ACT II.
[000] Scene I. A wood near Athens.
MSND II. 1 Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck.
Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai.
Over hill, over dale,
[003] Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
005 Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
[007] Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
[009] To dew her orbs upon the green.
[010] The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
[011] In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
[014] I must go seek some dewdrops here,
015 And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone:
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
020 For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
025 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,
[030] But they do square, that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
[032] Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
[033] Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
[034] Call’d Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
[035] That frights the maidens of the villagery;
[036] 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?
040 Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Are not you he?
Puck.
[042] Thou speak’st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
045 When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
[046] 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
[050] 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,
[054] And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;
055 And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh;
[056] And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
[058] But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
[059] Fai. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter, from one side, Oberon, with his train; from the other, Titania, with hers.
[060] Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
[061] 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
[065] When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
[069] Come from the farthest steppe of India?
070 But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.
Obe. How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
075 Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
[077] Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
[078] From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
[079] And make him with fair Ægle break his faith,
[080] With Ariadne and Antiopa?
Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy:
[082] And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
[085] 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
090 Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
[091] 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
[095] Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
[097] And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud;
[099] And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
100 For lack of tread, are undistinguishable:
[101] 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,
105 That rheumatic diseases do abound:
[106] And thorough this distemperature we see
[107] The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
[109] And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
110 An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
[112] The childing autumn, angry winter, change
[113] Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
[114] By their increase, now knows not which is which:
[115] 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?
120 I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my henchman.
Tita.
Set your heart at rest:
[122] The fairy land buys not the child of me.
[123] His mother was a votaress of my order:
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
125 Full often hath she gossip’d by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
[127] 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;
130 Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
[131] Following,—her womb then rich with my young squire,—
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
135 But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
[136] 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?
Tita. Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day.
140 If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
[144] Tita. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
145 We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exit Titania with her train.
Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest
[149] Since once I sat upon a promontory,
150 And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music.
Puck.
I remember.
[155] Obe. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
[157] Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
[158] At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
[160] As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
[162] Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
[163] And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
165 Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once:
170 The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
[172] Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
[175] Puck. I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes. [Exit.
Obe.
Having once this juice,
[177] I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
[179] The next thing then she waking looks upon,
180 Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
[181] On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
[183] And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
As I can take it with another herb,
185 I’ll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.
[188] Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
[190] The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.
[191] Thou told’st me they were stolen unto this wood;
[192] And here am I, and wode within this wood,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
195 Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
[197] 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?
200 Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
[201] Tell you, I do not nor I cannot love you?
[202] Hel. And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
205 Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
[206] Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
[208] What worser place can I beg in your love,—
And yet a place of high respect with me,—
[210] Than to be used as you use your dog?
Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
Hel. And I am sick when I look not on you.
Dem. You do impeach your modesty too much,
215 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.
[220] Hel. Your virtue is my privilege: for that
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you in my respect are all the world:
225 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.
Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
230 Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues, and valour flies.
[235] 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.
[238] Hel. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
240 Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:
We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
[242] We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo. [Exit Dem.
[243] I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
[244] To die upon the hand I love so well. [Exit.
[245] Obe. Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,
[246] Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Re-enter Puck.
[247] Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
Puck. Ay, there it is.
Obe.
I pray thee, give it me.
[249] I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
[250] Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;
[251] Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
[253] There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
[254] Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
255 And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
[256] Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
[257] 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:
260 A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
265 Effect it with some care that he may prove
[266] More fond on her than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
[268] Puck. Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so. [Exeunt.
[000] Scene II. Another part of the wood.
MSND II. 2 Enter Titania, with her train.
Tita. Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
[002] Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
005 To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders
[007] At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices, and let me rest.
Song.
[009] Fir. Fairy.
You spotted snakes with double tongue.
010 Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy queen.
CHORUS.
[013] Philomel, with melody
[014] Sing in our sweet lullaby;
015 Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.
Fir. Fairy.
[020] Weaving spiders, come not here;
[021] Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence.
CHORUS.
Philomel, with melody, &c.
Sec. Fairy.
[025] Hence, away! now all is well:
[026] One aloof stand sentinel. [Exeunt Fairies. Titania sleeps.
Enter Oberon, and squeezes the flower on Titania’s eyelids.
Obe. What thou seest when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true-love take;
Love and languish for his sake:
030 Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
[032] In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wakest, it is thy dear:
[034] Wake when some vile thing is near. [Exit.
Enter Lysander and Hermia.
[035] 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,
[038] And tarry for the comfort of the day.
[039] Her. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;
040 For I upon this bank will rest my head.
Lys. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
Her. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.
[045] Lys. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
[046] Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.
[047] I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit,
[048] So that but one heart we can make of it:
[049] Two bosoms interchained with an oath;
050 So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
Her. Lysander riddles very prettily:
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
055 If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
[057] Lie further off; in human modesty,
Such separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
060 So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
Lys. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!
[065] Her. With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be press’d! [They sleep.
Enter Puck.
Puck. Through the forest have I gone,
[067] But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower’s force in stirring love.
070 Night and silence.—Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
075 On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie
[077] Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
080 When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon. [Exit.
Enter Demetrius and Helena, running.
[084] Hel. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
085 Dem. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
Hel. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.
[087] Dem. Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go. [Exit.
Hel. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
090 Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies;
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:
If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;
095 For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
[096] Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?
[100] But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
Lys. [Awaking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
[104] Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
[105] That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
[106] Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
Hel. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
110 Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.
Lys. Content with Hermia! No; I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
[113] Not Hermia but Helena I love:
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
115 The will of man is by his reason sway’d;
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season:
[118] So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
And touching now the point of human skill,
120 Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
And leads me to your eyes; where I o’erlook
[122] Love’s stories, written in love’s richest book.
Hel. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
125 Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can,
[127] Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
130 In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare you well: perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
O, that a lady, of one man refused,
Should of another therefore be abused! [Exit.
135 Lys. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
[138] The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
Or as the heresies that men do leave
[140] Are hated most of those they did deceive,
So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
Of all be hated, but the most of me!
[143] And, all my powers, address your love and might
To honour Helen and to be her knight! [Exit.
Her. [Awaking] 145 Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
[147] Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
[150] And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? speak, an if you hear;
[154] Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
155 No? then I well perceive you are not nigh:
[156] Either death or you I’ll find immediately. [Exit.