A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1 Enter a Fairy at one door, and Puck at another.
2 PUCK.
3 How now, spirit! Whither wander you?
4 FAIRY
5 Over hill, over dale,
6 Thorough bush, thorough brier,
7 Over park, over pale,
8 Thorough flood, thorough fire,
9 I do wander everywhere,
10 Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
11 And I serve the Fairy Queen,
12 To dew her orbs upon the green.
13 The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
14 In their gold coats spots you see;
15 Those be rubies, fairy favours,
16 In those freckles live their savours.
17 I must go seek some dew-drops here,
18 And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
19 Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone.
20 Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
21 PUCK.
22 The King doth keep his revels here tonight;
23 Take heed the Queen come not within his sight,
24 For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
25 Because that she, as her attendant, hath
26 A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king;
27 She never had so sweet a changeling.
28 And jealous Oberon would have the child
29 Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:
30 But she perforce withholds the lovèd boy,
31 Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
32 And now they never meet in grove or green,
33 By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
34 But they do square; that all their elves for fear
35 Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.
36 FAIRY
37 Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
38 Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
39 Call’d Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
40 That frights the maidens of the villagery,
41 Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
42 And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
43 And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,
44 Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
45 Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
46 You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
47 Are not you he?
48 PUCK.
49 Thou speak’st aright;
50 I am that merry wanderer of the night.
51 I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
52 When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
53 Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
54 And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl
55 In very likeness of a roasted crab,
56 And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
57 And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
58 The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
59 Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
60 Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
61 And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;
62 And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe
63 And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
64 A merrier hour was never wasted there.
65 But room, fairy. Here comes Oberon.
66 FAIRY
67 And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
68 Enter Oberon at one door, with his Train, and Titania at another, with
69 hers.
70 OBERON.
71 Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
72 TITANIA.
73 What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;
74 I have forsworn his bed and company.
75 OBERON.
76 Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
77 TITANIA.
78 Then I must be thy lady; but I know
79 When thou hast stol’n away from fairyland,
80 And in the shape of Corin sat all day
81 Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
82 To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
83 Come from the farthest steep of India,
84 But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
85 Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love,
86 To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
87 To give their bed joy and prosperity?
88 OBERON.
89 How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
90 Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
91 Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
92 Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
93 From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
94 And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
95 With Ariadne and Antiopa?
96 TITANIA.
97 These are the forgeries of jealousy:
98 And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
99 Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
100 By pavèd fountain, or by rushy brook,
101 Or on the beachèd margent of the sea,
102 To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
103 But with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d our sport.
104 Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
105 As in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea
106 Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
107 Hath every pelting river made so proud
108 That they have overborne their continents.
109 The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain,
110 The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
111 Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard.
112 The fold stands empty in the drownèd field,
113 And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
114 The nine-men’s-morris is fill’d up with mud,
115 And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
116 For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
117 The human mortals want their winter here.
118 No night is now with hymn or carol blest.
119 Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
120 Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
121 That rheumatic diseases do abound.
122 And thorough this distemperature we see
123 The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
124 Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
125 And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
126 An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
127 Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
128 The childing autumn, angry winter, change
129 Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
130 By their increase, now knows not which is which.
131 And this same progeny of evils comes
132 From our debate, from our dissension;
133 We are their parents and original.
134 OBERON.
135 Do you amend it, then. It lies in you.
136 Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
137 I do but beg a little changeling boy
138 To be my henchman.
139 TITANIA.
140 Set your heart at rest;
141 The fairyland buys not the child of me.
142 His mother was a vot’ress of my order,
143 And in the spicèd Indian air, by night,
144 Full often hath she gossip’d by my side;
145 And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
146 Marking th’ embarkèd traders on the flood,
147 When we have laugh’d to see the sails conceive,
148 And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
149 Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
150 Following (her womb then rich with my young squire),
151 Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
152 To fetch me trifles, and return again,
153 As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
154 But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
155 And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
156 And for her sake I will not part with him.
157 OBERON.
158 How long within this wood intend you stay?
159 TITANIA.
160 Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day.
161 If you will patiently dance in our round,
162 And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
163 If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
164 OBERON.
165 Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
166 TITANIA.
167 Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
168 We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
169 [_Exit Titania with her Train._]
170 OBERON.
171 Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove
172 Till I torment thee for this injury.—
173 My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest
174 Since once I sat upon a promontory,
175 And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
176 Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
177 That the rude sea grew civil at her song
178 And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
179 To hear the sea-maid’s music.
180 PUCK.
181 I remember.
182 OBERON.
183 That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not),
184 Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
185 Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
186 At a fair vestal, thronèd by the west,
187 And loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow
188 As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
189 But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
190 Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
191 And the imperial votress passed on,
192 In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
193 Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
194 It fell upon a little western flower,
195 Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
196 And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
197 Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once:
198 The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
199 Will make or man or woman madly dote
200 Upon the next live creature that it sees.
201 Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
202 Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
203 PUCK.
204 I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
205 In forty minutes.
206 [_Exit Puck._]
207 OBERON.
208 Having once this juice,
209 I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,
210 And drop the liquor of it in her eyes:
211 The next thing then she waking looks upon
212 (Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
213 On meddling monkey, or on busy ape)
214 She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
215 And ere I take this charm from off her sight
216 (As I can take it with another herb)
217 I’ll make her render up her page to me.
218 But who comes here? I am invisible;
219 And I will overhear their conference.
220 Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.
221 DEMETRIUS.
222 I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
223 Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
224 The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.
225 Thou told’st me they were stol’n into this wood,
226 And here am I, and wode within this wood
227 Because I cannot meet with Hermia.
228 Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
229 HELENA.
230 You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant,
231 But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
232 Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
233 And I shall have no power to follow you.
234 DEMETRIUS.
235 Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
236 Or rather do I not in plainest truth
237 Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
238 HELENA.
239 And even for that do I love you the more.
240 I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
241 The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
242 Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
243 Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
244 Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
245 What worser place can I beg in your love,
246 (And yet a place of high respect with me)
247 Than to be usèd as you use your dog?
248 DEMETRIUS.
249 Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
250 For I am sick when I do look on thee.
251 HELENA.
252 And I am sick when I look not on you.
253 DEMETRIUS.
254 You do impeach your modesty too much
255 To leave the city and commit yourself
256 Into the hands of one that loves you not,
257 To trust the opportunity of night
258 And the ill counsel of a desert place,
259 With the rich worth of your virginity.
260 HELENA.
261 Your virtue is my privilege: for that
262 It is not night when I do see your face,
263 Therefore I think I am not in the night;
264 Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
265 For you, in my respect, are all the world.
266 Then how can it be said I am alone
267 When all the world is here to look on me?
268 DEMETRIUS.
269 I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
270 And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
271 HELENA.
272 The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
273 Run when you will, the story shall be chang’d;
274 Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
275 The dove pursues the griffin, the mild hind
276 Makes speed to catch the tiger. Bootless speed,
277 When cowardice pursues and valour flies!
278 DEMETRIUS.
279 I will not stay thy questions. Let me go,
280 Or if thou follow me, do not believe
281 But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
282 HELENA.
283 Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
284 You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
285 Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
286 We cannot fight for love as men may do.
287 We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo.
288 [_Exit Demetrius._]
289 I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
290 To die upon the hand I love so well.
291 [_Exit Helena._]
292 OBERON.
293 Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove,
294 Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
295 Enter Puck.
296 Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
297 PUCK.
298 Ay, there it is.
299 OBERON.
300 I pray thee give it me.
301 I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
302 Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
303 Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
304 With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
305 There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
306 Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
307 And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
308 Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
309 And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
310 And make her full of hateful fantasies.
311 Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
312 A sweet Athenian lady is in love
313 With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes;
314 But do it when the next thing he espies
315 May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
316 By the Athenian garments he hath on.
317 Effect it with some care, that he may prove
318 More fond on her than she upon her love:
319 And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
320 PUCK.
321 Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
322 [_Exeunt._]