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