A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT’S DREAM
William
Shakespeare
Dramatis Personae
THESEUS Duke of Athens.
EGEUS father to Hermia.
LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS }
in love with Hermia.
PHILOSTRATE master of the revels to Theseus.
QUINCE
a carpenter.
SNUG a joiner.
BOTTOM a weaver.
FLUTE a bellows-mender.
SNOUT a tinker.
STARVELING a tailor.
HIPPOLYTA queen of the Amazons,
betrothed to Theseus.
HERMIA daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander.
HELENA in love with Demetrius.
OBERON king of the fairies.
TITANIA
queen of the fairies.
PUCK or Robin Goodfellow.
PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB,
MOTH, MUSTARDSEED } fairies.
Other fairies attending their King and
Queen.
Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta.
[Scene:
Athens, and a wood near it.]
Act 1
Scene 1
[Athens. The palace of THESEUS.]
[Enter
THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants]
THESEUS
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on
apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how
slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a
dowager
Long withering out a young man revenue.
HIPPOLYTA
Four days will quickly steep themselves in
night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon,
like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
THESEUS
Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to
merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy
forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our
pomp.
[Exit PHILOSTRATE]
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee
injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph and
with revelling.
[Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and
DEMETRIUS]
EGEUS
Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!
THESEUS
Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?
EGEUS
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my
child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man
hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious
duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;
Thou, thou, Lysander,
thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchanged love-tokens with my
child:
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice
verses of feigning love,
And stolen the impression of her fantasy
With
bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays,
sweetmeats, messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With
cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,
Turn'd her obedience, which is
due to me,
To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,
Be it so she;
will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the
ancient privilege of Athens,
As she is mine, I may dispose of her:
Which
shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our
law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:
To you
your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and
one
To whom you are but as a form in wax
By him imprinted and within his
power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA
So is Lysander.
THESEUS
In himself he is;
But in this kind, wanting your
father's voice,
The other
must be held the worthier.
HERMIA
I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
THESEUS
Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA
I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by
what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty,
In such a
presence here to plead my thoughts;
But I beseech your grace that I may
know
The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS
Either to die the death or to abjure
For ever the
society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
Know of
your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your
father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in
shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting
faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice-blessed they that master so
their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the
rose distill'd,
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.
HERMIA
So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I
will my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
My soul consents not
to give sovereignty.
THESEUS
Take time to pause; and, by the nest new moon --
The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,
For everlasting bond of
fellowship --
Upon that day either prepare to die
For disobedience to
your father's will,
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;
Or on Diana's
altar to protest
For
aye austerity and single life.
DEMETRIUS
Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazed title to my certain right.
LYSANDER
You have her father's love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.
EGEUS
Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,
And what
is mine my love shall render him.
And she is mine, and all my right of
her
I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER
I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
As well
possess'd; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly
rank'd,
If not with vantage, as Demetrius';
And, which is more than all
these boasts can be,
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:
Why should not I
then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love
to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady,
dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS
I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with
Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of
self-affairs,
My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus;
you shall go with me,
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you,
fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's
will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up --
Which by no means we may
extenuate --
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta:
what cheer, my love?
Demetrius and Egeus, go along:
I must employ you in
some business
Against our nuptial and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns
yourselves.
EGEUS
With duty and desire we follow
you.
[Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA]
LYSANDER
How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA
Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could
ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run
smooth;
But, either it was different in blood, --
HERMIA
O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
LYSANDER
Or else misgraffed in respect of years, --
HERMIA
O spite! too old to be engaged to young.
LYSANDER
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,
--
HERMIA
O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
LYSANDER
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War,
death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a
sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in
the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And
ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it
up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA
If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
It
stands as an edict in destiny:
Then let us teach our trial
patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and
dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.
LYSANDER
A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.
I
have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
From
Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
And she respects me as her only
son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp
Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
Steal forth thy
father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the
town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn
of May,
There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA
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,
And by
that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
When the false Troyan under sail
was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than
ever women spoke,
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER
Keep promise, love. Look, here comes
Helena.
[Enter HELENA]
HERMIA
God speed fair Helena! whither away?
HELENA
Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius
loves your fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's
sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green,
when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
Yours
would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
My ear should catch your voice, my eye
your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the
world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you
translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.
HERMIA
I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA
O that your frowns would teach my smiles such
skill!
HERMIA
I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA
O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA
The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA
The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA
None, but your beauty: would that fault were
mine!
HERMIA
Take comfort: he no more shall see my
face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did
Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
O, then, what graces in
my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
LYSANDER
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow
night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery
glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
A time that lovers'
flights doth still conceal,
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.
HERMIA
And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint
primrose-beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel
sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
And thence from Athens
turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell,
sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;
And good luck grant thee thy
Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER
I will, my Hermia.
[Exit
HERMIA]
Helena, adieu:
As you on him, Demetrius
dote on you!
[Exit]
HELENA
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;
He will not know what all but he do know:
And as he errs, doting on
Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities:
Things base and vile,
folding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks
not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted
blind:
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;
Wings and no eyes
figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in
choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves
forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured every where:
For ere Demetrius
look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
And
when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of
oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the
wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I
have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To
have his sight thither and back again.
[Exit]
Scene 2
[Athens. QUINCE'S house.]
[Enter QUINCE, SNUG,
BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING]
QUINCE
Is all our company here?
BOTTOM
You were best to call them generally, man by
man,
according to the scrip.
QUINCE
Here is the scroll of every man's name, which
is
thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our
interlude before the
duke and the duchess, on his
wedding-day at night.
BOTTOM
First, good Peter Quince, say what the play
treats
on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow
to a point.
QUINCE
Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy,
and
most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.
BOTTOM
A very good piece of work, I assure you, and
a
merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your
actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
QUINCE
Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOTTOM
Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUINCE
You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM
What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?
QUINCE
A lover, that kills himself most gallant for
love.
BOTTOM
That will ask some tears in the true performing
of
it: if I do it, let the audience look to their
eyes; I will move
storms, I will condole in some
measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is
for a
tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to
tear a cat in, to
make all split.
The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the
locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far
And
make and mar
The foolish Fates.
This was lofty! Now name the rest of the
players.
This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is
more condoling.
QUINCE
Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLUTE
Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
FLUTE
What is Thisby? a wandering knight?
QUINCE
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE
Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a
beard coming.
QUINCE
That's all one: you shall play it in a mask,
and
you may speak as small as you will.
BOTTOM
An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too,
I'll
speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne,
Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus,
lover dear! thy Thisby dear,
and lady dear!'
QUINCE
No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you
Thisby.
BOTTOM
Well, proceed.
QUINCE
Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STARVELING
Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's
mother.
Tom Snout, the tinker.
SNOUT
Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby's
father:
Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I
hope, here is a play fitted.
SNUG
Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it
be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but
roaring.
BOTTOM
Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I
will
do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar,
that I will make the
duke say 'Let him roar again,
let him roar again.'
QUINCE
An you should do it too terribly, you would
fright
the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek;
and that were enough to hang us all.
ALL
That would hang us, every mother's son.
BOTTOM
I grant you, friends, if that you should fright
the
ladies out of their wits, they would have no more
discretion but to
hang us: but I will aggravate my
voice so that I will roar you as gently as
any
sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any
nightingale.
QUINCE
You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is
a
sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a
summer's day; a
most lovely gentleman-like man:
therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
BOTTOM
Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I
best
to play it in?
QUINCE
Why, what you will.
BOTTOM
I will discharge it in either your
straw-colour
beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain
beard,
or your French-crown-colour beard, your
perfect yellow.
QUINCE
Some of your French crowns have no hair at all,
and
then you will play bare-faced. 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 meantime I
will draw a
bill of properties, such as our play
wants. I pray you, fail me not.
BOTTOM
We will meet; and there we may rehearse
most
obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect:
adieu.
QUINCE
At the duke's oak we meet.
BOTTOM
Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.
[Exeunt]
Act 2
Scene 1
[A wood near Athens.]
[Enter, from opposite
sides, a Fairy, and PUCK]
PUCK
How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fairy
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough
brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander
everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's 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
dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob
of spirits; I'll be gone:
Our queen and all our 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 starlight sheen,
But, they do square, that all their elves for
fear
Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
Fairy
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or
else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not
you he
That frights 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 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 dewlap 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
laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
A merrier hour was
never wasted there.
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
Fairy
And here my mistress. Would that he were
gone!
[Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train;
from the other, TITANIA, with hers]
OBERON
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON
Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?
TITANIA
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.
OBERON
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 AEgle break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA
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 in 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,
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 murrion 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
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old
Hiems' thin 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 evils comes
From our
debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON
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.
TITANIA
Set your heart at rest:
The fairy land buys not
the child of me.
His mother was a votaress of my order:
And, in the spiced
Indian air, by night,
Full 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 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 merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did
die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON
How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA
Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you
will patiently dance in our round
And see our moonlight revels, go with
us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
TITANIA
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
We shall
chide downright, if I longer stay.
[Exit TITANIA with
her train]
OBERON
Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this
grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither.
Thou rememberest
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.
OBERON
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
watery moon,
And the imperial votaress 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.
[Exit]
OBERON
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 from off 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 overhear their conference.
[Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him]
DEMETRIUS
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 stolen unto this wood;
And here am I, and wode within
this wood,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA
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.
DEMETRIUS
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?
HELENA
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?
DEMETRIUS
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA
And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS
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.
HELENA
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?
DEMETRIUS
I'll run from thee and hide me in the
brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when
you will, the story shall be changed:
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.
DEMETRIUS
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.
HELENA
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 wood and were not made to
woo.
[Exit DEMETRIUS]
I'll
follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so
well.
[Exit]
OBERON
Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this
grove,
Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.
[Re-enter PUCK]
Hast thou the flower there?
Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK
Ay, there it is.
OBERON
I pray thee, give it me.
I know a bank where the
wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite
over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with
eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these
flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd
skin,
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 2
[Another part of the wood.]
[Enter TITANIA, with
her train]
TITANIA
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 rere-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.
[The Fairies
sing]
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny
hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near
our fairy queen.
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.
Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners,
hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no
offence.
Philomel, with melody, &c.
Fairy
Hence, away! now all is well:
One aloof stand
sentinel.
[Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA
sleeps]
[Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on
TITANIA's eyelids]
OBERON
What thou seest when thou dost wake,
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 wakest, it is thy dear:
Wake when some vile thing is
near.
[Exit]
[Enter
LYSANDER and HERMIA]
LYSANDER
Fair love, you faint with wandering in the
wood;
And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:
We'll rest us, Hermia, if
you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
HERMIA
Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
LYSANDER
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.
HERMIA
Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.
LYSANDER
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.
HERMIA
Lysander riddles very prettily:
Now much beshrew my
manners and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle
friend, for love and courtesy
Lie further off; in human modesty,
Such
separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
So
far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
LYSANDER
Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
And then
end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!
HERMIA
With half that wish the wisher's eyes be
press'd!
[They sleep]
[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, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy
eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest, let love
forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I
must now to Oberon.
[Exit]
[Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running]
HELENA
Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
DEMETRIUS
I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me
thus.
HELENA
O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.
DEMETRIUS
Stay, on thy peril: I alone will
go.
[Exit]
HELENA
O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
The more
my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she
lies;
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so
bright? Not with salt tears:
If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than
hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;
For beasts that meet me run away for
fear:
Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
Do, as a monster fly my
presence thus.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare
with Hermia's sphery eyne?
But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
Dead?
or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.
LYSANDER
[Awaking]
And run
through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
Transparent Helena! Nature 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!
HELENA
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.
LYSANDER
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.
HELENA
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 refused.
Should of another
therefore be abused!
[Exit]
LYSANDER
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 tie
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]
HERMIA
[Awaking]
Help me,
Lysander, help me! do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my
breast!
Ay 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 pray.
Lysander! what, removed? 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 all not nigh
Either death or you I'll find
immediately.
[Exit]
Act 3
Scene 1
[The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.]
[Enter
QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING]
BOTTOM
Are we all met?
QUINCE
Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient
place
for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our
stage, this
hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we
will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.
BOTTOM
Peter Quince, --
QUINCE
What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
BOTTOM
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'r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING
I believe we must leave the killing out, when
all is done.
BOTTOM
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.
QUINCE
Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall
be
written in eight and six.
BOTTOM
No, make it two more; let it be written in
eight and eight.
SNOUT
Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
STARVELING
I fear it, I promise you.
BOTTOM
Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves:
to
bring in -- God shield us! -- a lion among ladies, is a
most dreadful
thing; for there is not a more fearful
wild-fowl than your lion living; and
we ought to
look to 't.
SNOUT
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not
a lion.
BOTTOM
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
other men are;' and there indeed let him name
his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
QUINCE
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.
SNOUT
Doth the moon shine that night we play our
play?
BOTTOM
A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac;
find
out moonshine, find out moonshine.
QUINCE
Yes, it doth shine that night.
BOTTOM
Why, then may you leave a casement of the
great
chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon
may shine in at the casement.
QUINCE
Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of
thorns
and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to
present, the
person of Moonshine. Then, there is
another thing: we must have a wall in the
great
chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did
talk through the chink of a wall.
SNOUT
You can never bring in a wall. What say you,
Bottom?
BOTTOM
Some man or other must present Wall: and let
him
have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast
about him, to
signify wall; and let him hold his
fingers thus, and through that cranny
shall Pyramus
and Thisby whisper.
QUINCE
If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit
down,
every mother's son, and rehearse your parts.
Pyramus, you begin:
when you have spoken your
speech, enter into that brake: and so every
one
according to his cue.
[Enter PUCK behind]
PUCK
What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,
So
near the cradle of the fairy queen?
What, a play toward! I'll be an
auditor;
An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.
QUINCE
Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
BOTTOM
Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,
--
QUINCE
Odours, odours.
BOTTOM
-- odours savours sweet:
So hath thy breath,
my dearest Thisby dear.
But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,
And
by and by I will to thee appear.
[Exit]
PUCK
A stranger Pyramus than e'er played
here.
[Exit]
FLUTE
Must I speak now?
QUINCE
Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he
goes
but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come
again.
FLUTE
Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of
colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal and eke
most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
QUINCE
'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak
that
yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your
part at once,
cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue
is past; it is, 'never tire.'
FLUTE
O, -- As true as truest horse, that yet would
never
tire.
[Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's
head]
BOTTOM
If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.
QUINCE
O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted.
Pray,
masters! fly, masters! Help!
[Exeunt QUINCE,
SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING]
PUCK
I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,
Through
bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:
Sometime a horse I'll be,
sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
And neigh, and
bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at
every turn.
[Exit]
BOTTOM
Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them
to
make me afeard.
[Re-enter SNOUT]
SNOUT
O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on
thee?
BOTTOM
What do you see? you see an asshead of your own,
do
you?
[Exit SNOUT]
[Re-enter QUINCE]
QUINCE
Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou
art
translated.
[Exit]
BOTTOM
I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of
me;
to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir
from this place, do
what they can: I will walk up
and down here, and I will sing, that they shall
hear
I am not afraid.
[Sings]
The ousel cock so black of hue,
With
orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill, --
TITANIA
[Awaking]
What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
BOTTOM
[Sings]
The finch,
the sparrow and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many
a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay; --
for, indeed, who would set
his wit to so foolish
a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he
cry
'cuckoo' never so?
TITANIA
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:
Mine ear
is much enamour'd of thy note;
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And
thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM
Methinks, mistress, you should have little
reason
for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and
love keep little
company together now-a-days; the
more the pity that some honest neighbours
will not
make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
TITANIA
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM
Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get
out
of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
TITANIA
Out of this wood do not desire to go:
Thou shalt
remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate;
The
summer still doth tend upon my state;
And I do love thee: therefore, go with
me;
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee
jewels from the deep,
And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost
sleep;
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
That thou shalt like an
airy spirit go.
Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and
Mustardseed!
[Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and
MUSTARDSEED]
PEASEBLOSSOM
Ready.
COBWEB
And I.
MOTH
And I.
MUSTARDSEED
And I.
ALL
Where shall we go?
TITANIA
Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in
his walks and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and
dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags
steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen
thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to
bed and to arise;
And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies
To fan the
moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
PEASEBLOSSOM
Hail, mortal!
COBWEB
Hail!
MOTH
Hail!
MUSTARDSEED
Hail!
BOTTOM
I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech
your
worship's name.
COBWEB
Cobweb.
BOTTOM
I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good
Master
Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with
you. Your name, honest gentleman?
PEASEBLOSSOM
Peaseblossom.
BOTTOM
I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash,
your
mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good
Master Peaseblossom,
I shall desire you of more
acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?
MUSTARDSEED
Mustardseed.
BOTTOM
Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience
well:
that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath
devoured many a
gentleman of your house: I promise
you your kindred had made my eyes water
ere now. I
desire your more acquaintance, good Master
Mustardseed.
TITANIA
Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
The
moon methinks looks with a watery eye;
And when she weeps, weeps every little
flower,
Lamenting some enforced chastity.
Tie up my love's tongue bring
him silently.
[Exeunt]
Scene 2
[Another part of the wood.]
[Enter OBERON]
OBERON
I wonder if Titania be awaked;
Then, what it was
that next came in her eye,
Which she must dote on in
extremity.
[Enter PUCK]
Here
comes my messenger.
How now, mad spirit!
What
night-rule now about this haunted grove?
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 nole 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 waked and straightway loved an ass.
OBERON
This falls out better than I could devise.
But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes
With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?
PUCK
I took him sleeping, -- that is finish'd too,
--
And the Athenian woman by his side:
That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.
[Enter HERMIA
and DEMETRIUS]
OBERON
Stand close: this is the same Athenian.
PUCK
This is the woman, but not this the man.
DEMETRIUS
O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
HERMIA
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 stolen
away
From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
This whole earth may be bored and that the moon
May through the centre creep and so displease
Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.
It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;
So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.
DEMETRIUS
So should the murder'd look, and so should
I,
Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
HERMIA
What's this to my Lysander? where is he?
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
DEMETRIUS
I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
HERMIA
Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the
bounds
Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him,
then?
Henceforth be never number'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.
DEMETRIUS
You spend your passion on a misprised mood:
I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
HERMIA
I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
DEMETRIUS
An if I could, what should I get therefore?
HERMIA
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]
DEMETRIUS
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 and
sleeps]
OBERON
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.
OBERON
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 costs 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.
[Exit]
OBERON
Flower of this purple dye,
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 wakest, 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!
OBERON
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 befal
preposterously.
[Enter LYSANDER and HELENA]
LYSANDER
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?
HELENA
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.
LYSANDER
I had no judgment when to her I swore.
HELENA
Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.
LYSANDER
Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
DEMETRIUS
[Awaking]
O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect,
divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,
Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss
This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
HELENA
O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment:
If you we re 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 you 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.
LYSANDER
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 till my death.
HELENA
Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
DEMETRIUS
Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none:
If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone.
My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,
And now to Helen is it home return'd,
There to remain.
LYSANDER
Helen, it is not so.
DEMETRIUS
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.
Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.
[Re-enter
HERMIA]
HERMIA
Dark night, that from the eye his function
takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
LYSANDER
Why should he stay, whom love doth press to
go?
HERMIA
What love could press Lysander from my side?
LYSANDER
Lysander's love, that would not let him
bide,
Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light.
Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,
The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?
HERMIA
You speak not as you think: it cannot be.
HELENA
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us, -- O, is it all forgot?
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grow together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two
lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming
bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in
heraldry,
Due but to one and crowned with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.
HERMIA
I am amazed at your passionate words.
I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.
HELENA
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
And made your other love, Demetrius,
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
And tender me, forsooth, affection,
But by your setting on, by your consent?
What thought I be not so in grace as you,
So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
But miserable most, to love unloved?
This you should pity rather than despise.
HERNIA
I understand not what you mean by this.
HELENA
Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.
But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault;
Which death or absence soon shall remedy.
LYSANDER
Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:
My love, my life my soul, fair Helena!
HELENA
O excellent!
HERMIA
Sweet, do not scorn her so.
DEMETRIUS
If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
LYSANDER
Thou canst compel no more than she entreat:
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.
Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do:
I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
To prove him false that says I love thee not.
DEMETRIUS
I say I love thee more than he can do.
LYSANDER
If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
DEMETRIUS
Quick, come!
HERMIA
Lysander, whereto tends all this?
LYSANDER
Away, you Ethiope!
DEMETRIUS
No, no; he'll . . .
Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,
But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!
LYSANDER
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let
loose,
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!
HERMIA
Why are you grown so rude? what change is
this?
Sweet love, --
LYSANDER
Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!
Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!
HERMIA
Do you not jest?
HELENA
Yes, sooth; and so do you.
LYSANDER
Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
DEMETRIUS
I would I had your bond, for I perceive
A weak bond holds you: I'll not trust your word.
LYSANDER
What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her
dead?
Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.
HERMIA
What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love!
Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
Since night you loved me; yet since night you left
me:
Why, then you left me -- O, the
gods forbid! --
In earnest, shall I say?
LYSANDER
Ay, by my life;
And
never did desire to see thee more.
Therefore be out of
hope, of question, of doubt;
Be certain, nothing truer;
'tis no jest
That I do hate thee and love Helena.
HERMIA
O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!
You thief of love! what, have you come by night
And stolen my love's heart from him?
HELENA
Fine, i'faith!
Have
you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of
bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from
my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet,
you!
HERMIA
Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urged her height;
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem;
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
HELENA
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
I am a right maid for my cowardice:
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.
HERMIA
Lower! hark, again.
HELENA
Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,
Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him;
But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back
And follow you no further: let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.
HERMIA
Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you?
HELENA
A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.
HERMIA
What, with Lysander?
HELENA
With Demetrius.
LYSANDER
Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee,
Helena.
DEMETRIUS
No, sir, she shall not, though you take her
part.
HELENA
O, when she's angry, she is keen and
shrewd!
She was a vixen when she went to school;
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
HERMIA
'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and
'little'!
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.
LYSANDER
Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn.
DEMETRIUS
You are too officious
In her behalf that scorns your services.
Let her alone: speak not of Helena;
Take not her part; for, if thou dost intend
Never so little show of love to her,
Thou shalt aby it.
LYSANDER
Now she holds me not;
Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right,
Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
DEMETRIUS
Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by
jole.
[Exeunt
LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS]
HERMIA
You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of
you:
Nay, go not back.
HELENA
I will not trust you, I,
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,
My legs are longer though, to run away.
[Exit]
HERMIA
I am amazed, and know not what to say.
[Exit]
OBERON
This is thy negligence: still thou
mistakest,
Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.
PUCK
Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me I should know the man
By the Athenian garment be had on?
And so far blameless proves my enterprise,
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;
And so far am I glad it so did sort
As this their jangling I esteem a sport.
OBERON
Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to
fight:
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
The starry welkin cover thou anon
With drooping fog as black as Acheron,
And lead these testy rivals so astray
As one come not within another's way.
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
With league whose date till death shall never end.
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;
And then I will her charmed eye release
From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.
PUCK
My fairy lord, this must be done with
haste,
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full
fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,
That in crossways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone;
For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
They willfully themselves exile from light
And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.
OBERON
But we are spirits of another sort:
I with the morning's love have oft made sport,
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.
But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:
We may effect this business yet ere day.
[Exit]
PUCK
Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down:
I am
fear'd in field and town:
Goblin, lead them up and
down.
Here comes one.
[Re-enter
LYSANDER]
LYSANDER
Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou
now.
PUCK
Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art
thou?
LYSANDER
I will be with thee straight.
PUCK
Follow me, then,
To
plainer ground.
[Exit LYSANDER, as following the voice]
[Re-enter
DEMETRIUS]
DEMETRIUS
Lysander! speak again:
Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
PUCK
Thou coward, art thou bragging to the
stars,
Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child;
I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled
That draws a sword on thee.
DEMETRIUS
Yea, art thou there?
PUCK
Follow my voice: we'll try no manhood here.
[Exeunt]
[Re-enter
LYSANDER]
LYSANDER
He goes before me and still dares me on:
When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I:
I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly;
That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
And here will rest me.
[Lies
down]
Come, thou gentle day!
For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.
[Sleeps]
[Re-enter PUCK
and DEMETRIUS]
PUCK
Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not?
DEMETRIUS
Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot
Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place,
And darest not stand, nor look me in the face.
Where art thou now?
PUCK
Come hither: I am here.
DEMETRIUS
Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy
this dear,
If ever I thy face by daylight see:
Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
To measure out my length on this cold bed.
By day's approach look to be visited.
[Lies down and
sleeps]
[Re-enter HELENA]
HELENA
O weary night, O long and tedious night,
Abate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east,
That I may back to Athens by daylight,
From these that my poor company detest:
And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
Steal me awhile from mine own company.
[Lies down and
sleeps]
PUCK
Yet but three? Come one more;
Two of both kinds make up four.
Here she comes, curst and sad:
Cupid is a knavish lad,
Thus to
make poor females mad.
[Re-enter HERMIA]
HERMIA
Never so weary, never so in woe,
Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,
I can no further crawl, no further go;
My legs can keep no pace with my desires.
Here will I rest me till the break of day.
Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!
[Lies down and
sleeps]
PUCK
On the ground
Sleep
sound:
I'll apply
To your
eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.
[Squeezing the
juice on LYSANDER's eyes]
When
thou wakest,
Thou takest
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]
Act 4
Scene
1
[The same. LYSANDER,
DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA lying asleep.]
[Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH,
MUSTARDSEED, and other Fairies attending; OBERON behind unseen]
TITANIA
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.
BOTTOM
Where's Peaseblossom?
PEASEBLOSSOM
Ready.
BOTTOM
Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's
Mounsieur Cobweb?
COBWEB
Ready.
BOTTOM
Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you
your
weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped
humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret
yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,
good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;
I would be loath to have you overflown with a
honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?
MUSTARDSEED
Ready.
BOTTOM
Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray
you,
leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.
MUSTARDSEED
What's your Will?
BOTTOM
Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery
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.
TITANIA
What, wilt thou hear some music,
my sweet love?
BOTTOM
I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's
have
the tongs and the bones.
TITANIA
Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
BOTTOM
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.
TITANIA
I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
BOTTOM
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.
TITANIA
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my
arms.
Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.
[Exeunt
fairies]
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]
[Enter PUCK]
OBERON
[Advancing]
Welcome, good Robin.
See'st thou this sweet sight?
Her dotage now I do begin to pity:
For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her;
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
With a 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 flowerets' 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;
See as
thou wast wont to see:
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
TITANIA
My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
OBERON
There lies your love.
TITANIA
How came these things to pass?
O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
OBERON
Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
Titania, music call; and strike more dead
Than common sleep of all these five the sense.
TITANIA
Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!
[Music,
still]
PUCK
Now, when thou wakest, with thine
own fool's eyes peep.
OBERON
Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with
me,
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
Now thou and I are new in amity,
And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair prosperity:
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
PUCK
Fairy king, attend, and mark:
I do hear the morning lark.
OBERON
Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade:
We
the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wandering
moon.
TITANIA
Come, my lord, and in our flight
Tell me how it came this night
That
I sleeping here was found
With these mortals on the
ground.
[Exeunt]
[Horns winded within]
[Enter THESEUS,
HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train]
THESEUS
Go, one of you, find out the forester;
For now our observation is perform'd;
And since we have the vaward of the day,
My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:
Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
[Exit an
Attendant]
We will, fair queen,
up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical
confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
HIPPOLYTA
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
THESEUS
My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?
EGEUS
My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;
And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;
This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:
I
wonder of their being here together.
THESEUS
No doubt they rose up early to observe
The rite of May, and hearing our intent,
Came here in grace our solemnity.
But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS
It is, my lord.
THESEUS
Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their
horns.
[Horns
and shout within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start
up]
Good morrow, friends. Saint
Valentine is past:
Begin these wood-birds but to couple
now?
LYSANDER
Pardon, my lord.
THESEUS
I pray you all, stand up.
I know you two are rival enemies:
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy,
To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
LYSANDER
My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,
I cannot truly say how I came here;
But, as I think, -- for truly would I speak,
And now do I bethink me, so it is, --
I came with Hermia hither: our intent
Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
Without the peril of the Athenian law.
EGEUS
Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:
I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,
Thereby to have defeated you and me,
You of your wife and me of my consent,
Of my consent that she should be your wife.
DEMETRIUS
My lord, fair Helen told me of their
stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither follow'd them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power, --
But by some power it is, -- my love to Hermia,
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:
But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.
THESEUS
Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
Egeus, I will overbear your will;
For in the temple by and by with us
These couples shall eternally be knit:
And, for the morning now is something worn,
Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.
Away with us to Athens; three and three,
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.
[Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train]
DEMETRIUS
These things seem small and undistinguishable,
HERMIA
Methinks I see these things with parted
eye,
When every thing seems double.
HELENA
So methinks:
And I
have found Demetrius like a jewel,
Mine own, and not
mine own.
DEMETRIUS
Are you sure
That we
are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream.
Do not you think
The duke was here, and bid us follow
him?
HERMIA
Yea; and my father.
HELENA
And Hippolyta.
LYSANDER
And he did bid us follow to the temple.
DEMETRIUS
Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him
And by the way let us recount our dreams.
[Exeunt]
BOTTOM
[Awaking]
When my cue comes, call me, and I
will
answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.'
Heigh-ho!
Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender!
Snout,
the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream. Methought I was -- there
is no man can tell what. Methought I was, -- and
methought I had, -- but man is but a patched fool, if
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
latter end of a play, before the duke:
peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
sing it at her death.
[Exit]
Scene 2
[Athens. QUINCE'S house.]
[Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and
STARVELING]
QUINCE
Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come
home yet?
STARVELING
He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is
transported.
FLUTE
If he come not, then the play is marred: it
goes
not forward, doth it?
QUINCE
It is not possible: you have not a man in
all
Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.
FLUTE
No, he hath simply the best wit of any
handicraft
man in Athens.
QUINCE
Yea and the best person too; and he is a
very
paramour for a sweet voice.
FLUTE
You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God
bless us,
a thing of naught.
[Enter SNUG]
SNUG
Masters, the duke is coming from the temple,
and
there is two or three lords and ladies more
married:
if our sport had gone forward, we had all been
made
men.
FLUTE
O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost
sixpence a
day during his life; he could not have
'scaped
sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him
sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;
he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in
Pyramus, or nothing.
[Enter
BOTTOM]
BOTTOM
Where are these lads? where are these hearts?
QUINCE
Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy
hour!
BOTTOM
Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me
not
what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I
will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.
QUINCE
Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
BOTTOM
Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is,
that
the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together,
good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your
pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look
o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our
play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have
clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion
pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the
lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions
nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I
do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet
comedy. No more words: away! go, away!
[Exeunt]
Act 5
Scene
1
[Athens. The palace of
THESEUS.]
[Enter THESEUS,
HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants]
HIPPOLYTA
'Tis strange my Theseus, that these
lovers speak of.
THESEUS
More strange than true: I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One
sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the
madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty
in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy
rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to
heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such
tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but
apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that
joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
HIPPOLYTA
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images
And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
THESEUS
Here come the lovers, full of joy and
mirth.
[Enter
LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA]
Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days
of love
Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER
More than to us
Wait
in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THESEUS
Come now; what masques, what dances shall we
have,
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE
Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS
Say, what abridgement have you for this
evening?
What masque? what music? How shall we
beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight?
PHILOSTRATE
There is a brief how many sports are ripe:
Make choice of which your highness will see first.
[Giving a
paper]
THESEUS
[Reads]
'The battle with the Centaurs, to be
sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
[Reads]
'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
That is an old device; and it was play'd
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
[Reads]
'The thrice three Muses mourning for the
death
Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.'
That is some satire, keen and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
[Reads]
'A tedious brief scene of young
Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'
Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
PHILOSTRATE
A play there is, my lord, some ten words
long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
There is not one word apt, one player fitted:
And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
THESEUS
What are they that do play it?
PHILOSTRATE
Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
Which never labour'd in their minds till now,
And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories
With this same play, against your nuptial.
THESEUS
And we will hear it.
PHILOSTRATE
No, my noble lord;
It
is not for you: I have heard it over,
And it is nothing,
nothing in the world;
Unless you can find sport in their
intents,
Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel
pain,
To do you service.
THESEUS
I will hear that play;
For never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.
Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
[Exit
PHILOSTRATE]
HIPPOLYTA
I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged
And duty in his service perishing.
THESEUS
Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such
thing.
HIPPOLYTA
He says they can do nothing in this kind.
THESEUS
The kinder we, to give them thanks for
nothing.
Our sport shall be to take what they
mistake:
And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
Takes it in might, not merit.
Where
I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with
premeditated welcomes;
Where I have seen them shiver and
look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practised accent in their fears
And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most, to my capacity.
[Re-enter
PHILOSTRATE]
PHILOSTRATE
So please your grace, the Prologue is
address'd.
THESEUS
Let him approach.
[Flourish of
trumpets]
[Enter QUINCE for the Prologue]
Prologue
If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then we come but in despite.
We do not come as minding to contest you,
Our true intent is. All for your delight
We are not here. That you should here repent you,
The actors are at hand and by their show
You shall know all that you are like to know.
THESEUS
This fellow doth not stand upon points.
LYSANDER
He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he
knows
not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not
enough to speak, but to speak true.
HIPPOLYTA
Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a
child
on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.
THESEUS
His speech, was like a tangled chain;
nothing
impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?
[Enter Pyramus
and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion]
Prologue
Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.
This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;
And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content
To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,
By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
Did scare away, or rather did affright;
And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;
And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
At large discourse, while here they do remain.
[Exeunt
Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine]
THESEUS
I wonder if the lion be to speak.
DEMETRIUS
No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many
asses do.
Wall
In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
Did whisper often very secretly.
This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show
That I am that same wall; the truth is so:
And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
THESEUS
Would you desire lime and hair to speak
better?
DEMETRIUS
It is the wittiest partition that ever I
heard
discourse, my lord.
[Enter
Pyramus]
THESEUS
Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!
Pyramus
O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so
black!
O night, which ever art when day is not!
O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,
I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
[Wall holds up
his fingers]
Thanks, courteous
wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
But what see I? No
Thisby do I see.
O wicked wall, through whom I see no
bliss!
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
THESEUS
The wall, methinks, being sensible, should
curse again.
Pyramus
No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving
me'
is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to
spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will
fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
[Enter
Thisbe]
Thisbe
O wall, full often hast thou heard my
moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
Pyramus
I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!
Thisbe
My love thou art, my love I think.
Pyramus
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's
grace;
And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
Thisbe
And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
Pyramus
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
Thisbe
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
Pyramus
O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
Thisbe
I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
Pyramus
Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
Thisbe
'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without
delay.
[Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe]
Wall
Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
[Exit]
THESEUS
Now is the mural down between the two
neighbours.
DEMETRIUS
No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful
to hear
without warning.
HIPPOLYTA
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THESEUS
The best in this kind are but shadows; and the
worst
are no worse, if imagination amend them.
HIPPOLYTA
It must be your imagination then, and not
theirs.
THESEUS
If we imagine no worse of them than they of
themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here
come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
[Enter Lion and
Moonshine]
Lion
You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do
fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on
floor,
May now perchance both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;
For, if I should as lion come in strife
Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.
THESEUS
A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.
DEMETRIUS
The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I
saw.
LYSANDER
This lion is a very fox for his valour.
THESEUS
True; and a goose for his discretion.
DEMETRIUS
Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry
his
discretion; and the fox carries the goose.
THESEUS
His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his
valour;
for the goose carries not the fox. It is
well:
leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to
the moon.
Moonshine
This lanthorn doth the horned moon present; --
DEMETRIUS
He should have worn the horns on his head.
THESEUS
He is no crescent, and his horns are
invisible within the circumference.
Moonshine
This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.
THESEUS
This is the greatest error of all the rest:
the man
should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else
the
man i' the moon?
DEMETRIUS
He dares not come there for the candle; for,
you
see, it is already in snuff.
HIPPOLYTA
I am aweary of this moon: would he would
change!
THESEUS
It appears, by his small light of discretion,
that
he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all
reason, we must stay the time.
LYSANDER
Proceed, Moon.
Moonshine
All that I have to say, is, to tell you that
the
lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon;
this
thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
DEMETRIUS
Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for
all
these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes
Thisbe.
[Enter Thisbe]
Thisbe
This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?
Lion
[Roaring]
Oh --
[Thisbe runs
off]
DEMETRIUS
Well roared, Lion.
THESEUS
Well run, Thisbe.
HIPPOLYTA
Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with
a
good grace.
[The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit]
THESEUS
Well moused, Lion.
LYSANDER
And so the lion vanished.
DEMETRIUS
And then came Pyramus.
[Enter
Pyramus]
Pyramus
Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny
beams;
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
But stay, O spite!
But mark, poor
knight,
What dreadful dole is here!
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck! O dear!
Thy mantle
good,
What, stain'd with blood!
Approach, ye Furies fell!
O Fates,
come, come,
Cut thread and thrum;
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
THESEUS
This passion, and the death of a dear friend,
would
go near to make a man look sad.
HIPPOLYTA
Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
Pyramus
O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions
frame?
Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
Which is -- no, no -- which was the fairest dame
That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd
with cheer.
Come, tears,
confound;
Out, sword, and wound
The pap of Pyramus;
Ay, that left
pap,
Where heart doth hop:
[Stabs
himself]
Thus die I, thus, thus,
thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I
fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon take
thy flight:
[Exit Moonshine]
Now die, die, die, die, die.
[Dies]
DEMETRIUS
No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but
one.
LYSANDER
Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is
nothing.
THESEUS
With the help of a surgeon he might yet
recover, and
prove an ass.
HIPPOLYTA
How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe
comes
back and finds her lover?
THESEUS
She will find him by starlight. Here she
comes; and
her passion ends the play.
[Re-enter
Thisbe]
HIPPOLYTA
Methinks she should not use a long one for
such a
Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.
DEMETRIUS
A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus,
which
Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant
us;
she for a woman, God bless us.
LYSANDER
She hath spied him already with those sweet
eyes.
DEMETRIUS
And thus she means, videlicet: --
Thisbe
Asleep, my love?
What,
dead, my dove?
O Pyramus, arise!
Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
Dead,
dead? A tomb
Must cover thy sweet eyes.
These My lips,
This cherry nose,
These yellow cowslip cheeks,
Are
gone, are gone:
Lovers, make moan:
His eyes were green as leeks.
O
Sisters Three,
Come, come to me,
With hands as pale as milk;
Lay
them in gore,
Since you have shore
With shears his thread of silk.
Tongue, not a word:
Come, trusty
sword;
Come, blade, my breast imbrue:
[Stabs
herself]
And, farewell,
friends;
Thus Thisby ends:
Adieu, adieu, adieu.
[Dies]
THESEUS
Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
DEMETRIUS
Ay, and Wall too.
BOTTOM
[Starting
up]
No assure you; the wall is
down that
parted their fathers. Will it please you to
see the
epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between
two
of our company?
THESEUS
No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs
no
excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all
dead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he
that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself
in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine
tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably
discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your
epilogue alone.
[A dance]
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:
Lovers, to
bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
I fear we shall out-sleep
the coming morn
As much as we this night have
overwatch'd.
This palpable-gross play hath well
beguiled
The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to
bed.
A fortnight hold we this solemnity,
In nightly revels and new jollity.
[Exeunt]
[Enter PUCK]
PUCK
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now
the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl,
screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it
is the time of night
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In
the church-way paths to glide:
And we fairies, that do
run
By the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic: not a mouse
Shall
disturb this hallow'd house:
I am sent with broom
before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.
[Enter OBERON
and TITANIA with their train]
OBERON
Through the house give gathering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire:
Every
elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier;
And this ditty, after me,
Sing, and
dance it trippingly.
TITANIA
First, rehearse your song by rote
To each word a warbling note:
Hand
in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this
place.
[Song
and dance]
OBERON
Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And
the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever
true in loving be;
And the blots of Nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
Nor
mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With
this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest
Ever
shall in safety rest.
Trip away; make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day.
[Exeunt OBERON,
TITANIA, and train]