Her. You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you:
Nay, go not back.
Hel.
I will not trust you, I, 340
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,
My legs are longer though, to run away. Exit.
Her. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.
Exit.
Obe. This is thy negligence: still thou mistak'st,
Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.

Puck. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me I should know the man
By the Athenian garments he had on?
And so far blameless proves my enterprise,
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;
And so far am I glad it so did sort,
As this their jangling I esteem a sport.

Obe. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight:
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
The starry welkin cover thou anon

With drooping fog as black as Acheron;
And lead these testy rivals so astray,
As one come not within another's way.
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue, 300
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;

Her.
Lower! hark, again.
Hel. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,

And from each other look thou lead them thus,
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:

Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you; Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
310 To take from thence all error with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
With league whose date till death shall never end.
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;

Her. Why, get you gone. Who is 't that And then I will her charmed eye release

Her. O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom! You thief of love! what! have you come by night And stol'n my love's heart from him?

Hel.
Fine, i' faith!
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What! will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!

Her. Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes
the game.

Now I perceive that she hath made compare 290
Between our statures: she hath urg'd her height;
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem,
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
Hel. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
I am a right maid for my cowardice:
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.

300

I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him ;
But he hath chid me hence, and threaten'd me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too :
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back,
And follow you no further: let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.

hinders you? Hel. A foolish heart, that I leave here behind. Her. What! with Lysander?

Hel.
With Demetrius. 320
Lys. Be not afraid she shall not harm thee,
Helena.

Dem. No, sir; she shall not, though you take her part.

Hel. O! when she's angry, she is keen and
shrewd.

She was a vixen when she went to school:
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
Her. 'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and
'little'!

Why will you suffer her to flout me thus ?
Let me come to her.

Lys.

Get you gone, you dwarf; You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made; You bead, you acorn.

Dem.
You are too officious
In her behalf that scorns your services.
Let her alone; speak not of Helena;
Take not her part, for if thou dost intend
Never so little show of love to her,
Thou shalt aby it.

330

Lys.
Now she holds me not;
Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,
Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.

Dem. Follow nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by
jole. Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS.

350

370

From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.
Puck. My fairy lord, this must be done with

haste,

For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and
there,

Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,
That in crossways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone;
For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
They wilfully themselves exile from light,
And must foraye consort with black-brow'dnight.

Obe. But we are spirits of another sort.
I with the morning's love have oft made sport ;
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.
But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay
We may effect this business yet ere day. Erit.
Puck. Up and down, up and down;

I will lead them up and down :
I am fear'd in field and town;
Goblin, lead them up and down.
Here comes one.

400

Re-enter LYSANDER.

Lys. Where art thou, proud Demetrius ? speak

thou now.

Puck. Here, villain! drawn and ready. Where Here will I rest me till the break of day.
Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!
art thou?
Lies down and sleeps.

Lys. I will be with thee straight.
Puck.

To plainer ground.

Dem.

Follow me, then,

Puck.

On the ground

Sleep sound:
I'll apply

Exit LYSANDER as following the voice.

Re-enter DEMETRIUS.

Lysander! speak again : Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide

thy head?

Puck. Thou coward! art thou bragging to
the stars,

Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come,

To your eye,

Gentle lover, remedy.

450

Squeezes the juice on LYSANDER's eyes.

Bot. Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; here.and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not: I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustard-seed?

Come hither: I am
Dem. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt
buy this dear,

If ever I thy face by daylight see:
Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
To measure out my length on this cold bed:
By day's approach look to be visited.

430

Lies down and sleeps.

Re-enter HELENA.
Hd. O weary night, O long and tedious night,
Abate thy hours! shine comforts from the east!
That I may back to Athens by daylight,

From these that my poor company detest:
And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
Steal me awhile from mine own company.

Lies down and sleeps.
Puck. Yet but three? Come one more;
Two of both kinds make up four.
Here she comes, curst and sad :
Cupid is a knavish lad,

Thus to make poor females mad.

Re-enter HERMIA.

Her. Never so weary, never so in woe,

440

Must. Ready.

Bot. Give me your neif, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.

Must. What's your will?

22

Bot. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch. Tita. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music: let's have the tongs and the bones.

31

Tita. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat.

Bot. Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch Methinks I have a great your good dry oats. desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay,

Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers, hath no fellow.

I can no further crawl, no further go;
My legs can keep no pace with my desires.

Tita. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

Ege. Enough, enough, my lord; you have if he will offer to say what methought I had. enough:

I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
They would have stol'n away; they would,
Demetrius,

Thereby to have defeated you and me;
You of your wife, and me of my consent,
Of my consent that she should be your wife.
Dem. My lord, fair Helen told me of their
stealth,

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man
hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste,
his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report,
what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince
to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be
called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no
bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of
a play, before the duke: peradventure, to make
it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her
death.
Exit. 224

Of this their purpose hither, to this wood;
And I in fury hither follow'd them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,
But by some power it is, my love to Hermia,
Melted as doth the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:
But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now do I wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.

160

170

The. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: 180
Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
Egeus, I will overbear your will,
For in the temple, by and by, with us
These couples shall eternally be knit :
And, for the morning now is something worn,
Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.
Away with us to Athens: three and three,
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.

Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train. Dem. These things seem small and undistinguishable,

Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
Her. Methinks I see these things with parted

eye,

190

When every thing seems double.

Hel.
So methinks
And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
Mine own, and not mine own.

Dem.
Are you sure
That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you

think

The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

Her. Yea; and my father.
Hel.

And Hippolyta.
Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple.
Dem. Why then, we are awake. Let's follow
him;

201

And by the way let us recount our dreams.

Exeunt. Bot. Awaking. When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life! stolen hence, and left me asleep. I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was, there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had, but man is but a patched fool

Enter SNUG.

Snug. Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

19

Flute. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter BOTTOM.

Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts?

Quin. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

29

Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders, but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.

Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen, and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath, and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No Exeunt. 47 more words: away! go; away!