'd among men !
O! once tell true, tell true, even for my sake;
Durst thou have look'd upon him, being awake,
And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch;
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
An adder did it for with doubler tongue
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
Dem. You spend your passion on a mispris'd

mood:

I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.

Her. I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
Dem. An if I could, what should I get therefore?
Her. A privilege, never to see me more.-
And from thy hated presence part I so:
See me no more, whether he be dead or no. [Exit.
Dem. There is no following her in this fierce vein :
Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.
So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow
For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;
Which now, in some slight measure it will pay,
If for his tender here I make some stay.
[Lies down.

!

If you were civil, and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join, in souls, to mock me too?
If you were men, as men yon are in show,
You would not use a gentle lady so;
To vow, and swear and superpraise my parts,
When, I am sure, you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To conjure tears up in a poor
maid's eyes,
With your derision! none, of noble sort,
Would so offend a virgin; and extort
A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.

Lys. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;
For you love Hermia; this, you know, I know.
And here, with all good will, with all my heart,
In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;
And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
Whom I do love, and will do to my death.

Hel. Never did mockers waste more idle breath. Dem. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will nove: If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone.