A Wood near Athens. | |
| |
Enter a Fairy on one side, and PUCK on the other. | |
| Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you? | |
| Fai. Over hill, over dale, | 4 |
| Thorough bush, thorough brier, | |
| Over park, over pale, | |
| Thorough flood, thorough fire, | |
| I do wander every where, | 8 |
| 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; | 12 |
| In their gold coats spots you see; | |
| Those be rubies, fairy favours, | |
| In their freckles live their savours: | |
| I must go seek some dew-drops here, | 16 |
| 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; | 24 |
| 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, | 28 |
| 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, | 32 |
| 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 you not he | 36 |
| That frights 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; | 40 |
| Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? | |
| Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, | |
| You do their work, and they shall have good luck: | |
| Are you not he? | 44 |
| Puck. Fairy, 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, | 48 |
| 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 | 52 |
| 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, | 56 |
| And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough; | |
| And then the whole quire hold their hips and loff; | |
| And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear | |
| A merrier hour was never wasted there. | 60 |
| 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. | |
| Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. | 64 |
| 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 | 68 |
| 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, | 72 |
| Come from the furthest steppe of India? | |
| But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, | |
| Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love, | |
| To Theseus must be wedded, and you come | 76 |
| 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? | 80 |
| Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night | |
| From Perigouna, whom he ravished? | |
| And make him with fair Ægle break his faith, | |
| With Ariadne, and Antiopa? | 84 |
| 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, | 88 |
| 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, | 92 |
| 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; | 96 |
| 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, | 100 |
| And crows are fatted with the murrion 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: | 104 |
| 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, | 108 |
| 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, | 112 |
| 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 | 116 |
| Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, | |
| By their increase, now knows not which is which. | |
| And this same progeny of evil comes | |
| From our debate, from our dissension: | 120 |
| 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, | 124 |
| To be my henchman. | |
| Tita. Set your heart at rest; | |
| The fairy land buys not the child of me. | |
| His mother was a votaress of my order: | 128 |
| 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; | 132 |
| 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,— | 136 |
| 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; | 140 |
| And for her sake I do 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. | 144 |
| If you will patiently dance in our round, | |
| And see our moonlight revele, go with us; | |
| If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. | |
| Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. | 148 |
| Tita. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away! | |
| 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. | 152 |
| My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember’st | |
| Since once I sat upon a promontory, | |
| And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back | |
| Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, | 156 |
| 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. | 160 |
| Obe. That very time I saw, but thou couldst 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, | 164 |
| 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, | 168 |
| And the imperial votaress passed on, | |
| In maiden meditation, fancy-free. | |
| Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell: | |
| It fell upon a little western flower, | 172 |
| Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, | |
| And maidens call it, Love-in-idleness. | |
| Fetch me that flower; the herb I show’d thee once: | |
| The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid | 176 |
| Will make or man or woman madly dote | |
| Upon the next live creature that it sees. | |
| Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again | |
| Ere the leviathan can swim a league. | 180 |
| Puck. I’ll put a girdle round about the earth | |
| In forty minutes. [Exit. | |
| Obe. Having once this juice | |
| I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep, | 184 |
| And drop the liquor of it in her eyes: | |
| The next thing then she waking looks upon, | |
| Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, | |
| On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, | 188 |
| 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. | 192 |
| But who comes here? I am invisible, | |
| And I will overhear their conference. | |
| |
Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. | |
| Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. | 196 |
| Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? | |
| The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me. | |
| Thou told’st me they were stol’n into this wood; | |
| And here am I, and wood within this wood, | 200 |
| 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 | 204 |
| 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? | |
| Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth | 208 |
| Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you? | |
| 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: | 212 |
| Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, | |
| Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, | |
| Unworthy as I am, to follow you. | |
| What worser place can I beg in your love, | 216 |
| And yet a place of high respect with me, | |
| 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 you. | 220 |
| 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; | 224 |
| 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 | 228 |
| 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: | 232 |
| 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. | 236 |
| 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 | 240 |
| 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 | 244 |
| But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. | |
| 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. | 248 |
| 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. | 252 |
| Obe. Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove, | |
| Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love. | |
| |
Re-enter PUCK. | |
| Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. | 256 |
| 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 | 260 |
| Quite over-canopied with luscious 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; | 264 |
| 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. | 268 |
| 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 | 272 |
| May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man | |
| By the Athenian garments he hath on. | |
| Effect it with some care, that he may prove | |
| More fond on her than she upon her love. | 276 |
| And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow. | |
| Puck. Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so. [Exeunt. | |
