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,
In your waking shall be shown:
Jack shall have Jill;

Nought shall go ill;

The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well [Exit PUCK.-DEM. HEL. &c. sleep.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-The same.

Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM, Fairies attending; OBERON behind unseen.

Tita. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,"

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

Bot. Where's Peas-blossom?

Peas. Ready.

Bot. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom.-Where's monsieur Cobweb?

Cob. Ready.

Bot. Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loth to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior.-Where's monsieur Mustard-seed? Must. Ready.

V

Bot. Give me your neif, monsieur Mustard-seed: Pray leave your courtesy, good monsieur.

you,

Must. What's your will?

Bot. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help cavalero Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur ; for, methinks, I am marvellous hairy about the face: and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.

Tita. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love? Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music: let us have the tongs and the bones."

[Music tongs, rural music. Tita. Or, say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat. Bot. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks, I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow. Tita. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

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 exposition of sleep come upon me.

Tita. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.

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!

[They sleep.

Cobweb-] It is evident that we ought to read cavalero Peas-blossom; for Cobweb has just been dismissed on a perilous adventure.-GREY. y the tongs and the bones.] What is commonly called rough musicplayed upon the fire-tongs by striking them with a bone or sometimes with a key.

a bottle of hay:] The old phrase for a truss of hay: hence the proverbial expression of seeking a needle in a bottle of hay.

a So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle, gently entwist,-] The woodbine is the blue bind-weed: in many of our counties the woodbine is still the name for the great convolvolus. If the reader will turn to the variorum Shakspeare, he will find there pages of nonsense, quotation heaped upon quotation to no purpose and these two lines of Jonson,

"How the blue bind-weed doth itself infold
"With honeysuckle."-

which give an easy and intelligible explanation of the passage, not once no-
ticed! It should be added, that Steevens and Malone, to make out even their
no-meaning, have been compelled to corrupt the text.-GIFFORD's Ben Jonson,
vol. 7. 308.

b female ivy-] So called from its always requiring some support. In the same manner Catullus says of the vine, "Ulmo conjuncta marito."-As Henly observes, in the words enrings and fingers, there is an evident reference to the ring of the marriage rite.

r

OBERON advances.

Enter PUCK.

See'st thou this sweet [sight?

Obe. Welcome, good Robin.
Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
For meeting her of late, behind the wood,
Seeking sweet savours for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her, and fall out with her:
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flourets' eyes,
Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.
When I had, at my pleasure, taunted her,
And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience,
I then did ask of her her changeling child;
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
And now I have the boy, I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
From off the head of this Athenian swain;
That he awaking when the other do,
May all to Athens back again repair;
And think no more of this night's accidents,
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
But first I will release the fairy queen.
Be, as thou wast wont to be;

[Touching her eyes with an herb.

See, as thou wast wont to see:

Dian's budd o'er Cupid's flower

Hath such force and blessed power.

Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
Tita. My Oberon! what visions have I seen!

Methought, I was enamour'd of an ass.

Obe. There lies your love.

Tita.

How came these things to pass?

O, how mine eyes do loath his visage now!

eyes,] Eye is the technical term for the centre of the flower.-STEEVENS. d Dian's-bud-] i. e. The agnus castus, "the virtue of which is that it will keep either man or woman chaste."-Macer's Herbal. Cupid's flower is the viola tricolor, or the love in idleness, by the juice of which Titania's vision had been perverted.