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, stolen 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 sheent,
But they do square; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there.

Fal. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,

Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Good-fellow; are you not he,
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 barm;
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 Jurk 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,

A term of contempt.
Quarrel.

§ Mill.

+ Shining.

And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
And waxen in their aiirth, 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 Æglé 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 beached 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
Contagious 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,

Petty.

VOL. I.

+ Banks which contain them.

Ggg

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 childing 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 evil comes

From our debate, from our dissention;

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,
Full often hath she gossipp'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 and with swimming gait,
(Following her womb, then rich with my young
'squire,)

Would imitate; and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandize.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;

A game played at by boys.

+Autumn producing flowers unseasonably.
Produce.

Page.

And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy :
And, for her sake, I will not part with him.

Obe. How long within this wood intend you stay? Tita. Perchance, till after Theseus' wedding-day. If you will patiently dance in our round, And see our moon-light revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. Tita. Not for thy kingdom.-Fairies, away: We shall chide down-right, if I longer stay."

[Exeunt Titania and her Train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this

grove,

Till I torment thee for this injury.

My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

Puck. I remember.

Obe. That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not,) Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal, throned by the west;

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
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 shew'd thee once,
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid,
Will make or 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:

Exempt from love..

[Exit Puck.

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.

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.

Thou 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 iron, 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;

• Mad, raving.

+ Bring in question.