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 strawcolour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purplein-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. 85 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 mean time I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not. 94 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. 97 Bot. Enough; hold or cut bow-strings. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I. A wood near Athens. Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK. Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you ? Over hill, over dale, Fai. Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander every where, In those freckles live their savours. 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, 20 Because that she as her attendant hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; 25 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, 30 Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, 35 Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Puck. Thou speak'st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night. 45 And when she drinks, against her lips I bob 50 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. 55 Fai. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone! Enter, from one side, OBERON with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers. 60 Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. Tita. What, jealous Oberon! - Fairies, skip hence: I have forsworn his bed and company. 65 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, Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the farthest steppe 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? 70 75 Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night From Perigenia, whom he ravished? And make him with fair Egle break his faith, Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy: 80 Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, 85 90 95 100 105 110 |