Dem. I would, I had your bond; for, I perceive, Lys.

A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word. Lys. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?

Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.

Her. What, can you do me greater harm, than

hate ?

Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?
Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?

I am as fair now, as I was erewhile.

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
jole.
[Exeunt Lys. and Dem.
Her. You, mistress, all this coil is long of you:
Nay, go not back.
Hel.
I will not trust you, I;
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands, than nine, are quicker for a fray;

Since night, you lov'd me; yet, since night you My legs are longer though, to run away.

left me:

Why, then you left me,-0, the gods forbid !

In earnest, shall I say?

Lys.

Ay, by my life;
And never did desire to see thee more.
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-blossom!
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!

[Exil

Her. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.
[Exit, pursuing Helena.

Obe. This is thy negligence: still thou mistak'st,
Or else commit'st thy knaveries wilfully.
Puck. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me, I should know the man
By the Athenian garments he had on?
And so far blameless proves my enterprize,
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes:
And so far am I glad it so did sort,

As this their jangling I esteem a sport.

Obe. Thou seest, these lovers seek a place to
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night; [fight;
The starry welkin cover thou anon
With drooping fog, as black as Acheron;

And lead these testy rivals so astray,

Her. Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the As one come not within another's way.

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 I, thou painted maypole
How low am I? I am not yet so low,
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

?

speak;

Hel. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me I was never curst;

I have no gift at all in shrewishness;

I am a right maid for my cowardice;
Let her not strike me: You, perhaps, may think,

Because she's something lower than myself,

That I can match her.

Her

Lower! hark, again.

Hel, Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,

Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

I told him of your stealth unto this wood:

He follow'd you for love, I follow'd him.
But he hath chid me hence; and threaten'd me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:

And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back,
And follow you no further: Let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.

Her. Why, get you gone: Who is't that hinders

you?

Hel. A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
Her. What, with Lysander ?
Hel.

With Demetrius.
Lys. Be not afraid: she shall not harm thee,
Helena.

Dem. No, sir; she shall not, though you take her
part.

Hel. O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd:
She was a vixen, when she went to school;
And, though she be but little, she is fierce.

Her. Little again? nothing but low and little ?
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.

Lys.

Get you gone, you dwarf; 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 ite

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 and batty wings doth creep:
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error, with his might,
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

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 exile 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.

Lys. He goes before me, and still dares me on;
When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
The villain is much lighter heel'd than I:
I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly;
That fallen am I in dark uneven way,

And here will rest me. Come, thou gentle day!
[Lies down.

For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite. [Sleeps.
Re-enter Puck and Demetrius.

Puck. Ho, ho! ho, ho! Coward, why com'st
thou not?
Dem. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot,
Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place;
And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face.
Where art thou ?

Puck.

Come hither; I am here.

Bot. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom. Where's monsieur Cobweb?

Must. Ready.

Bot. Give me your neif, monsieur Mustard-seed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur. Must. What's your will?

Bot. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help cava. lero Cobweb to scratch. 1 must to the barber's, Dem. Nay, then thou mock'st me. Thou shalt monsieur; for, methinks, I am marvellous hairy buy this dear,

If ever I thy face by day-light see:

Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
To measure out my length on this cold bed.-

By day's approach look to be visited.

about the face and I am such a tender ass, if my
hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.

Tita. What, wilt thou hear some musick, my
sweet love?
Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in musick: let

[Lies down and sleeps. us have the tongs and the bones.

Her. Never so weary, never so in woe, Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers; I can no further crawl, no further go;

My legs can keep no pace with my desires. Here will I rest me, till the break of day. Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!

1

Puck. On the ground

Sleep sound:

I'll apply

To your eye,

Gentle lover, remedy.

[Lies down.

Tita. Or, say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to

eat.

Bot. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks, I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

Tita. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek I
The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

Bot. I had rather have a handful, or two, of dried
peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir
me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
Tita. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.
So doth the woodbine, the sweet honeysuckle,
Gently entwist, the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

[They sleep.

Oberon advances. Enter Puck.

Obe. Welcome, good Robin. See'st thou this
sweet sight?

Her dotage now I do begin to pity..
For meeting her of late, behind the wood,
Seeking sweet savours for this hateful fool,
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

[Squeezing the juice on Lysander's eye. Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls,

When thou wak'st,
Thou tak'st

True delight

In the sight

That every man should take his own,

And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience,
I 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.

Of thy former lady's eye:

And the country proverb known,

97 In your waking shall be shown: Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill;

And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp

vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man | Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, to say what dream it was:-Man is but an ass, if he Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend go about to expound this dream. Methought I was More than cool reason ever comprehends.

-there is no man can tell what. Methought I was,

and methought I had,-But man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing

The lunatick, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:

1

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantick,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to
And, as imagination bodies forth
[heaven;

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen..

it in the latter end of a play, before the duke: Per- Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing adventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall A local habitation, and a name.

sing it at her death.

[Exit. Such tricks hath strong imagination;

SCENE II.-Athens. A Room in Quince's House.

Enter Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. Quin. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?

is transported.

Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he Flu. If he come not, then the play is marred; It goes not forward, doth it?

Quin. It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens, able to discharge Pyramus, but he.

Flu. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handycraft man in Athens.

Quin. Yea, and the best person too: and he is a

very paramour, for a sweet voice.

Flu. You must say, paragon: a

bless us, a thing of nought.

Enter Snug.

That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?

Hip. But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,

And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange, and admirable.

Enter Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena.

The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and
mirth..

Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love,A
Accompany your hearts!

Lys.

More than to us

paramour is, God Wait on your royal walks, your board, your bed!

Snug. Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

Flu. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a-day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deser ved it: sixpence a-day, in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter Bottom.

Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts? Quin. Bottom!- most courageous day! O most happy hour!

Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.

Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom. Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you, is, that the duke hath dined: Get your apparel together; good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for, the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him, that plays the lion, pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions, nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt, but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away. [Exeunt.

ACT. V.

SCENE 1.-The same. An Apartment in the
Palace of Theseus.

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, Lords, and
Attendants.

Hip. "Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers
speak of.
[lieve
The. More strange than true. I never may be-
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

The. Come now; what masks, what dances shall

we have,

To wear away this long age of three hours,
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
Philost.

Here, mighty Theseus.

The. Say, what abridgment have you for this

evening

What mask, what musick? How shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight?

Philost. There is a brief, how many sports are
ripe;

Make choice of which your highness will see first.
[Giving a paper.
The. [reads.] The battle with the Centaurs, to
be sung,

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.
We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.
That is an old device, and it was play'd
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
The thrice three Muses mourning for the death

Of learning, late deceas'd in beggary.
That is some satire, keen, and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus,
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.
Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief ?
That is, hot ice, and wonderous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
long;

Philost. A play there is, my lord, some ten words

Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which

ich makes it tedious: for in all the play
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
The. What are they that do play it ?
Philost. Hard-handed men, that work in Athens
here,

Which never labour'd in their minds till now;

No, my noble lord, "Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth, and tall,

Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain, "And, Thisby tarrying in mulberry shade,

We are not here. That you should here repent you, me, is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am