NOW

Theseus.

OW fair Hippolita, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace, four happy days bring
Another moon: but oh methinks, how sow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires.
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth :
Turn melancholy forth o funerals;
The pale companion is not or our pomp.
Hippolita Iwoo'd thee with my sword,
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, wth triumph, and with revelling.

Her. I do besedt vor fi

The worst of it if

Thes. Either to de te val

For ever the society of ter

For are to be in stacy cout BERS
To live a barren sier a vo

Chanting fain, hymus i tes cor!
Thrice blessed they the mase e tut
To undergo such maider pagar
But Earthlier happy the Cust
Than that, which, withering of, tak bag
VOL. 1.

Let us wander far away
Where the nibbling flocks do stray
O'er the mountains barren breast,
Where labouring clouds do often rest,
O'er the meads with daizies py'd.
Shallow brooks and rivers wide.

Her. My good Lysander,

I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head.
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,

By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves,
By all the vows that men have ever broke,
In number more than ever women spoke,
Hermia to-morrow in the depth of night
Will meet Lysander, and attempt her flight.

SCENE. IV.

Enter HELENA.

Her, Good speed, fair Helena, whither away? Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay, Demetrius loves you,

AIR.

O Hermia fair, O bappy, happy fair,

Your eyes are load-stars, and your tongue's sweet air ;
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,

When wheat is green, when bawthorn buds appear :
O teach me how you look, and with what art

You sway the motion of your lover's beart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

Hel. Oh that your frowns would teach my smiles such

skill!

Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face, Lysander and myself will fly this place.

AIR.

Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me:

O then

O then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That be bath turn'd a beaven into a bell!

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wa'try glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
(A time that lovers flights doth still conceal)
Through Athens' gate have we devis'd to steal.
Her. And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsels sweet;
There my Lysander and myself shall meet,
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and strange companions.
Farewell, sweet play-fellow.

Lys. Helen, adieu,

As you on him, Demetrius doat on you.

[Exeunt Lys. and Her.

SCENE V.

HELENA.

I'll tell Demetrius of fair Hermia's flight; Then to the wood will he to-morrow night Pursue her; I'll at distance steal behind, His sight alone will ease my tortur'd mind. 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.

AIR.

Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind :
Nor bath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unbeedy baste,
And therefore is love said to be a child
Because in choice be often is beguil'd.

SCENE VI.

Changes to a Forest.

Enter a FAIRY at one Door, and Рuck at another.

Puck. How now, spirit, whither wander you?
Fair. Over hill, over cale,

Through bush, through briar,
Over park, over pale,

Through flood, through 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.

Puck. I must go seek some dew drops-here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear,

AIR.

Where the bee sucks, there lurk 1,

In a cowslip's hell I lie,

There I couch when owls do cry :

On the but's back I do fly

After sun-set merrily,

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Uuder the blossom that bangs on the bough.

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, and he would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild.

But make room, Fairy, here comes Oberon.

Fair. And here my mistress; would that we were gone.

Enter OBERON and his Train at one door. QUEEN and ber

Train at another.

OBERON.

I'll meet by moon-light, proud Titania.

Queen.