The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 2 of 9]

The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace; four happy days bring in

Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow

004 This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,

005 Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

006 Long withering out a young man’s revenue.

007 Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;

008 Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

010 New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.

Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;

Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth:

Turn melancholy forth to funerals;

015 The pale companion is not for our pomp. [Exit Philostrate.

Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,

And won thy love, doing thee injuries;

But I will wed thee in another key,

019 With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.

Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius.

020 Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!

The. Thanks, good Egeus: what’s the news with thee?

Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

024 Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,

025 This man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth, Lysander: and, my gracious duke,

027 This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child:

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,

And interchanged love-tokens with my child:

030 Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,

With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;

And stolen the impression of her fantasy

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers

035 Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth:

With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart;

Turn’d her obedience, which is due to me,

038 To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,

Be it so she will not here before your Grace

040 Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,

As she is mine, I may dispose of her:

Which shall be either to this gentleman

Or to her death, according to our law

045 Immediately provided in that case.

The. What say you, Hermia? be advised, fair maid:

To you your father should be as a god;

One that composed your beauties; yea, and one

To whom you are but as a form in wax

050 By him imprinted and within his power

051 To leave the figure or disfigure it.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

Her. So is Lysander.

In himself he is;

But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,

055 The other must be held the worthier.

Her. I would my father look’d but with my eyes.

The. Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.

Her. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold,

060 Nor how it may concern my modesty,

In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;

But I beseech your Grace that I may know

The worst that may befall me in this case,

If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

065 The. Either to die the death, or to abjure

For ever the society of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;

Know of your youth, examine well your blood,

069 Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,

070 You can endure the livery of a nun;

For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d,

To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,

075 To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

076 But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d,

Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,

Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

080 Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

081 Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

The. Take time to pause; and, by the next new moon,—

The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,

085 For everlasting bond of fellowship,—

Upon that day either prepare to die

087 For disobedience to your father’s will,

Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;

Or on Diana’s altar to protest

090 For aye austerity and single life.

Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father’s love, Demetrius;

094 Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.

095 Ege. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,

And what is mine my love shall render him.

And she is mine, and all my right of her

098 I do estate unto Demetrius.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well derived as he,

100 As well possess’d; my love is more than his;

101 My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d,

102 If not with vantage, as Demetrius’;

And, which is more than all these boasts can be,

I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:

105 Why should not I then prosecute my right?

Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,

107 Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,

And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

110 Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

The. I must confess that I have heard so much,

And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;

But, being over-full of self-affairs,

My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;

115 And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,

I have some private schooling for you both.

For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself

To fit your fancies to your father’s will;

Or else the law of Athens yields you up,—

120 Which by no means we may extenuate,—

To death, or to a vow of single life.

Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?

Demetrius and Egeus, go along:

I must employ you in some business

125 Against our nuptial, and confer with you

Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

127 Ege. With duty and desire we follow you. [Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia.

128 Lys. How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

130 Her. Belike for want of rain, which I could well

131 Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

132 Lys. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth;

135 But, either it was different in blood,—

136 Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.

Lys. Or else misgraffed in respect of years,—

138 Her. O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

139 Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,—

140 Her. O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.

Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,

143 Making it momentany as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

145 Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

146 That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’

148 The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

150 Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,

It stands as an edict in destiny:

Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross,

154 As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,

155 Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.

Lys. A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child:

159 From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;

160 And she respects me as her only son.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;

And to that place the sharp Athenian law

Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me, then,

Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night;

165 And in the wood, a league without the town,

Where I did meet thee once with Helena,

167 To do observance to a morn of May,

There will I stay for thee.

168 My good Lysander!

I swear to thee, by Cupid’s strongest bow,

170 By his best arrow with the golden head,

By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,

172 By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,

And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen,

When the false Troyan under sail was seen,

175 By all the vows that ever men have broke,

In number more than ever women spoke,

In that same place thou hast appointed me,

To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

Lys. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter Helena.

180 Her. God speed fair Helena! whither away?

Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.

182 Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!

Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue’s sweet air

More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear.

185 When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

186 Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,

187 Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,

My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.

190 Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,

191 The rest I’d give to be to you translated.

O, teach me how you look; and with what art

You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

195 Hel. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

Hel. O that my prayers could such affection move!

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.

Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me.

200 Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

Hel. None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

Her. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;

Lysander and myself will fly this place.

Before the time I did Lysander see,

205 Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me:

206 O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,

207 That he hath turn’d a heaven unto a hell!

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:

To-morrow night, when Phœbe doth behold

210 Her silver visage in the watery glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,

A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal,

213 Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

Her. And in the wood, where often you and I

215 Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,

216 Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,

There my Lysander and myself shall meet;

And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,

219 To seek new friends and stranger companies.

220 Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;

And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!

Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight

From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.

Lys. I will, my Hermia. [Exit Herm.

   Helena, adieu:

225 As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [Exit.

Hel. How happy some o’er other some can be!

Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.

But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;

229 He will not know what all but he do know:

230 And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,

So I, admiring of his qualities:

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,

Love can transpose to form and dignity:

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;

235 And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:

Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgement taste;

237 Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste:

And therefore is Love said to be a child,

239 Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

240 As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,

So the boy Love is perjured every where:

For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,

He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;

244 And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,

245 So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.

I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:

Then to the wood will he to-morrow night

248 Pursue her; and for this intelligence

249 If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:

250 But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither and back again. [Exit.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.