A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1 Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia still asleep.
2 Enter Titania and Bottom; Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed and
3 other Fairies attending; Oberon behind, unseen.
4 TITANIA.
5 Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
6 While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
7 And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
8 And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
9 BOTTOM.
10 Where’s Peaseblossom?
11 PEASEBLOSSOM.
12 Ready.
13 BOTTOM.
14 Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s Monsieur Cobweb?
15 COBWEB.
16 Ready.
17 BOTTOM.
18 Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand and
19 kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
20 monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the
21 action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break
22 not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior.
23 Where’s Monsieur Mustardseed?
24 MUSTARDSEED.
25 Ready.
26 BOTTOM.
27 Give me your neaf, Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy,
28 good monsieur.
29 MUSTARDSEED.
30 What’s your will?
31 BOTTOM.
32 Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must
33 to the barber’s, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the
34 face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must
35 scratch.
36 TITANIA.
37 What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
38 BOTTOM.
39 I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let us have the tongs and the
40 bones.
41 TITANIA.
42 Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
43 BOTTOM.
44 Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks
45 I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no
46 fellow.
47 TITANIA.
48 I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
49 The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
50 BOTTOM.
51 I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let
52 none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon
53 me.
54 TITANIA.
55 Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
56 Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.
57 So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
58 Gently entwist, the female ivy so
59 Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
60 O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!
61 [_They sleep._]
62 Oberon advances. Enter Puck.
63 OBERON.
64 Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?
65 Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
66 For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
67 Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
68 I did upbraid her and fall out with her:
69 For she his hairy temples then had rounded
70 With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
71 And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
72 Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
73 Stood now within the pretty flouriets’ eyes,
74 Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
75 When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
76 And she in mild terms begg’d my patience,
77 I then did ask of her her changeling child;
78 Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
79 To bear him to my bower in fairyland.
80 And now I have the boy, I will undo
81 This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
82 And, gentle Puck, take this transformèd scalp
83 From off the head of this Athenian swain,
84 That he awaking when the other do,
85 May all to Athens back again repair,
86 And think no more of this night’s accidents
87 But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
88 But first I will release the Fairy Queen.
89 [_Touching her eyes with an herb._]
90 Be as thou wast wont to be;
91 See as thou was wont to see.
92 Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower
93 Hath such force and blessed power.
94 Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
95 TITANIA.
96 My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
97 Methought I was enamour’d of an ass.
98 OBERON.
99 There lies your love.
100 TITANIA.
101 How came these things to pass?
102 O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
103 OBERON.
104 Silence awhile.—Robin, take off this head.
105 Titania, music call; and strike more dead
106 Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.
107 TITANIA.
108 Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep.
109 PUCK.
110 Now when thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.
111 OBERON.
112 Sound, music.
113 [_Still music._]
114 Come, my queen, take hands with me,
115 And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
116 Now thou and I are new in amity,
117 And will tomorrow midnight solemnly
118 Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,
119 And bless it to all fair prosperity:
120 There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
121 Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
122 PUCK.
123 Fairy king, attend and mark.
124 I do hear the morning lark.
125 OBERON.
126 Then, my queen, in silence sad,
127 Trip we after night’s shade.
128 We the globe can compass soon,
129 Swifter than the wand’ring moon.
130 TITANIA.
131 Come, my lord, and in our flight,
132 Tell me how it came this night
133 That I sleeping here was found
134 With these mortals on the ground.
135 [_Exeunt. Horns sound within._]
136 Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train.
137 THESEUS.
138 Go, one of you, find out the forester;
139 For now our observation is perform’d;
140 And since we have the vaward of the day,
141 My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
142 Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.
143 Dispatch I say, and find the forester.
144 [_Exit an Attendant._]
145 We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top,
146 And mark the musical confusion
147 Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
148 HIPPOLYTA.
149 I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
150 When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear
151 With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear
152 Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
153 The skies, the fountains, every region near
154 Seem’d all one mutual cry. I never heard
155 So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
156 THESEUS.
157 My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
158 So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung
159 With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
160 Crook-knee’d and dewlap’d like Thessalian bulls;
161 Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells,
162 Each under each. A cry more tuneable
163 Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,
164 In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
165 Judge when you hear.—But, soft, what nymphs are these?
166 EGEUS.
167 My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,
168 And this Lysander; this Demetrius is;
169 This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena:
170 I wonder of their being here together.
171 THESEUS.
172 No doubt they rose up early to observe
173 The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
174 Came here in grace of our solemnity.
175 But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
176 That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
177 EGEUS.
178 It is, my lord.
179 THESEUS.
180 Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
181 Horns, and shout within. Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena wake
182 and start up.
183 Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.
184 Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
185 LYSANDER.
186 Pardon, my lord.
187 He and the rest kneel to Theseus.
188 THESEUS.
189 I pray you all, stand up.
190 I know you two are rival enemies.
191 How comes this gentle concord in the world,
192 That hatred is so far from jealousy
193 To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
194 LYSANDER.
195 My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
196 Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
197 I cannot truly say how I came here.
198 But, as I think (for truly would I speak)
199 And now I do bethink me, so it is:
200 I came with Hermia hither. Our intent
201 Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be
202 Without the peril of the Athenian law.
203 EGEUS.
204 Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough.
205 I beg the law, the law upon his head.
206 They would have stol’n away, they would, Demetrius,
207 Thereby to have defeated you and me:
208 You of your wife, and me of my consent,
209 Of my consent that she should be your wife.
210 DEMETRIUS.
211 My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
212 Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
213 And I in fury hither follow’d them,
214 Fair Helena in fancy following me.
215 But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,
216 (But by some power it is) my love to Hermia,
217 Melted as the snow, seems to me now
218 As the remembrance of an idle gaud
219 Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
220 And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
221 The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
222 Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
223 Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia.
224 But like a sickness did I loathe this food.
225 But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
226 Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
227 And will for evermore be true to it.
228 THESEUS.
229 Fair lovers, you are fortunately met.
230 Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
231 Egeus, I will overbear your will;
232 For in the temple, by and by with us,
233 These couples shall eternally be knit.
234 And, for the morning now is something worn,
235 Our purpos’d hunting shall be set aside.
236 Away with us to Athens. Three and three,
237 We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.
238 Come, Hippolyta.
239 [_Exeunt Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train._]
240 DEMETRIUS.
241 These things seem small and undistinguishable,
242 Like far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.
243 HERMIA.
244 Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
245 When everything seems double.
246 HELENA.
247 So methinks.
248 And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
249 Mine own, and not mine own.
250 DEMETRIUS.
251 Are you sure
252 That we are awake? It seems to me
253 That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
254 The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?
255 HERMIA.
256 Yea, and my father.
257 HELENA.
258 And Hippolyta.
259 LYSANDER.
260 And he did bid us follow to the temple.
261 DEMETRIUS.
262 Why, then, we are awake: let’s follow him,
263 And by the way let us recount our dreams.
264 [_Exeunt._]
265 BOTTOM.
266 [_Waking._] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is
267 ‘Most fair Pyramus.’ Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender!
268 Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God’s my life! Stol’n hence, and left me
269 asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit
270 of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to
271 expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what.
272 Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if
273 he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not
274 heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste,
275 his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I
276 will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be
277 called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it
278 in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it
279 the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
280 [_Exit._]