A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1 Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate and Attendants.
2 THESEUS.
3 Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
4 Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
5 Another moon; but oh, methinks, how slow
6 This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
7 Like to a step-dame or a dowager,
8 Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
9 HIPPOLYTA.
10 Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
11 Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
12 And then the moon, like to a silver bow
13 New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
14 Of our solemnities.
15 THESEUS.
16 Go, Philostrate,
17 Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
18 Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
19 Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
20 The pale companion is not for our pomp.
21 [_Exit Philostrate._]
22 Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,
23 And won thy love doing thee injuries;
24 But I will wed thee in another key,
25 With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
26 Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius.
27 EGEUS.
28 Happy be Theseus, our renownèd Duke!
29 THESEUS.
30 Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?
31 EGEUS.
32 Full of vexation come I, with complaint
33 Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
34 Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
35 This man hath my consent to marry her.
36 Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
37 This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child.
38 Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
39 And interchang’d love-tokens with my child.
40 Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
41 With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
42 And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
43 With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
44 Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats (messengers
45 Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth)
46 With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart,
47 Turn’d her obedience (which is due to me)
48 To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
49 Be it so she will not here before your grace
50 Consent to marry with Demetrius,
51 I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
52 As she is mine I may dispose of her;
53 Which shall be either to this gentleman
54 Or to her death, according to our law
55 Immediately provided in that case.
56 THESEUS.
57 What say you, Hermia? Be advis’d, fair maid.
58 To you your father should be as a god;
59 One that compos’d your beauties, yea, and one
60 To whom you are but as a form in wax
61 By him imprinted, and within his power
62 To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
63 Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
64 HERMIA.
65 So is Lysander.
66 THESEUS.
67 In himself he is.
68 But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
69 The other must be held the worthier.
70 HERMIA.
71 I would my father look’d but with my eyes.
72 THESEUS.
73 Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
74 HERMIA.
75 I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
76 I know not by what power I am made bold,
77 Nor how it may concern my modesty
78 In such a presence here to plead my thoughts:
79 But I beseech your Grace that I may know
80 The worst that may befall me in this case,
81 If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
82 THESEUS.
83 Either to die the death, or to abjure
84 For ever the society of men.
85 Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
86 Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
87 Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,
88 You can endure the livery of a nun,
89 For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d,
90 To live a barren sister all your life,
91 Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
92 Thrice-blessèd they that master so their blood
93 To undergo such maiden pilgrimage,
94 But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d
95 Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
96 Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
97 HERMIA.
98 So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
99 Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
100 Unto his lordship, whose unwishèd yoke
101 My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
102 THESEUS.
103 Take time to pause; and by the next new moon
104 The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
105 For everlasting bond of fellowship,
106 Upon that day either prepare to die
107 For disobedience to your father’s will,
108 Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,
109 Or on Diana’s altar to protest
110 For aye austerity and single life.
111 DEMETRIUS.
112 Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
113 Thy crazèd title to my certain right.
114 LYSANDER.
115 You have her father’s love, Demetrius.
116 Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.
117 EGEUS.
118 Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
119 And what is mine my love shall render him;
120 And she is mine, and all my right of her
121 I do estate unto Demetrius.
122 LYSANDER.
123 I am, my lord, as well deriv’d as he,
124 As well possess’d; my love is more than his;
125 My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d,
126 If not with vantage, as Demetrius’;
127 And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
128 I am belov’d of beauteous Hermia.
129 Why should not I then prosecute my right?
130 Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,
131 Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
132 And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
133 Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
134 Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
135 THESEUS.
136 I must confess that I have heard so much,
137 And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
138 But, being over-full of self-affairs,
139 My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come,
140 And come, Egeus; you shall go with me.
141 I have some private schooling for you both.—
142 For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
143 To fit your fancies to your father’s will,
144 Or else the law of Athens yields you up
145 (Which by no means we may extenuate)
146 To death, or to a vow of single life.
147 Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?
148 Demetrius and Egeus, go along;
149 I must employ you in some business
150 Against our nuptial, and confer with you
151 Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
152 EGEUS.
153 With duty and desire we follow you.
154 [_Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia._]
155 LYSANDER.
156 How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
157 How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
158 HERMIA.
159 Belike for want of rain, which I could well
160 Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
161 LYSANDER.
162 Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
163 Could ever hear by tale or history,
164 The course of true love never did run smooth.
165 But either it was different in blood—
166 HERMIA.
167 O cross! Too high to be enthrall’d to low.
168 LYSANDER.
169 Or else misgraffèd in respect of years—
170 HERMIA.
171 O spite! Too old to be engag’d to young.
172 LYSANDER.
173 Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—
174 HERMIA.
175 O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes!
176 LYSANDER.
177 Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
178 War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
179 Making it momentany as a sound,
180 Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
181 Brief as the lightning in the collied night
182 That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
183 And, ere a man hath power to say, ‘Behold!’
184 The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
185 So quick bright things come to confusion.
186 HERMIA.
187 If then true lovers have ever cross’d,
188 It stands as an edict in destiny.
189 Then let us teach our trial patience,
190 Because it is a customary cross,
191 As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
192 Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
193 LYSANDER.
194 A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
195 I have a widow aunt, a dowager
196 Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
197 From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
198 And she respects me as her only son.
199 There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
200 And to that place the sharp Athenian law
201 Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
202 Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night;
203 And in the wood, a league without the town
204 (Where I did meet thee once with Helena
205 To do observance to a morn of May),
206 There will I stay for thee.
207 HERMIA.
208 My good Lysander!
209 I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
210 By his best arrow with the golden head,
211 By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,
212 By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
213 And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen
214 When the false Trojan under sail was seen,
215 By all the vows that ever men have broke
216 (In number more than ever women spoke),
217 In that same place thou hast appointed me,
218 Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
219 LYSANDER.
220 Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
221 Enter Helena.
222 HERMIA.
223 God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
224 HELENA.
225 Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.
226 Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
227 Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue’s sweet air
228 More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,
229 When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
230 Sickness is catching. O were favour so,
231 Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go.
232 My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
233 My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
234 Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
235 The rest I’d give to be to you translated.
236 O, teach me how you look, and with what art
237 You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!
238 HERMIA.
239 I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
240 HELENA.
241 O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
242 HERMIA.
243 I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
244 HELENA.
245 O that my prayers could such affection move!
246 HERMIA.
247 The more I hate, the more he follows me.
248 HELENA.
249 The more I love, the more he hateth me.
250 HERMIA.
251 His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
252 HELENA.
253 None but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
254 HERMIA.
255 Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
256 Lysander and myself will fly this place.
257 Before the time I did Lysander see,
258 Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me.
259 O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
260 That he hath turn’d a heaven into hell!
261 LYSANDER.
262 Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
263 Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
264 Her silver visage in the watery glass,
265 Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
266 (A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal),
267 Through Athens’ gates have we devis’d to steal.
268 HERMIA.
269 And in the wood where often you and I
270 Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
271 Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
272 There my Lysander and myself shall meet,
273 And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
274 To seek new friends and stranger companies.
275 Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us,
276 And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
277 Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight
278 From lovers’ food, till morrow deep midnight.
279 LYSANDER.
280 I will, my Hermia.
281 [_Exit Hermia._]
282 Helena, adieu.
283 As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
284 [_Exit Lysander._]
285 HELENA.
286 How happy some o’er other some can be!
287 Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
288 But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
289 He will not know what all but he do know.
290 And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
291 So I, admiring of his qualities.
292 Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
293 Love can transpose to form and dignity.
294 Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
295 And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.
296 Nor hath love’s mind of any judgment taste.
297 Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
298 And therefore is love said to be a child,
299 Because in choice he is so oft beguil’d.
300 As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
301 So the boy Love is perjur’d everywhere.
302 For, ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
303 He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
304 And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
305 So he dissolv’d, and showers of oaths did melt.
306 I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.
307 Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
308 Pursue her; and for this intelligence
309 If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
310 But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
311 To have his sight thither and back again.
312 [_Exit Helena._]