A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare An Electronic Classics Series Publication
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream William Shakespeare An Electronic Classics Series Publication
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare is a publication of The Electronic Classics Series. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Editor, nor anyone asso- ciated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, The Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Editor, PSU-Hazleton, Hazleton, PA 18202 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Jim Manis is a faculty member of the English Department of The Pennsylvania State University. This page and any preceding page(s) are restricted by copyright. The text of the following pages are not copyrighted within the United States; however, the fonts used may be. Cover Design: Jim Manis Copyright © 1999 - 2013 The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university.
STARVELING: a tailor.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S
HIPPOLYTA: queen of the Amazons, betrothed to
DREAM Theseus.
William Shakespeare
HERMIA: daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander.
(written about 1593-1594)
HELENA: in love with Demetrius.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
OBERON: king of the fairies.
THESEUS: Duke of Athens.
TITANIA: queen of the fairies.
EGEUS: father to Hermia.
PUCK: or Robin Goodfellow.
LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS: in love with Hermia.
PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED:
PHILOSTRATE: master of the revels to Theseus. fairies.
QUINCE: a carpenter. Other fairies attending their King and Queen.
Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta.
SNUG: a joiner.
SCENE: Athens, and a wood near it.
BOTTOM: a weaver.
FLUTE: a bellows-mender.
SNOUT: a tinker.
3A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene i
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
DREAM The pale companion is not for our pomp.
ACT I [Exit PHILOSTRATE.]
Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,
SCENE I: Athens. The palace of THESEUS. And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
[Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants.] With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.
THESEUS: Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour [Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS.]
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow EGEUS: Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager THESEUS: Thanks, good Egeus: what’s the news with
Long withering out a young man revenue. thee?
HIPPOLYTA: Four days will quickly steep themselves in EGEUS: Full of vexation come I, with complaint
night; Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Four nights will quickly dream away the time; Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
And then the moon, like to a silver bow This man hath my consent to marry her.
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,
Of our solemnities. This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child;
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
THESEUS: Go, Philostrate, And interchanged love-tokens with my child:
4A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene i
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, THESEUS: In himself he is;
With feigning voice verses of feigning love, But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
And stolen the impression of her fantasy The other must be held the worthier.
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers HERMIA: I would my father look’d but with my eyes.
Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth:
With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart, THESEUS: Rather your eyes must with his judgment
Turn’d her obedience, which is due to me, look.
To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,
Be it so she; will not here before your grace HERMIA: I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
Consent to marry with Demetrius, I know not by what power I am made bold,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, Nor how it may concern my modesty,
As she is mine, I may dispose of her: In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
Which shall be either to this gentleman But I beseech your grace that I may know
Or to her death, according to our law The worst that may befall me in this case,
Immediately provided in that case. If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS: What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid: THESEUS: Either to die the death or to abjure
To you your father should be as a god; For ever the society of men.
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
To whom you are but as a form in wax Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
By him imprinted and within his power Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,
To leave the figure or disfigure it. You can endure the livery of a nun,
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman. For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d,
To live a barren sister all your life,
HERMIA: So is Lysander. Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
5A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene i
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; And what is mine my love shall render him.
But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d, And she is mine, and all my right of her
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn I do estate unto Demetrius.
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.
LYSANDER: I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
HERMIA: So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, As well possess’d; my love is more than his;
Ere I will my virgin patent up My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d,
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke If not with vantage, as Demetrius’;
My soul consents not to give sovereignty. And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:
THESEUS: Take time to pause; and, by the nest new Why should not I then prosecute my right?
moon— Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,
The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
For everlasting bond of fellowship— And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Upon that day either prepare to die Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
For disobedience to your father’s will, Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;
Or on Diana’s altar to protest THESEUS: I must confess that I have heard so much,
For aye austerity and single life. And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,
DEMETRIUS: Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
Thy crazed title to my certain right. And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
I have some private schooling for you both.
LYSANDER: You have her father’s love, Demetrius; For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him. To fit your fancies to your father’s will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up—
EGEUS: Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love, Which by no means we may extenuate—
6A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene i
To death, or to a vow of single life. HERMIA: O spite! too old to be engaged to young.
Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?
Demetrius and Egeus, go along: LYSANDER: Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,—
I must employ you in some business HERMIA: O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.
Against our nuptial and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves. LYSANDER: Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
EGEUS: With duty and desire we follow you. Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
[Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA.] Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
LYSANDER: How now, my love! why is your cheek so And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’
pale? The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
How chance the roses there do fade so fast? So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA: Belike for want of rain, which I could well HERMIA: If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. It stands as an edict in destiny:
Then let us teach our trial patience,
LYSANDER: Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, Because it is a customary cross,
Could ever hear by tale or history, As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
The course of true love never did run smooth; Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
But, either it was different in blood,—
LYSANDER: A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.
HERMIA: O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low. I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
LYSANDER: Or else misgraffed in respect of years,— From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
And she respects me as her only son.
7A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene i
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee; HELENA: Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
And to that place the sharp Athenian law Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then, Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue’s sweet air
Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night; More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,
And in the wood, a league without the town, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Where I did meet thee once with Helena, Sickness is catching: O, were favor so,
To do observance to a morn of May, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
There will I stay for thee. My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
HERMIA: My good Lysander! Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
I swear to thee, by Cupid’s strongest bow, The rest I’d give to be to you translated.
By his best arrow with the golden head, O, teach me how you look, and with what art
By the simplicity of Venus’ doves, You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen, HERMIA: I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke, HELENA: O that your frowns would teach my smiles
In number more than ever women spoke, such skill!
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee. HERMIA: I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
LYSANDER: Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena. HELENA: O that my prayers could such affection move!
[Enter HELENA.] HERMIA: The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HERMIA: God speed fair Helena! whither away? HELENA: The more I love, the more he hateth me.
8A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene i
HERMIA: His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.
HELENA: None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine! LYSANDER: I will, my Hermia.
HERMIA: Take comfort: he no more shall see my face; [Exit HERMIA.]
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see, Helena, adieu:
Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me: As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn’d a heaven unto a hell! [Exit.]
LYSANDER: Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: HELENA: How happy some o’er other some can be!
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
Her silver visage in the watery glass, But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, He will not know what all but he do know:
A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal, And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal. So I, admiring of his qualities:
Things base and vile, folding no quantity,
HERMIA: And in the wood, where often you and I Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:
There my Lysander and myself shall meet; Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgement taste;
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
To seek new friends and stranger companies. And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us; Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius! As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight So the boy Love is perjured every where:
9A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene ii
For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne, BOTTOM: First, good Peter Quince, say what the play
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine; treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, grow to a point.
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight: QUINCE: Marry, our play is, The most lamentable com-
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night edy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense: BOTTOM: A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a
But herein mean I to enrich my pain, merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by
To have his sight thither and back again. the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
[Exit.] QUINCE: Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
SCENE II: Athens. QUINCE’S house. BOTTOM: Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
[Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.] QUINCE: You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
QUINCE: Is all our company here? BOTTOM: What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?
BOTTOM: You were best to call them generally, man by QUINCE: A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
man, according to the scrip.
BOTTOM: That will ask some tears in the true perform-
QUINCE: Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is ing of it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I
thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the
before the duke and the duchess, on his wedding- day at rest: yet my chief humor is for a tyrant: I could play
night. Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.
The raging rocks
10A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene ii
And shivering shocks BOTTOM: An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too,
Shall break the locks I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice. ‘Thisne, Thisne;’
Of prison gates; ‘Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!’
And Phibbus’ car
Shall shine from far QUINCE: No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute,
And make and mar you Thisby.
The foolish Fates
This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. BOTTOM: Well, proceed.
This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein; a lover is more
condoling. QUINCE: Robin Starveling, the tailor.
QUINCE: Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. STARVELING: Here, Peter Quince.
FLUTE: Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE: Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby’s
mother. Tom Snout, the tinker.
QUINCE: Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
SNOUT: Here, Peter Quince.
FLUTE: What is Thisby? a wandering knight?
QUINCE: You, Pyramus’ father: myself, Thisby’s father:
QUINCE: It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Snug, the joiner; you, the lion’s part: and, I hope,
here is a play fitted.
FLUTE: Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a
beard coming. SNUG: Have you the lion’s part written? pray you, if it
be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE: That’s all one: you shall play it in a mask, and
you may speak as small as you will. QUINCE: You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but
roaring.
11A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene ii
BOTTOM: Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain
do any man’s heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will beard, or your French-crown-color beard, your perfect
make the duke say ‘Let him roar again, let him roar again.’ yellow.
QUINCE: An you should do it too terribly, you would QUINCE: Some of your French crowns have no hair at
fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; all, and then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here
and that were enough to hang us all. are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you and
desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet
ALL: That would hang us, every mother’s son. me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by
moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if we meet in the
BOTTOM: I grant you, friends, if that you should fright city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices
the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties,
discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.
voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking
dove; I will roar you an ‘twere any nightingale. BOTTOM: We will meet; and there we may rehearse most
obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.
QUINCE: You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus
is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in QUINCE: At the duke’s oak we meet.
a summer’s day; a most lovely gentleman-like man:
therefore you must needs play Pyramus. BOTTOM: Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.
BOTTOM: Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I [Exeunt.]
best to play it in?
QUINCE: Why, what you will.
BOTTOM: I will discharge it in either your straw-color
12A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene i
ACT II PUCK: The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
SCENE I: A wood near Athens. Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
[Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK.] She never had so sweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
PUCK: How now, spirit! whither wander you? Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
Fairy: Over hill, over dale, Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:
Thorough bush, thorough brier, And now they never meet in grove or green,
Over park, over pale, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
Thorough flood, thorough fire, But, they do square, that all their elves for fear
I do wander everywhere, Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen, Fairy: Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
To dew her orbs upon the green. Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
The cowslips tall her pensioners be: Call’d Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
In their gold coats spots you see; That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Those be rubies, fairy favors, Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern
In those freckles live their savors: And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
I must go seek some dewdrops here Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear. Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone: You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Our queen and all our elves come here anon. Are not you he?
13A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene i
PUCK: Thou speak’st aright; OBERON: Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile TITANIA: Then I must be thy lady: but I know
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
In very likeness of a roasted crab, To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale. But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, To give their bed joy and prosperity.
And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, OBERON: How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
A merrier hour was never wasted there. Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon. Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
Fairy: And here my mistress. Would that he were gone! And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
[Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the
other, TITANIA, with hers.] TITANIA: These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
OBERON: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
TITANIA: What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence: Or in the beached margent of the sea,
I have forsworn his bed and company. To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
14A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene i
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d our sport. By their increase, now knows not which is which:
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, And this same progeny of evils comes
As in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea From our debate, from our dissension;
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land We are their parents and original.
Have every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents: OBERON: Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain, Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn I do but beg a little changeling boy,
Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard; To be my henchman.
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock; TITANIA: Set your heart at rest:
The nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud, The fairy land buys not the child of me.
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green His mother was a votaress of my order:
For lack of tread are undistinguishable: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
The human mortals want their winter here; Full often hath she gossip’d by my side,
No night is now with hymn or carol blest: And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air, When we have laugh’d to see the sails conceive
That rheumatic diseases do abound: And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
And thorough this distemperature we see Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Following,—her womb then rich with my young squire,—
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown To fetch me trifles, and return again,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer, But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
The childing autumn, angry winter, change And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, And for her sake I will not part with him.
15A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene i
OBERON: How long within this wood intend you stay? OBERON: That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
TITANIA: Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day. Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
If you will patiently dance in our round At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us; And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
OBERON: Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
TITANIA: Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away! In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
[Exit TITANIA with her train.] Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
OBERON: Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once:
grove The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Till I torment thee for this injury. Will make or man or woman madly dote
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Since once I sat upon a promontory, Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song PUCK: I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, In forty minutes.
To hear the sea-maid’s music.
[Exit.]
PUCK: I remember.
OBERON: Having once this juice,
16A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene i
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep, DEMETRIUS: Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
The next thing then she waking looks upon, Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, HELENA: And even for that do I love you the more.
She shall pursue it with the soul of love: I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
And ere I take this charm from off her sight, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
As I can take it with another herb, Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
I’ll make her render up her page to me. Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
But who comes here? I am invisible; Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
And I will overhear their conference. What worser place can I beg in your love,—
And yet a place of high respect with me,—
[Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him.] Than to be used as you use your dog?
DEMETRIUS: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. DEMETRIUS: Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? For I am sick when I do look on thee.
The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told’st me they were stolen unto this wood; HELENA: And I am sick when I look not on you.
And here am I, and wode within this wood,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia. DEMETRIUS: You do impeach your modesty too much,
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not;
HELENA: You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; To trust the opportunity of night
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart And the ill counsel of a desert place
Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, With the rich worth of your virginity.
And I shall have no power to follow you.
HELENA: Your virtue is my privilege: for that
17A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene i
It is not night when I do see your face, [Exit DEMETRIUS.]
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
For you in my respect are all the world: To die upon the hand I love so well.
Then how can it be said I am alone,
When all the world is here to look on me? [Exit.]
DEMETRIUS: I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, OBERON: Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts. grove,
Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.
HELENA: The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed: [Re-enter PUCK.]
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valor flies. PUCK: Ay, there it is.
DEMETRIUS: I will not stay thy questions; let me go: OBERON: I pray thee, give it me.
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
HELENA: Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
We cannot fight for love, as men may do; And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
We should be wood and were not made to woo. Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
18A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene ii
And make her full of hateful fantasies. [The Fairies sing.]
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love You spotted snakes with double tongue,
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
But do it when the next thing he espies Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
May be the lady: thou shalt know the man Come not near our fairy queen.
By the Athenian garments he hath on. Philomel, with melody
Effect it with some care, that he may prove Sing in our sweet lullaby;
More fond on her than she upon her love: Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow. Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
PUCK: Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so. Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.
[Exeunt.] Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence!
SCENE II: Another part of the wood. Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence.
[Enter TITANIA, with her train.] Philomel, with melody, &c.
TITANIA: Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; Fairy: Hence, away! now all is well:
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence; One aloof stand sentinel.
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, [Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps.]
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders [Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA’s eyelids.]
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices and let me rest. OBERON: What thou seest when thou dost wake,
19A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene ii
Do it for thy true-love take, LYSANDER: O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
Love and languish for his sake: Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit
Pard, or boar with bristled hair, So that but one heart we can make of it;
In thy eye that shall appear Two bosoms interchained with an oath;
When thou wakest, it is thy dear: So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Wake when some vile thing is near. Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
[Exit.]
HERMIA: Lysander riddles very prettily:
[Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA.] Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
LYSANDER: Fair love, you faint with wandering in the But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
wood; Lie further off; in human modesty,
And to speak troth, I have forgot our way: Such separation as may well be said
We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
And tarry for the comfort of the day. So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
HERMIA: Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;
For I upon this bank will rest my head. LYSANDER: Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
And then end life when I end loyalty!
LYSANDER: One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!
One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.
HERMIA: With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be press’d!
HERMIA: Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet, do not lie so near. [They sleep.]
20A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene ii
[Enter PUCK.] DEMETRIUS: I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me
thus.
PUCK: Through the forest have I gone. HELENA: O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.
But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve DEMETRIUS: Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.
This flower’s force in stirring love.
Night and silence.—Who is here? [Exit.]
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said, HELENA: O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
Despised the Athenian maid; The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
And here the maiden, sleeping sound, Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies;
On the dank and dirty ground. For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;
All the power this charm doth owe. For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
When thou wakest, let love forbid Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid: Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.
So awake when I am gone; What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
For I must now to Oberon. Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?
But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
[Exit.] Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.
[Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running.]
LYSANDER: [Awaking] And run through fire I will
HELENA: Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius. for thy sweet sake.
Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
21A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, scene ii
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart. Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word In such disdainful manner me to woo.
Is that vile name to perish on my sword! But fare you well: perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
HELENA: Do not say so, Lysander; say not so O, that a lady, of one man refused.
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though? Should of another therefore be abused!
Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.
[Exit.]
LYSANDER: Content with Hermia! No; I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent. LYSANDER: She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:
Not Hermia but Helena I love: And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
Who will not change a raven for a dove? For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The will of man is by his reason sway’d; The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
And reason says you are the worthier maid. Or as tie heresies that men do leave
Things growing are not ripe until their season Are hated most of those they did deceive,
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason; So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
And touching now the point of human skill, Of all be hated, but the most of me!
Reason becomes the marshal to my will And, all my powers, address your love and might
And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook To honor Helen and to be her knight!
Love’s stories written in love’s richest book.
[Exit.]
HELENA: Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? HERMIA: [Awaking] Help me, Lysander, help me! do
Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man, thy best
That I did never, no, nor never can, To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye, Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
But you must flout my insufficiency? Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
22A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene i
Methought a serpent eat my heart away, ACT III
And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word? SCENE I: The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.
Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear. [Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.]
No? then I well perceive you all not nigh
Either death or you I’ll find immediately. BOTTOM: Are we all met?
[Exit.] QUINCE: Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient
place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our
stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we
will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.
BOTTOM: Peter Quince,—
QUINCE: What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
BOTTOM: There are things in this comedy of Pyramus
and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must
draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot
abide. How answer you that?
SNOUT: By’r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING: I believe we must leave the killing out,
when all is done.
23A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene i
BOTTOM: Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. face must be seen through the lion’s neck: and he him-
Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, self must speak through, saying thus, or to the same
we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus defect,—‘Ladies,’ —or ‘Fair-ladies—I would wish You,’—
is not killed indeed; and, for the more better assurance, or ‘I would request you,’—or ‘I would entreat you, —
tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bot- not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you
tom the weaver: this will put them out of fear. think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no
I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are;’ and
QUINCE: Well, we will have such a prologue; and it there indeed let him name his name, and tell them
shall be written in eight and six. plainly he is Snug the joiner.
BOTTOM: No, make it two more; let it be written in QUINCE: Well it shall be so. But there is two hard
eight and eight. things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber;
for, you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.
SNOUT: Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
SNOUT: Doth the moon shine that night we play our
STARVELING: I fear it, I promise you. play?
BOTTOM: Masters, you ought to consider with your- BOTTOM: A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac;
selves: to bring in—God shield us!—a lion among la- find out moonshine, find out moonshine.
dies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more
fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought QUINCE: Yes, it doth shine that night.
to look to ‘t.
BOTTOM: Why, then may you leave a casement of the
SNOUT: Therefore another prologue must tell he is not great chamber window, where we play, open, and the
a lion. moon may shine in at the casement.
BOTTOM: Nay, you must name his name, and half his QUINCE: Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of
24A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene i
thorns and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, QUINCE: Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
or to present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is
another thing: we must have a wall in the great cham- BOTTOM: Thisby, the flowers of odious savors sweet,—
ber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did talk
through the chink of a wall. QUINCE: Odors, odors.
SNOUT: You can never bring in a wall. What say you, BOTTOM: —odors savors sweet:
Bottom? So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,
BOTTOM: Some man or other must present Wall: and And by and by I will to thee appear.
let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some
rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him hold [Exit.]
his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus
and Thisby whisper. PUCK: A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here.
QUINCE: If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, [Exit.]
every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus,
you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter FLUTE: Must I speak now?
into that brake: and so every one according to his cue.
QUINCE: Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he
[Enter PUCK behind.] goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
PUCK: What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering FLUTE: Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
here, Of color like the red rose on triumphant brier,
So near the cradle of the fairy queen? Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
What, a play toward! I’ll be an auditor; As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause. I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.
25A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene i
QUINCE: ‘Ninus’ tomb,’ man: why, you must not speak BOTTOM: Why do they run away? this is a knavery of
that yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all them to make me afeard.
your part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue
is past; it is, ‘never tire.’ [Re-enter SNOUT.]
FLUTE: O,—As true as truest horse, that yet would never SNOUT: O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on
tire. thee?
[Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass’s head.] BOTTOM: What do you see? you see an asshead of your
own, do you?
BOTTOM: If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.
[Exit SNOUT.]
QUINCE: O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted.
Pray, masters! fly, masters! Help! [Re-enter QUINCE.]
[Exeunt QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.] QUINCE: Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.
PUCK: I’ll follow you, I’ll lead you about a round, [Exit.]
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through
brier: BOTTOM: I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of
Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound, me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
[Sings.]
[Exit.]
The ousel cock so black of hue,
26A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene i
With orange-tawny bill, the pity that some honest neighbors will not make them
The throstle with his note so true, friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
The wren with little quill,—
TITANIA: Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
TITANIA: [Awaking] What angel wakes me from my
flowery bed? BOTTOM: Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to
get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own
BOTTOM: [Sings.] turn.
The finch, the sparrow and the lark, TITANIA: Out of this wood do not desire to go:
The plain-song cuckoo gray, Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
Whose note full many a man doth mark, I am a spirit of no common rate;
And dares not answer nay;— The summer still doth tend upon my state;
And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
who would give a bird the lie, though he cry ‘cuckoo’ And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
never so? And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
TITANIA: I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note; Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me [Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee. MUSTARDSEED.]
BOTTOM: Methinks, mistress, you should have little PEASEBLOSSOM: Ready.
reason for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and
love keep little company together now-a-days; the more COBWEB: And I.
27A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
MOTH: And I. COBWEB: Cobweb.
MUSTARDSEED: And I. BOTTOM: I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good
ALL: Where shall we go? Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold
with you. Your name, honest gentleman?
TITANIA: Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; PEASEBLOSSOM: Peaseblossom.
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; BOTTOM: I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash,
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, your mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more acquain-
And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes, tance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?
To have my love to bed and to arise;
And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies MUSTARDSEED: Mustardseed.
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. BOTTOM: Good Master Mustardseed, I know your pa-
tience well: that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath
PEASEBLOSSOM: Hail, mortal! devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise
you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I
COBWEB: Hail! desire your more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed.
MOTH: Hail! TITANIA: Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
The moon methinks looks with a watery eye;
MUSTARDSEED: Hail! And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
Lamenting some enforced chastity.
BOTTOM: I cry your worship’s mercy, heartily: I be- Tie up my love’s tongue bring him silently.
seech your worship’s name. [Exeunt.]
28A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
SCENE II: Another part of the wood. And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
[Enter OBERON.] Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun’s report,
OBERON: I wonder if Titania be awaked; Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
Then, what it was that next came in her eye, So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;
Which she must dote on in extremity. And, at our stamp, here o’er and o’er one falls;
He murder cries and help from Athens calls.
[Enter PUCK.] Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,
Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
Here comes my messenger. For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
How now, mad spirit! Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.
What night-rule now about this haunted grove? I led them on in this distracted fear,
And left sweet Pyramus translated there:
PUCK: My mistress with a monster is in love. When in that moment, so it came to pass,
Near to her close and consecrated bower, Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, OBERON: This falls out better than I could devise.
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, But hast thou yet latch’d the Athenian’s eyes
Were met together to rehearse a play With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?
Intended for great Theseus’ nuptial-day.
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort, PUCK: I took him sleeping,—that is finish’d too,—
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport And the Athenian woman by his side:
Forsook his scene and enter’d in a brake That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass’s nole I fixed on his head: [Enter HERMIA and DEMETRIUS.]
Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
29A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
OBERON: Stand close: this is the same Athenian. HERMIA: What’s this to my Lysander? where is he?
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
PUCK: This is the woman, but not this the man.
DEMETRIUS: I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
DEMETRIUS: O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe. HERMIA: Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the
bounds
HERMIA: Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse, Of maiden’s patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse, Henceforth be never number’d among men!
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!
Being o’er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep, Durst thou have look’d upon him being awake,
And kill me too. And hast thou kill’d him sleeping? O brave touch!
The sun was not so true unto the day Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
As he to me: would he have stolen away An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
From sleeping Hermia? I’ll believe as soon Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
This whole earth may be bored and that the moon
May through the centre creep and so displease DEMETRIUS: You spend your passion on a misprised
Her brother’s noontide with Antipodes. mood:
It cannot be but thou hast murder’d him; I am not guilty of Lysander’s blood;
So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim. Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
DEMETRIUS: So should the murder’d look, and so HERMIA: I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
should I,
Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty: DEMETRIUS: An if I could, what should I get therefore?
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere. HERMIA: A privilege never to see me more.
And from thy hated presence part I so:
30A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
See me no more, whether he be dead or no. With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear:
By some illusion see thou bring her here:
[Exit.] I’ll charm his eyes against she do appear.
DEMETRIUS: There is no following her in this fierce PUCK: I go, I go; look how I go,
vein: Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
Here therefore for a while I will remain.
So sorrow’s heaviness doth heavier grow [Exit.]
For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe:
Which now in some slight measure it will pay, OBERON: Flower of this purple dye,
If for his tender here I make some stay. Hit with Cupid’s archery,
Sink in apple of his eye.
[Lies down and sleeps.] When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously
OBERON: What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken As the Venus of the sky.
quite When thou wakest, if she be by,
And laid the love-juice on some true-love’s sight: Beg of her for remedy.
Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
Some true love turn’d and not a false turn’d true. [Re-enter PUCK.]
PUCK: Then fate o’er-rules, that, one man holding PUCK: Captain of our fairy band,
troth, Helena is here at hand;
A million fail, confounding oath on oath. And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover’s fee.
OBERON: About the wood go swifter than the wind, Shall we their fond pageant see?
And Helena of Athens look thou find: Lord, what fools these mortals be!
All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,
31A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
OBERON: Stand aside: the noise they make HELENA: Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o’er.
Will cause Demetrius to awake.
LYSANDER: Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
PUCK: Then will two at once woo one;
That must needs be sport alone; DEMETRIUS: [Awaking] O Helena, goddess, nymph,
And those things do best please me perfect, divine!
That befal preposterously. To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
[Enter LYSANDER and HELENA.] Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,
LYSANDER: Why should you think that I should woo Fann’d with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
in scorn? When thou hold’st up thy hand: O, let me kiss
Scorn and derision never come in tears: This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
In their nativity all truth appears. HELENA: O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
How can these things in me seem scorn to you, To set against me for your merriment:
Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true? If you we re civil and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
HELENA: You do advance your cunning more and more. Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray! But you must join in souls to mock me too?
These vows are Hermia’s: will you give her o’er? If you were men, as men you are in show,
Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh: You would not use a gentle lady so;
Your vows to her and me, put in two scales, To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
Will even weigh, and both as light as tales. When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
LYSANDER: I had no judgment when to her I swore. And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
32A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes [Re-enter HERMIA.]
With your derision! none of noble sort
Would so offend a virgin, and extort HERMIA: Dark night, that from the eye his function
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport. takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
LYSANDER: You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so; Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
For you love Hermia; this you know I know: It pays the hearing double recompense.
And here, with all good will, with all my heart, Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
In Hermia’s love I yield you up my part; Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound
And yours of Helena to me bequeath, But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
Whom I do love and will do till my death.
LYSANDER: Why should he stay, whom love doth
HELENA: Never did mockers waste more idle breath. press to go?
DEMETRIUS: Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none: HERMIA: What love could press Lysander from my side?
If e’er I loved her, all that love is gone.
My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn’d, LYSANDER: Lysander’s love, that would not let him bide,
And now to Helen is it home return’d, Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
There to remain. Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light.
Why seek’st thou me? could not this make thee know,
LYSANDER: Helen, it is not so. The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?
DEMETRIUS: Disparage not the faith thou dost not HERMIA: You speak not as you think: it cannot be.
know,
Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear. HELENA: Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear. Now I perceive they have conjoin’d all three
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
33A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid! I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived
To bait me with this foul derision? HELENA: Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
Is all the counsel that we two have shared, To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent, And made your other love, Demetrius,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
For parting us,—O, is it all forgot? To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence? Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander
Have with our needles created both one flower, Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, And tender me, forsooth, affection,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key, But by your setting on, by your consent?
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds, What thought I be not so in grace as you,
Had been incorporate. So we grow together, So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But miserable most, to love unloved?
But yet an union in partition; This you should pity rather than despise.
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; HERNIA: I understand not what you mean by this.
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one and crowned with one crest. HELENA: Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
And will you rent our ancient love asunder, Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
To join with men in scorning your poor friend? Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:
It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly: This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it, If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
Though I alone do feel the injury. You would not make me such an argument.
But fare ye well: ’tis partly my own fault;
HERMIA: I am amazed at your passionate words. Which death or absence soon shall remedy.
34A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene ii
LYSANDER: Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse: Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,
My love, my life my soul, fair Helena! But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!
HELENA: O excellent! LYSANDER: Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing,
let loose,
HERMIA: Sweet, do not scorn her so. Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!
DEMETRIUS: If she cannot entreat, I can compel. HERMIA: Why are you grown so rude? what change is
this?
LYSANDER: Thou canst compel no more than she Sweet love,—
entreat:
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers. LYSANDER: Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!
Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do: Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!
I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
To prove him false that says I love thee not. HERMIA: Do you not jest?
DEMETRIUS: I say I love thee more than he can do. HELENA: Yes, sooth; and so do you.
LYSANDER: If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too. LYSANDER: Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
DEMETRIUS: Quick, come! DEMETRIUS: I would I had your bond, for I perceive
A weak bond holds you: I’ll not trust your word.
HERMIA: Lysander, whereto tends all this?
LYSANDER: What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill
LYSANDER: Away, you Ethiope! her dead?
Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.
DEMETRIUS: No, no; he’ll …
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