-
[Fairy grunting]
-
[Fairy] Over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough brier,
-
Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire,
-
[Puck] How now, spirit! Wither wander you?
-
[Fairy] I do wander everywhere.
-
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
-
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
-
To dew her orbs upon the green.
-
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
-
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 tonight.
-
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight.
-
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 a jealous Oberon would have the child 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, but they do square,
-
that all their elves for fear creep into acorn cups and hide them there.
-
[Fairy] Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
-
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow.
-
Are not you he that frights the maidens of the villagery,
-
or sometime make the drink to bear no barm,
-
mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm?
-
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
-
You do their work and they shall have good luck.
-
Are not you he?
-
[Puck] Thou speakest aright;
-
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
-
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
-
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
-
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
-
Neigh!!
-
[Puck] 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
-
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
-
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
-
Sometime for a three-foot stool mistaketh me;
-
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
-
And "tailor" cries, and falls into a cough;
-
And the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
-
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze and swear
-
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
-
[thunder]
-
[Puck] But, room, fairies! Here comes Oberon.
-
[thunder]
-
[Fairy] And here my mistress! Would that he were gone!
-
[Oberon] Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
-
[Titania.] What, jealous Oberon!
-
Fairy, skip hence.
-
I have forsworn his bed and company.
-
[Oberon] Tarry, rash wanton; am I not thy lord?
-
[Titania] Then I must be thy lady:
-
But I know 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, come from the furthest step of India?
-
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
-
Your buskined mistress and your warrior love,
-
To Theseus must be wedded,
-
And you come to give their bed joy and prosperity.
-
[Oberon] How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
-
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
-
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
-
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night from Perigenia,
-
Whom he ravished?
-
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith, with Ariadne and Antiopa?
-
[Titania] These are the forgeries of jealousy:
-
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
-
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
-
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
-
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
-
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
-
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
-
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
-
As in revenge, have sucked up from the sea contagious fogs;
-
which, falling in the land,
-
Hath every pelting river made so proud,
-
That they have overborne their continents.
-
[Oberon] Eh.
-
[Titania] The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
-
And the crows are fatted with the murrion flock,
-
The nine men's morris is filled up with mud;
-
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
-
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
-
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,
-
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
-
And thorough this distemperature we see the seasons alter:
-
Hoary-headed frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
-
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
-
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds is,
-
as in mockery, set.
-
The spring, the summer, the childing autumn,
-
angry winter, change their wonted liveries;
-
and the mazed world by their increase,
-
now knows not which is which.
-
And this same progeny of evils comes from our debate,
-
From our dissension; We are their parents and original.
-
[Oberon] Do you amend it, then; it lies in you:
-
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
-
I do but beg a little changeling boy, to be my henchman.
-
[Titania] Set your heart at rest.
-
Thy fairy land buys not the child of me.
-
[Oberon] Ugh!
-
[Titania] His mother was a vot'ress of my order,
-
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
-
Full often hath she gossiped by my side.
-
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
-
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
-
And for her sake I will not part with him.
-
[Oberon] How long within this wood intend you stay?
-
[Titania] Perchance till after Theseus' wedding day.
-
If you will patiently dance in our round,
-
And see our moonlight revels,
-
come with us.
-
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
-
[Oberon] Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
-
[Titania] Not for thy fairy kingdom.
-
Fairies, away!
-
We shall chide downright, should I longer stay.
-
[Oberon] Ugh!
-
Well, go thy way!
-
Thou shalt not from this grove till I torment thee for this injury.
-
Aaaahhh!
-
My gentle Puck, come hither.
-
Thou rememb'rest since once I sat upon a promontory,
-
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.
-
[Puck] I remember.
-
[Oberon] That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
-
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
-
Cupid all armed.
-
A certain aim he took at a fair vestal throned by the west,
-
And loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow,
-
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
-
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
-
Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon,
-
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
-
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
-
Yet marked 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.
-
Oooh.
-
Fetch me that flower;
-
the herb I showed thee once:
-
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
-
Will make or man or woman madly dote
-
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
-
Fetch me that herb,
-
and be thou here again ere the leviathan can swim a league.
-
[Puck] I'll put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes.
-
[Oberon] Having once this juice,
-
I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
-
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
-
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
-
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
-
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
-
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
-
And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
-
As I can do it with another herb,
-
I'll make her render up her page to me.
-
Ha ha ha.
-
[Demetrius, off-stage] Get away from me!
-
[Oberon] But who comes here?
-
I am invisible. And I will overhear their conference.
-
[Demetrius] I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
-
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
-
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
-
Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
-
And here am I, and wood within this wood,
-
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
-
[Helena] You draw me, you hardhearted adamant,
-
[Demetrius] Ugh!
-
[Helena] Leave you your power to draw,
-
And I shall have no power to follow you.
-
[Demetrius] Do I entice you?
-
Do I speak you fair?
-
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
-
Tell you, that I do not nor I cannot love you.
-
[Helena] 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.
-
[Demetrius] Ugh!
-
Use me but as your spaniel, strike me, spurn me,
-
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
-
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
-
What worser place can I beg in your love
-
Than to be used as you use your dog?
-
[Demetrius] Tempt not too much the hatred of my sprit,
-
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
-
[Helena] And I am sick when I look not on you.
-
[Demetrius] You do impeach your modesty too much,
-
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.
-
[Helena] 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,
-
Then how can it be said I am alone,
-
When all the world is here to look on me?
-
[Demetrius] I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
-
And leave thee to the mercy of the wild beasts.
-
[Helena] The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
-
Run when you will,
-
the story shall be changed:
-
Apollo files, and Daphne holds the chase;
-
Bootless speed, when cowardice pursues and valor flies.
-
[Demetrius] 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.
-
[Helena] Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
-
You do me mischief.
-
Fie, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
-
We cannot fight for love, like men may do;
-
We should be wooed, and were not meant to woo.
-
I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
-
To die upon the hand I love so well.
-
Demetrius!!
-
[Oberon] Oh, fair thee well, nymph;
-
ere he do leave this grove, thou shalt fly him,
-
and he shall seek thy love.
-
Hast thou the flower here?
-
Welcome, wanderer.
-
[Puck] Ay, there it is.
-
[Oberon] I pray thee, give it me.
-
[Oberon] I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
-
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
-
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
-
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;
-
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.
-
A young 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 him by the Athenian garments he hath on.
-
Effect it with some care that he may prove
-
More fond on her than she upon her love.
-
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
-
[Puck] Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
-
[music]
-
[Titania] Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
-
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
-
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
-
Some war with reremice for their leathern wings
-
To make my small elves coats,
-
and some keep back the clamorous owl.
-
Sing me now asleep.
-
Then to your office, and let me rest.
-
[Fairies, singing] You spotted snakes with double tongue,
-
Thorny hedgehogs be not seen;
-
Newts and blindworms do no wrong,
-
Come not near our fairy Queen.
-
Nightingale with melody
-
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby;
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby:
-
Never harm nor spell nor charm,
-
Come our lovely lady nigh;
-
So, good night, with lullaby.
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby:
-
Weaving spiders, come not here;
-
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!
-
Beetles black, approach not near;
-
Worm nor snail, do no offense.
-
Nightingale with melody
-
Sing in our sweet lullaby.
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby:
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby:
-
Never harm nor spell nor charm,
-
Come our lovely lady nigh;
-
So, good night, with lullaby.
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby:
-
Nightingale with melody,
-
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby:
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby.
-
[2nd Fairy] Hence, away! Now all is well.
-
One aloof stands sentinel.
-
[Oberon singing] Never harm nor spell nor charm,
-
Come our lovely lady nigh;
-
So good night with lullaby;
-
Lulla, Lulla, lullaby.
-
What thou seest when thou dost wake,
-
Do it for thy truelove's take;
-
Love and languish for his sake.
-
Be it ounce, or cat or bear,
-
Pard or boar with bristled hair,
-
In thy eye that shall appear
-
When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.
-
Wake when some vile thing is near.
-
[whooshing]
-
[Lysander] Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;
-
And to speak truth, I have forgot our way.
-
We'll rest us Hermia, if you think it good,
-
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
-
[Hermia] Be it so, Lysander. Find you a bed;
-
For I upon this bed will rest my head.
-
[Lysander] One turf shall serve as pillow for us both,
-
One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.
-
[Hermia] Nay, good Lysander!
-
For my sake, my dear, lie further off
-
and do not lie so near.
-
[Lysander] O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
-
Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
-
I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit,
-
So that but one heart we can make of it;
-
Two bosoms interchanged with an oath;
-
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
-
And then, by your side, no bedroom me deny,
-
For lying so Hermia, I do not lie.
-
[Hermia] Lysander riddles very prettily.
-
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
-
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
-
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy,
-
Lie further off, in human modesty.
-
No.
-
Such separation as may well be said
-
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
-
So far be distant;
-
And good night, sweet friend.
-
Thy love never alter till thy sweet life end!
-
[Lysander] Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I,
-
And then end life when I end loyalty!
-
Here is my bed.
-
Sleep give thee all his rest!
-
[Hermia] With half that wish the wisher's eyes be pressed.
-
[Puck.] Through the forest have I gone,
-
But Athenian found I none,
-
On whose eyes I might approve
-
This flower's force in stirring love.
-
[bell dings]
-
Night and silence -- who is here?
-
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
-
That is he, my master said,
-
Despised the Athenian maid;
-
Oh!
-
And here the maiden, sleeping sound.
-
On the dank and dirty ground.
-
Pretty soul!
-
She durst not lie near this lack-love,
-
this kill-courtesy.
-
Churl!
-
Upon thy eyes I throw all the power this charm doth owe.
-
When thou wak'st, let love forbid
-
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
-
So awake when I am gone,
-
For I must now to Oberon.
-
[Helena] Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
-
[Demetrius] I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
-
[Helena] O, wilt thou darkling leave me?
-
Do not so.
-
[Demetrius] Stay, on thy peril! I alone will go.
-
[Helena] O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
-
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
-
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,
-
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
-
How came her eyes so bright?
-
Not with salt tears.
-
If so, my eyes are oft'ner washed than hers.
-
No, no, I am ugly as a bear,
-
For beasts that meet me run away for fear.
-
But who is here?
-
Lysander on the ground!
-
Dead? Or asleep?
-
I see no blood, no wound.
-
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
-
[music]
-
[Lysander] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
-
Transparent Helena!
-
Nature shows art,
-
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
-
Where is Demetrius?
-
O, how fit a word is that vile name to perish on my sword!
-
[Helena] Do not say so, Lysander, say not so.
-
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
-
Yet Hermia still loves you.
-
Then be content.
-
[Lysander] Content with H-h-h-h-ermia!
-
No! I do repent the tedious minutes I with her have spent.
-
Not Hermia
-
but Helena I love:
-
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
-
The will of man is by his reason swayed
-
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
-
Things growing are not ripe until their season:
-
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason.
-
And touching now the point of human skill,
-
Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
-
And leads me to your eyes,
-
where I o'erlook love's stories,
-
written in love's richest book.
-
[Helena] Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
-
When at your hands did I deserve such scorn?
-
It's not enough, it's not enough, young man,
-
That I did never, no, nor never can,
-
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
-
But you flout my insufficiency?
-
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
-
In such disdainful manner to woo.
-
Fare thee well.
-
Perforce I must confess
-
I thought you more a true gentleness.
-
O, that a lady of one man refused,
-
Should of another therefore be abused!
-
[Lysander] She sees not Hermia.
-
Hermia, Hermia, sleep thou there,
-
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
-
For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
-
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
-
Or as thy heresies that men do leave
-
Are hated most of those they did deceive,
-
So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
-
Of all be hated!
-
But the most of me!
-
And, all my powers, address your love and might
-
To honor Helen and to be her knight.
-
[Hermia] Ahhhh!!!
-
Help me, Lysander, help me!
-
Do thy best to pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
-
Ay me!
-
What a dream was here!
-
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
-
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
-
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
-
Lysander!
-
What, removed?
-
Lysander!
-
Lord!
-
What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound? No word?
-
Alack, where are you?
-
Speak, and if you hear, speak of all loves!
-
I swoon almost with fear.
-
No?
-
Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
-
Either death or you I'll find immediately.