A Midsummer Night's Dream - IPFW Department of Theatre

[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.