To set against me, for your merriment. If you were civil, and knew courtesy, You would not do me thus much injury. Can you not hate me, as I know you do, But you must join in souls, to mock me too? If you were men, as men you are in show, the You would not use a gentle lady so;

To follow me, and praise my eyes and face?
And made your other love, Demetrius,
(Who even but now did spurn me with his
foot,)

To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates! and wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
And tender me, forsooth, affection;
But by your setting on, by your consent?
What though I be not so in grace as you,
80- So hung upon with love, so fortunate:
But miserable most, to love unlov'd?
This you should pity, rather than despise.
Her. I understand not what you mean by
this.
sad

Hel. Ay, do, persévere, counterfeit
looks,

Make mows upon me, when I turn my back;

Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy Wink at each other; hold the sweet jest up:

Therefore, be out of hope, of question, doubt,
Be certain, nothing truer ; 'tis no jest,
That I do hate thee, and love Helena.

Her. O me! you juggler! you canker-blos

som;

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
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 1, thou painted maypole ? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low,
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
Her. I pray you, though you mock me, gen-
tlemen,

Let her not hurt me: I was never curst; t
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
I am a right maid for my cowardice;
Let her not strike me: You, perhaps,

think,

Because she's something lower than myself,
That I can match her.

Her. Lower! hark, again.

may

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 1 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,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs aud batty wings doth creep:
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;

Hel. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with Whose liquor bath this virtuous property, †

You minimus, of hind'ring 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.

Lys. Now she holds me not;

Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,
Or thine or mine, is most in Helena.

Dem. Follow? nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by
jule.
[Exeunt Lys. and DEM.

To take from thence all error, with his night,
And make his eye-balls 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;
And then I will her charmed eye release
From monster's view, and all things shall be
peace.

Puck. My fairy lord, this must be done with
haste;

For nights'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 church-yards: damned spirits all,
That in cross-ways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone;
For fear lest day should look their shames
upon,

They wilfully themselves exi'e from light,
And must for aye consort with black-brow'd
night.

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.

[Exit OBERON.
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.

Speak. In some bush? Where dost thou hide The man shall have his mare again, and all shall

SCENE 1.-The same.

Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM, FAIRIES, attending; OBERON behind unseen.

Tita. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair iarge ears, my gentle joy.
Bot. Where's Peas-blossom?

scratch. [Lies down and sleeps.

I did upbraid her, and fall out with her :
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
And that same dew, which sometime on the
buds

Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flourets' eyes,
Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.
When I had, at my pleasure, taunted her,
And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience,
1 then did ask of her her changeling child;
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
And now I have the boy, I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
From off the head of this Athenian swain;
That he awaking when the other do,
May all to Athens back again repair;

And think no more of this night's accidents,
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.

But first I will release the fairy queen.
Be, as thou wast wont to be;

The. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan

hung

With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls ;

Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like
bells,

Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly :

Judge, when you bear.-But, soft; what nymphs
are these?

Ege. My lord, this is my daughter here
asleep :

And this, Lysander: this Demetrius is;
This Helena, old Nedar's Helena :

I wonder of their being here together.
The. No doubt, they rose up early to observe
The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
Came here in grace of our solemnity.-
But, speak, Egeus; is not this the day

[Touching her eyes with an herb. That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

See, as thou wast wont to see:

Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower

Hath such force and blessed power.

Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.

Tita. My Oberon! what visions have I seen!

Methought, I was enamour'd of an ass.

Obe. There lies your love.

Tita. How came these things to pass?
Oh how mine eyes do loath his visage now!
Obe. Silence, a while.-Robin, take off this
head.-

Titania, music call; and strike more dead
Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.
Tita. Music, ho! music; such as charmeth
sleep.

Puck. Now, when thou wak'st, with thine own
fool's eyes peep.

Obe. Sound, music. [Still Muste.] Come, my queen, take hands with me,

And rock the ground whereon those sleepers
be.

Now thou and I are new in amity;
And will, to-morrow midnight, solemnly,
Dance in duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair posterity:
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

Puck. Fairy king, attend, and mark;
I do hear the morning lark.

Obe. Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade:
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.

Ege. It is, my lord.

The. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

Horns, and shout within.

DEMETRIUS, LY.

SANDER, HERMIA, and HELENA, wake and start up.

The. Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine

is past;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
Lys. Pardon, my lord.

[He and the rest kneel to THESEUS. The. I pray you all, stand up.

I know you are two rival enemies;
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy,
To sleep by hate and fear no enmity?
Half sleep, half waking: But as yet, I swear,
Lys. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,

cannot truly say how I came here:
But, as I think, (for truly would I speak,-
And now I do bethink me, so it is ;)

I came with Hermia hither: our intent
Was, to be gone from Athens, where we might
be

Without the peril of the Athenian law.

Ege. Enough, enough, my lord; you bave
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;

Dem. My lord, fair Helen told me of their

stealth,

Tita. Come, my lord; and in our flight, Of my consent that she should be your wife. Tell me how it came this night, That I sleeping here was found, With these mortals, on the ground. [Exeunt. [Horns sound within. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and

train.

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 gawd,
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 loath this food:
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now do I wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermere be true to it.

The. Fair lovers, you are fortunately net :
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 kuit.

And, for the morning now is something worn,