My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, 190
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
0 teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Hel. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill.

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. Hel. O that my prayers could such affection

move.

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me. Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me. Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. 200 Hel. None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

Her. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;

Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:

O! then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell.

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

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Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
Her. And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet ;
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us; 22)
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
Lys. I will, my Hermia.
Exit HERMIA.
Helena, adieu:

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As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! Exit.
Hel. How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she;
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know;
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, 240
So the boy Love is perjur'd every where;
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

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To have his sight thither and back again. Exit.

SCENE II.-The Same. A Room in QUINCE'S House.

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.

Quin. Is all our company here? Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and duchess on his wedding-day at night.

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point.

10

Quin. Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.

Quin. Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.

21

Bot. Let me play the lion too. I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'

Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us, every mother's son. 80 Bot. I grant you friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but F will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.

Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentlemanlike man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus. 91

Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

Quin. Why, what you will.

Bot. I will discharge it in either your strawcolour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crowncolour beard, your perfect yellow.

Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here are your parts; and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night, and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight: there will we rehearse; for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. pray you, fail me not.

I

109

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.

Quin. At the duke's oak we meet.
Bot. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.

ACT II.

SCENE I-A Wood near Athens.

Exeunt.

Enter a Fairy and PUCK from opposite sides.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,

Swifter than the moone's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green :
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours:

10

I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits: I'll be gone;
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-
night.

20

Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all
her joy.

And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square; that all their elves, for fear, 30
Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,

Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
That fright the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife
churn;

And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, 40
You do their work, and they shall have good
luck :
Are not you he?
Puck.

Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and
laugh,

50

And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But room, fairy! here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Enter OBERON from one side, with his Train, and TITANIA from the other, with hers.

60

Obe. Il met by moonlight, proud Titania. Tita. What! jealous Oberon. Fairies, skip hence:

I have forsworn his bed and company.

Obe. Tarry, rash wanton! am not I thy lord? Tita. Then I must be thy lady; but I know When thou hast stol'n away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day, Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the furthest steppe of India? But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,

70

To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Obe. How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night

From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Ægle break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

80

90

Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy: And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea Contagious fogs; which falling in the land Have every pelting river made so proud, That they have overborne their continents: The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard: The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the murrain flock, The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud, And the quaint mazes in the wanton green For lack of tread are undistinguishable: The human mortals want their winter here: No night is now with hymn or carol blest : Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound: And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which. And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension :

We are their parents and original.

Obe. Do you amend it then; it lies in you. Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy, To be my henchman.

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110

Obe. That very time I saw, but thou could'st not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon, And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

161

120

On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
And ere I take this charm off from her sight,
As I can take it with another herb,
I'll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible,
And I will overhear their conference.

Tita. Set your heart at rest; The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a votaress of my order. And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side, And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood; When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait Following, her womb then rich with my young squire.-

131

Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
Obe. How long within this wood intend you stay?

180

190

Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood; And here am I, and wood within this wood, Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence! get thee gone, and follow me no more. Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant: But yet you draw not iron, for my heart Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you.

Dem. Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?

Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,

For I am sick when I do look on thee.

Hel. And I am sick when I look not on you. Dem. You do impeach your modesty too much, To leave the city, and commit yourself Into the hands of one that loves you not; To trust the opportunity of night And the ill counsel of a desert place With the rich worth of your virginity.

Hel. Your virtue is my privilege for that 220 It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world: Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me? Dem. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,

And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

231

Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you. Run when you will, the story shall be chang'd; Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase; The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind Makes speed to catch the tiger: bootless speed, When cowardice pursues and valour flies!

Dem. I will not stay thy questions: let me go; Or, if thou follow me, do not believe But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.

240

Hel. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius ! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex. We cannot fight for love, as men may do ; We should be woo'd and were not made to woo. Exit DEMETRIUS. I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.

Exit.

Obe. Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave

this grove,

Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.

Re-enter PUCK.

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Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
Puck. Ay, there it is.
Obe.
I pray thee, give it me.
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love

With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies

260

Lys. Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;

And to speak troth, I have forgot our way: We 'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, And tarry for the comfort of the day. Her. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed, For I upon this bank will rest my head.