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diff --git a/libxslt/tests/XSLTMark/xslbench2.out b/libxslt/tests/XSLTMark/xslbench2.out new file mode 100644 index 0000000..12693e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/libxslt/tests/XSLTMark/xslbench2.out @@ -0,0 +1,3227 @@ +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> +<title>A Midsummer Night's Dream</title> +</head> +<body> +<h1>A Midsummer Night's Dream</h1> +<i> +ASCII text placed in the public domain by Moby Lexical Tools, 1992. +SGML markup by Jon Bosak, 1992-1994. +XML version by Jon Bosak, 1996-1999. +The XML markup in this version is Copyright © 1999 Jon Bosak. +This work may freely be distributed on condition that it not be +modified or altered in any way. +</i><h2>Parts - Dramatis Personae</h2> +<p><b><i>THESEUS, Duke of Athens.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>EGEUS, father to Hermia.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>LYSANDER</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>DEMETRIUS</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>PHILOSTRATE, master of the revels to Theseus.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>QUINCE, a carpenter.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>SNUG, a joiner.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>BOTTOM, a weaver.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>FLUTE, a bellows-mender.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>SNOUT, a tinker.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>STARVELING, a tailor.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>HIPPOLYTA, queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>HELENA, in love with Demetrius.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>OBERON, king of the fairies.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>TITANIA, queen of the fairies.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>PUCK, or Robin Goodfellow.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>PEASEBLOSSOM</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>COBWEB</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>MOTH</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>MUSTARDSEED</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>Other fairies attending their King and Queen.</i></b></p> +<p><b><i>Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta.</i></b></p> +<h3>ACT I</h3> +<h3>SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.</h3> +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour<br> +Draws on apace; four happy days bring in<br> +Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow<br> +This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,<br> +Like to a step-dame or a dowager<br> +Long withering out a young man revenue.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;<br> +Four nights will quickly dream away the time;<br> +And then the moon, like to a silver bow<br> +New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night<br> +Of our solemnities.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Go, Philostrate,<br> +Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;<br> +Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;<br> +Turn melancholy forth to funerals;<br> +The pale companion is not for our pomp.<br> +Exit PHILOSTRATE +Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,<br> +And won thy love, doing thee injuries;<br> +But I will wed thee in another key,<br> +With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.<br> + +<p><b>EGEUS</b></p> +Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?<br> + +<p><b>EGEUS</b></p> +Full of vexation come I, with complaint<br> +Against my child, my daughter Hermia.<br> +Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,<br> +This man hath my consent to marry her.<br> +Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,<br> +This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;<br> +Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,<br> +And interchanged love-tokens with my child:<br> +Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,<br> +With feigning voice verses of feigning love,<br> +And stolen the impression of her fantasy<br> +With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,<br> +Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers<br> +Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:<br> +With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,<br> +Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,<br> +To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,<br> +Be it so she; will not here before your grace<br> +Consent to marry with Demetrius,<br> +I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,<br> +As she is mine, I may dispose of her:<br> +Which shall be either to this gentleman<br> +Or to her death, according to our law<br> +Immediately provided in that case.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:<br> +To you your father should be as a god;<br> +One that composed your beauties, yea, and one<br> +To whom you are but as a form in wax<br> +By him imprinted and within his power<br> +To leave the figure or disfigure it.<br> +Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +So is Lysander.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +In himself he is;<br> +But in this kind, wanting your father's voice,<br> +The other must be held the worthier.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +I would my father look'd but with my eyes.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +I do entreat your grace to pardon me.<br> +I know not by what power I am made bold,<br> +Nor how it may concern my modesty,<br> +In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;<br> +But I beseech your grace that I may know<br> +The worst that may befall me in this case,<br> +If I refuse to wed Demetrius.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Either to die the death or to abjure<br> +For ever the society of men.<br> +Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;<br> +Know of your youth, examine well your blood,<br> +Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,<br> +You can endure the livery of a nun,<br> +For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,<br> +To live a barren sister all your life,<br> +Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.<br> +Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,<br> +To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;<br> +But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,<br> +Than that which withering on the virgin thorn<br> +Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,<br> +Ere I will my virgin patent up<br> +Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke<br> +My soul consents not to give sovereignty.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Take time to pause; and, by the nest new moon--<br> +The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,<br> +For everlasting bond of fellowship--<br> +Upon that day either prepare to die<br> +For disobedience to your father's will,<br> +Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;<br> +Or on Diana's altar to protest<br> +For aye austerity and single life.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield<br> +Thy crazed title to my certain right.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +You have her father's love, Demetrius;<br> +Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.<br> + +<p><b>EGEUS</b></p> +Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,<br> +And what is mine my love shall render him.<br> +And she is mine, and all my right of her<br> +I do estate unto Demetrius.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +I am, my lord, as well derived as he,<br> +As well possess'd; my love is more than his;<br> +My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,<br> +If not with vantage, as Demetrius';<br> +And, which is more than all these boasts can be,<br> +I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:<br> +Why should not I then prosecute my right?<br> +Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,<br> +Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,<br> +And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,<br> +Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,<br> +Upon this spotted and inconstant man.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +I must confess that I have heard so much,<br> +And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;<br> +But, being over-full of self-affairs,<br> +My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;<br> +And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,<br> +I have some private schooling for you both.<br> +For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself<br> +To fit your fancies to your father's will;<br> +Or else the law of Athens yields you up--<br> +Which by no means we may extenuate--<br> +To death, or to a vow of single life.<br> +Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?<br> +Demetrius and Egeus, go along:<br> +I must employ you in some business<br> +Against our nuptial and confer with you<br> +Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.<br> + +<p><b>EGEUS</b></p> +With duty and desire we follow you.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?<br> +How chance the roses there do fade so fast?<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Belike for want of rain, which I could well<br> +Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,<br> +Could ever hear by tale or history,<br> +The course of true love never did run smooth;<br> +But, either it was different in blood,--<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +O spite! too old to be engaged to young.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,<br> +War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,<br> +Making it momentany as a sound,<br> +Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;<br> +Brief as the lightning in the collied night,<br> +That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,<br> +And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'<br> +The jaws of darkness do devour it up:<br> +So quick bright things come to confusion.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,<br> +It stands as an edict in destiny:<br> +Then let us teach our trial patience,<br> +Because it is a customary cross,<br> +As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,<br> +Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.<br> +I have a widow aunt, a dowager<br> +Of great revenue, and she hath no child:<br> +From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;<br> +And she respects me as her only son.<br> +There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;<br> +And to that place the sharp Athenian law<br> +Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,<br> +Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;<br> +And in the wood, a league without the town,<br> +Where I did meet thee once with Helena,<br> +To do observance to a morn of May,<br> +There will I stay for thee.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +My good Lysander!<br> +I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,<br> +By his best arrow with the golden head,<br> +By the simplicity of Venus' doves,<br> +By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,<br> +And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,<br> +When the false Troyan under sail was seen,<br> +By all the vows that ever men have broke,<br> +In number more than ever women spoke,<br> +In that same place thou hast appointed me,<br> +To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +God speed fair Helena! whither away?<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.<br> +Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!<br> +Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air<br> +More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,<br> +When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.<br> +Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,<br> +Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;<br> +My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,<br> +My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.<br> +Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,<br> +The rest I'd give to be to you translated.<br> +O, teach me how you look, and with what art<br> +You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +I give him curses, yet he gives me love.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O that my prayers could such affection move!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +The more I hate, the more he follows me.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +The more I love, the more he hateth me.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;<br> +Lysander and myself will fly this place.<br> +Before the time I did Lysander see,<br> +Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:<br> +O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,<br> +That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:<br> +To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold<br> +Her silver visage in the watery glass,<br> +Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,<br> +A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,<br> +Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +And in the wood, where often you and I<br> +Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,<br> +Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,<br> +There my Lysander and myself shall meet;<br> +And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,<br> +To seek new friends and stranger companies.<br> +Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;<br> +And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!<br> +Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight<br> +From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +I will, my Hermia.<br> +Exit HERMIA +Helena, adieu:<br> +As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +How happy some o'er other some can be!<br> +Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.<br> +But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;<br> +He will not know what all but he do know:<br> +And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,<br> +So I, admiring of his qualities:<br> +Things base and vile, folding no quantity,<br> +Love can transpose to form and dignity:<br> +Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;<br> +And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:<br> +Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;<br> +Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:<br> +And therefore is Love said to be a child,<br> +Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.<br> +As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,<br> +So the boy Love is perjured every where:<br> +For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,<br> +He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;<br> +And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,<br> +So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.<br> +I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:<br> +Then to the wood will he to-morrow night<br> +Pursue her; and for this intelligence<br> +If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:<br> +But herein mean I to enrich my pain,<br> +To have his sight thither and back again.<br> +<h3>SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house.</h3> +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Is all our company here?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +You were best to call them generally, man by man,<br> +according to the scrip.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is<br> +thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our<br> +interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his<br> +wedding-day at night.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats<br> +on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow<br> +to a point.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and<br> +most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a<br> +merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your<br> +actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +That will ask some tears in the true performing of<br> +it: if I do it, let the audience look to their<br> +eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some<br> +measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a<br> +tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to<br> +tear a cat in, to make all split.<br> +The raging rocks<br> +And shivering shocks<br> +Shall break the locks<br> +Of prison gates;<br> +And Phibbus' car<br> +Shall shine from far<br> +And make and mar<br> +The foolish Fates.<br> +This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.<br> +This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is<br> +more condoling.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +Here, Peter Quince.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Flute, you must take Thisby on you.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +What is Thisby? a wandering knight?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +It is the lady that Pyramus must love.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and<br> +you may speak as small as you will.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll<br> +speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne,<br> +Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear,<br> +and lady dear!'<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Well, proceed.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Robin Starveling, the tailor.<br> + +<p><b>STARVELING</b></p> +Here, Peter Quince.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.<br> +Tom Snout, the tinker.<br> + +<p><b>SNOUT</b></p> +Here, Peter Quince.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby's father:<br> +Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I<br> +hope, here is a play fitted.<br> + +<p><b>SNUG</b></p> +Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it<br> +be, give it me, for I am slow of study.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will<br> +do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar,<br> +that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again,<br> +let him roar again.'<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +An you should do it too terribly, you would fright<br> +the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek;<br> +and that were enough to hang us all.<br> + +<p><b>ALL</b></p> +That would hang us, every mother's son.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the<br> +ladies out of their wits, they would have no more<br> +discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my<br> +voice so that I will roar you as gently as any<br> +sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any<br> +nightingale.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a<br> +sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a<br> +summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man:<br> +therefore you must needs play Pyramus.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best<br> +to play it in?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Why, what you will.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I will discharge it in either your straw-colour<br> +beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain<br> +beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your<br> +perfect yellow.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and<br> +then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here<br> +are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request<br> +you and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night;<br> +and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the<br> +town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if<br> +we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with<br> +company, and our devices known. In the meantime I<br> +will draw a bill of properties, such as our play<br> +wants. I pray you, fail me not.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +We will meet; and there we may rehearse most<br> +obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +At the duke's oak we meet.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.<br> +<h3>ACT II</h3> +<h3>SCENE I. A wood near Athens.</h3> +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +How now, spirit! whither wander you?<br> + +<p><b>Fairy</b></p> +Over hill, over dale,<br> +Thorough bush, thorough brier,<br> +Over park, over pale,<br> +Thorough flood, thorough fire,<br> +I do wander everywhere,<br> +Swifter than the moon's sphere;<br> +And I serve the fairy queen,<br> +To dew her orbs upon the green.<br> +The cowslips tall her pensioners be:<br> +In their gold coats spots you see;<br> +Those be rubies, fairy favours,<br> +In those freckles live their savours:<br> +I must go seek some dewdrops here<br> +And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.<br> +Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:<br> +Our queen and all our elves come here anon.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +The king doth keep his revels here to-night:<br> +Take heed the queen come not within his sight;<br> +For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,<br> +Because that she as her attendant hath<br> +A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;<br> +She never had so sweet a changeling;<br> +And jealous Oberon would have the child<br> +Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;<br> +But she perforce withholds the loved boy,<br> +Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:<br> +And now they never meet in grove or green,<br> +By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,<br> +But, they do square, that all their elves for fear<br> +Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.<br> + +<p><b>Fairy</b></p> +Either I mistake your shape and making quite,<br> +Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite<br> +Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he<br> +That frights the maidens of the villagery;<br> +Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern<br> +And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;<br> +And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;<br> +Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?<br> +Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,<br> +You do their work, and they shall have good luck:<br> +Are not you he?<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Thou speak'st aright;<br> +I am that merry wanderer of the night.<br> +I jest to Oberon and make him smile<br> +When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,<br> +Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:<br> +And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,<br> +In very likeness of a roasted crab,<br> +And when she drinks, against her lips I bob<br> +And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.<br> +The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,<br> +Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;<br> +Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,<br> +And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;<br> +And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,<br> +And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear<br> +A merrier hour was never wasted there.<br> +But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.<br> + +<p><b>Fairy</b></p> +And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:<br> +I have forsworn his bed and company.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Then I must be thy lady: but I know<br> +When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,<br> +And in the shape of Corin sat all day,<br> +Playing on pipes of corn and versing love<br> +To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,<br> +Come from the farthest Steppe of India?<br> +But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,<br> +Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,<br> +To Theseus must be wedded, and you come<br> +To give their bed joy and prosperity.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,<br> +Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,<br> +Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?<br> +Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night<br> +From Perigenia, whom he ravished?<br> +And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,<br> +With Ariadne and Antiopa?<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +These are the forgeries of jealousy:<br> +And never, since the middle summer's spring,<br> +Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,<br> +By paved fountain or by rushy brook,<br> +Or in the beached margent of the sea,<br> +To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,<br> +But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.<br> +Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,<br> +As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea<br> +Contagious fogs; which falling in the land<br> +Have every pelting river made so proud<br> +That they have overborne their continents:<br> +The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,<br> +The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn<br> +Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;<br> +The fold stands empty in the drowned field,<br> +And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;<br> +The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,<br> +And the quaint mazes in the wanton green<br> +For lack of tread are undistinguishable:<br> +The human mortals want their winter here;<br> +No night is now with hymn or carol blest:<br> +Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,<br> +Pale in her anger, washes all the air,<br> +That rheumatic diseases do abound:<br> +And thorough this distemperature we see<br> +The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts<br> +Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,<br> +And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown<br> +An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds<br> +Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,<br> +The childing autumn, angry winter, change<br> +Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,<br> +By their increase, now knows not which is which:<br> +And this same progeny of evils comes<br> +From our debate, from our dissension;<br> +We are their parents and original.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Do you amend it then; it lies in you:<br> +Why should Titania cross her Oberon?<br> +I do but beg a little changeling boy,<br> +To be my henchman.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Set your heart at rest:<br> +The fairy land buys not the child of me.<br> +His mother was a votaress of my order:<br> +And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,<br> +Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,<br> +And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,<br> +Marking the embarked traders on the flood,<br> +When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive<br> +And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;<br> +Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait<br> +Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--<br> +Would imitate, and sail upon the land,<br> +To fetch me trifles, and return again,<br> +As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.<br> +But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;<br> +And for her sake do I rear up her boy,<br> +And for her sake I will not part with him.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +How long within this wood intend you stay?<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.<br> +If you will patiently dance in our round<br> +And see our moonlight revels, go with us;<br> +If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!<br> +We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove<br> +Till I torment thee for this injury.<br> +My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest<br> +Since once I sat upon a promontory,<br> +And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back<br> +Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath<br> +That the rude sea grew civil at her song<br> +And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,<br> +To hear the sea-maid's music.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +I remember.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,<br> +Flying between the cold moon and the earth,<br> +Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took<br> +At a fair vestal throned by the west,<br> +And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,<br> +As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;<br> +But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft<br> +Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,<br> +And the imperial votaress passed on,<br> +In maiden meditation, fancy-free.<br> +Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:<br> +It fell upon a little western flower,<br> +Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,<br> +And maidens call it love-in-idleness.<br> +Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:<br> +The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid<br> +Will make or man or woman madly dote<br> +Upon the next live creature that it sees.<br> +Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again<br> +Ere the leviathan can swim a league.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +I'll put a girdle round about the earth<br> +In forty minutes.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Having once this juice,<br> +I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,<br> +And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.<br> +The next thing then she waking looks upon,<br> +Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,<br> +On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,<br> +She shall pursue it with the soul of love:<br> +And ere I take this charm from off her sight,<br> +As I can take it with another herb,<br> +I'll make her render up her page to me.<br> +But who comes here? I am invisible;<br> +And I will overhear their conference.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.<br> +Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?<br> +The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.<br> +Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;<br> +And here am I, and wode within this wood,<br> +Because I cannot meet my Hermia.<br> +Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;<br> +But yet you draw not iron, for my heart<br> +Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,<br> +And I shall have no power to follow you.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?<br> +Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth<br> +Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +And even for that do I love you the more.<br> +I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,<br> +The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:<br> +Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,<br> +Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,<br> +Unworthy as I am, to follow you.<br> +What worser place can I beg in your love,--<br> +And yet a place of high respect with me,--<br> +Than to be used as you use your dog?<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;<br> +For I am sick when I do look on thee.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +And I am sick when I look not on you.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +You do impeach your modesty too much,<br> +To leave the city and commit yourself<br> +Into the hands of one that loves you not;<br> +To trust the opportunity of night<br> +And the ill counsel of a desert place<br> +With the rich worth of your virginity.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Your virtue is my privilege: for that<br> +It is not night when I do see your face,<br> +Therefore I think I am not in the night;<br> +Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,<br> +For you in my respect are all the world:<br> +Then how can it be said I am alone,<br> +When all the world is here to look on me?<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,<br> +And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +The wildest hath not such a heart as you.<br> +Run when you will, the story shall be changed:<br> +Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;<br> +The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind<br> +Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,<br> +When cowardice pursues and valour flies.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +I will not stay thy questions; let me go:<br> +Or, if thou follow me, do not believe<br> +But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,<br> +You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!<br> +Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:<br> +We cannot fight for love, as men may do;<br> +We should be wood and were not made to woo.<br> +Exit DEMETRIUS +I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,<br> +To die upon the hand I love so well.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,<br> +Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.<br> +Re-enter PUCK +Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Ay, there it is.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +I pray thee, give it me.<br> +I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,<br> +Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,<br> +Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,<br> +With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:<br> +There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,<br> +Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;<br> +And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,<br> +Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:<br> +And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,<br> +And make her full of hateful fantasies.<br> +Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:<br> +A sweet Athenian lady is in love<br> +With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;<br> +But do it when the next thing he espies<br> +May be the lady: thou shalt know the man<br> +By the Athenian garments he hath on.<br> +Effect it with some care, that he may prove<br> +More fond on her than she upon her love:<br> +And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.<br> +<h3>SCENE II. Another part of the wood.</h3> +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;<br> +Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;<br> +Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,<br> +Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,<br> +To make my small elves coats, and some keep back<br> +The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders<br> +At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;<br> +Then to your offices and let me rest.<br> +The Fairies sing +You spotted snakes with double tongue,<br> +Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;<br> +Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,<br> +Come not near our fairy queen.<br> +Philomel, with melody<br> +Sing in our sweet lullaby;<br> +Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:<br> +Never harm,<br> +Nor spell nor charm,<br> +Come our lovely lady nigh;<br> +So, good night, with lullaby.<br> +Weaving spiders, come not here;<br> +Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!<br> +Beetles black, approach not near;<br> +Worm nor snail, do no offence.<br> +Philomel, with melody, &c.<br> + +<p><b>Fairy</b></p> +Hence, away! now all is well:<br> +One aloof stand sentinel.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +What thou seest when thou dost wake,<br> +Do it for thy true-love take,<br> +Love and languish for his sake:<br> +Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,<br> +Pard, or boar with bristled hair,<br> +In thy eye that shall appear<br> +When thou wakest, it is thy dear:<br> +Wake when some vile thing is near.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;<br> +And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:<br> +We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,<br> +And tarry for the comfort of the day.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;<br> +For I upon this bank will rest my head.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;<br> +One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,<br> +Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!<br> +Love takes the meaning in love's conference.<br> +I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit<br> +So that but one heart we can make of it;<br> +Two bosoms interchained with an oath;<br> +So then two bosoms and a single troth.<br> +Then by your side no bed-room me deny;<br> +For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Lysander riddles very prettily:<br> +Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,<br> +If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.<br> +But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy<br> +Lie further off; in human modesty,<br> +Such separation as may well be said<br> +Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,<br> +So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:<br> +Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;<br> +And then end life when I end loyalty!<br> +Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Through the forest have I gone.<br> +But Athenian found I none,<br> +On whose eyes I might approve<br> +This flower's force in stirring love.<br> +Night and silence.--Who is here?<br> +Weeds of Athens he doth wear:<br> +This is he, my master said,<br> +Despised the Athenian maid;<br> +And here the maiden, sleeping sound,<br> +On the dank and dirty ground.<br> +Pretty soul! she durst not lie<br> +Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.<br> +Churl, upon thy eyes I throw<br> +All the power this charm doth owe.<br> +When thou wakest, let love forbid<br> +Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:<br> +So awake when I am gone;<br> +For I must now to Oberon.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!<br> +The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.<br> +Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;<br> +For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.<br> +How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:<br> +If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.<br> +No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;<br> +For beasts that meet me run away for fear:<br> +Therefore no marvel though Demetrius<br> +Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.<br> +What wicked and dissembling glass of mine<br> +Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?<br> +But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!<br> +Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.<br> +Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Awaking And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.<br> +Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,<br> +That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.<br> +Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word<br> +Is that vile name to perish on my sword!<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Do not say so, Lysander; say not so<br> +What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?<br> +Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Content with Hermia! No; I do repent<br> +The tedious minutes I with her have spent.<br> +Not Hermia but Helena I love:<br> +Who will not change a raven for a dove?<br> +The will of man is by his reason sway'd;<br> +And reason says you are the worthier maid.<br> +Things growing are not ripe until their season<br> +So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;<br> +And touching now the point of human skill,<br> +Reason becomes the marshal to my will<br> +And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook<br> +Love's stories written in love's richest book.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?<br> +When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?<br> +Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,<br> +That I did never, no, nor never can,<br> +Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,<br> +But you must flout my insufficiency?<br> +Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,<br> +In such disdainful manner me to woo.<br> +But fare you well: perforce I must confess<br> +I thought you lord of more true gentleness.<br> +O, that a lady, of one man refused.<br> +Should of another therefore be abused!<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:<br> +And never mayst thou come Lysander near!<br> +For as a surfeit of the sweetest things<br> +The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,<br> +Or as tie heresies that men do leave<br> +Are hated most of those they did deceive,<br> +So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,<br> +Of all be hated, but the most of me!<br> +And, all my powers, address your love and might<br> +To honour Helen and to be her knight!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Awaking Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best<br> +To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!<br> +Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!<br> +Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:<br> +Methought a serpent eat my heart away,<br> +And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.<br> +Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!<br> +What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?<br> +Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;<br> +Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.<br> +No? then I well perceive you all not nigh<br> +Either death or you I'll find immediately.<br> +<h3>ACT III</h3> +<h3>SCENE I. The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.</h3> +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Are we all met?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place<br> +for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our<br> +stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we<br> +will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Peter Quince,--<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +What sayest thou, bully Bottom?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and<br> +Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must<br> +draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies<br> +cannot abide. How answer you that?<br> + +<p><b>SNOUT</b></p> +By'r lakin, a parlous fear.<br> + +<p><b>STARVELING</b></p> +I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.<br> +Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to<br> +say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that<br> +Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more<br> +better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not<br> +Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them<br> +out of fear.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be<br> +written in eight and six.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.<br> + +<p><b>SNOUT</b></p> +Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?<br> + +<p><b>STARVELING</b></p> +I fear it, I promise you.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to<br> +bring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a<br> +most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful<br> +wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to<br> +look to 't.<br> + +<p><b>SNOUT</b></p> +Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must<br> +be seen through the lion's neck: and he himself<br> +must speak through, saying thus, or to the same<br> +defect,--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish<br> +You,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would<br> +entreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life<br> +for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it<br> +were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a<br> +man as other men are;' and there indeed let him name<br> +his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things;<br> +that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for,<br> +you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.<br> + +<p><b>SNOUT</b></p> +Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find<br> +out moonshine, find out moonshine.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Yes, it doth shine that night.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Why, then may you leave a casement of the great<br> +chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon<br> +may shine in at the casement.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns<br> +and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to<br> +present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is<br> +another thing: we must have a wall in the great<br> +chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did<br> +talk through the chink of a wall.<br> + +<p><b>SNOUT</b></p> +You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Some man or other must present Wall: and let him<br> +have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast<br> +about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his<br> +fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus<br> +and Thisby whisper.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,<br> +every mother's son, and rehearse your parts.<br> +Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your<br> +speech, enter into that brake: and so every one<br> +according to his cue.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,<br> +So near the cradle of the fairy queen?<br> +What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;<br> +An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,--<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Odours, odours.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +--odours savours sweet:<br> +So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.<br> +But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,<br> +And by and by I will to thee appear.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +Must I speak now?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes<br> +but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,<br> +Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,<br> +Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,<br> +As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,<br> +I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that<br> +yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your<br> +part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue<br> +is past; it is, 'never tire.'<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would<br> +never tire.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray,<br> +masters! fly, masters! Help!<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,<br> +Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:<br> +Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,<br> +A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;<br> +And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,<br> +Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to<br> +make me afeard.<br> + +<p><b>SNOUT</b></p> +O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do<br> +you?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art<br> +translated.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me;<br> +to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir<br> +from this place, do what they can: I will walk up<br> +and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear<br> +I am not afraid.<br> +Sings +The ousel cock so black of hue,<br> +With orange-tawny bill,<br> +The throstle with his note so true,<br> +The wren with little quill,--<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Awaking What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Sings<br> +The finch, the sparrow and the lark,<br> +The plain-song cuckoo gray,<br> +Whose note full many a man doth mark,<br> +And dares not answer nay;--<br> +for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish<br> +a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry<br> +'cuckoo' never so?<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:<br> +Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note;<br> +So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;<br> +And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me<br> +On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason<br> +for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and<br> +love keep little company together now-a-days; the<br> +more the pity that some honest neighbours will not<br> +make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out<br> +of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Out of this wood do not desire to go:<br> +Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.<br> +I am a spirit of no common rate;<br> +The summer still doth tend upon my state;<br> +And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;<br> +I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,<br> +And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,<br> +And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;<br> +And I will purge thy mortal grossness so<br> +That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.<br> +Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!<br> + +<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p> +Ready.<br> + +<p><b>COBWEB</b></p> +And I.<br> + +<p><b>MOTH</b></p> +And I.<br> + +<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p> +And I.<br> + +<p><b>ALL</b></p> +Where shall we go?<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;<br> +Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;<br> +Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,<br> +With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;<br> +The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,<br> +And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs<br> +And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,<br> +To have my love to bed and to arise;<br> +And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies<br> +To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:<br> +Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.<br> + +<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p> +Hail, mortal!<br> + +<p><b>COBWEB</b></p> +Hail!<br> + +<p><b>MOTH</b></p> +Hail!<br> + +<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p> +Hail!<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech your<br> +worship's name.<br> + +<p><b>COBWEB</b></p> +Cobweb.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master<br> +Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with<br> +you. Your name, honest gentleman?<br> + +<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p> +Peaseblossom.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your<br> +mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good<br> +Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more<br> +acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?<br> + +<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p> +Mustardseed.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well:<br> +that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath<br> +devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise<br> +you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I<br> +desire your more acquaintance, good Master<br> +Mustardseed.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.<br> +The moon methinks looks with a watery eye;<br> +And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,<br> +Lamenting some enforced chastity.<br> +Tie up my love's tongue bring him silently.<br> +<h3>SCENE II. Another part of the wood.</h3> +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +I wonder if Titania be awaked;<br> +Then, what it was that next came in her eye,<br> +Which she must dote on in extremity.<br> +Enter PUCK +Here comes my messenger.<br> +How now, mad spirit!<br> +What night-rule now about this haunted grove?<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +My mistress with a monster is in love.<br> +Near to her close and consecrated bower,<br> +While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,<br> +A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,<br> +That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,<br> +Were met together to rehearse a play<br> +Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.<br> +The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,<br> +Who Pyramus presented, in their sport<br> +Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake<br> +When I did him at this advantage take,<br> +An ass's nole I fixed on his head:<br> +Anon his Thisbe must be answered,<br> +And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,<br> +As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,<br> +Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,<br> +Rising and cawing at the gun's report,<br> +Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,<br> +So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;<br> +And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;<br> +He murder cries and help from Athens calls.<br> +Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears<br> +thus strong,<br> +Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;<br> +For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;<br> +Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all<br> +things catch.<br> +I led them on in this distracted fear,<br> +And left sweet Pyramus translated there:<br> +When in that moment, so it came to pass,<br> +Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +This falls out better than I could devise.<br> +But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes<br> +With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +I took him sleeping,--that is finish'd too,--<br> +And the Athenian woman by his side:<br> +That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Stand close: this is the same Athenian.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +This is the woman, but not this the man.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?<br> +Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse,<br> +For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse,<br> +If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,<br> +Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,<br> +And kill me too.<br> +The sun was not so true unto the day<br> +As he to me: would he have stolen away<br> +From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon<br> +This whole earth may be bored and that the moon<br> +May through the centre creep and so displease<br> +Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.<br> +It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;<br> +So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +So should the murder'd look, and so should I,<br> +Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:<br> +Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,<br> +As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +What's this to my Lysander? where is he?<br> +Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds<br> +Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?<br> +Henceforth be never number'd among men!<br> +O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!<br> +Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,<br> +And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!<br> +Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?<br> +An adder did it; for with doubler tongue<br> +Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +You spend your passion on a misprised mood:<br> +I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;<br> +Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +An if I could, what should I get therefore?<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +A privilege never to see me more.<br> +And from thy hated presence part I so:<br> +See me no more, whether he be dead or no.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +There is no following her in this fierce vein:<br> +Here therefore for a while I will remain.<br> +So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow<br> +For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe:<br> +Which now in some slight measure it will pay,<br> +If for his tender here I make some stay.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite<br> +And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:<br> +Of thy misprision must perforce ensue<br> +Some true love turn'd and not a false turn'd true.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,<br> +A million fail, confounding oath on oath.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +About the wood go swifter than the wind,<br> +And Helena of Athens look thou find:<br> +All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,<br> +With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear:<br> +By some illusion see thou bring her here:<br> +I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +I go, I go; look how I go,<br> +Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Flower of this purple dye,<br> +Hit with Cupid's archery,<br> +Sink in apple of his eye.<br> +When his love he doth espy,<br> +Let her shine as gloriously<br> +As the Venus of the sky.<br> +When thou wakest, if she be by,<br> +Beg of her for remedy.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Captain of our fairy band,<br> +Helena is here at hand;<br> +And the youth, mistook by me,<br> +Pleading for a lover's fee.<br> +Shall we their fond pageant see?<br> +Lord, what fools these mortals be!<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Stand aside: the noise they make<br> +Will cause Demetrius to awake.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Then will two at once woo one;<br> +That must needs be sport alone;<br> +And those things do best please me<br> +That befal preposterously.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?<br> +Scorn and derision never come in tears:<br> +Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,<br> +In their nativity all truth appears.<br> +How can these things in me seem scorn to you,<br> +Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +You do advance your cunning more and more.<br> +When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!<br> +These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er?<br> +Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:<br> +Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,<br> +Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +I had no judgment when to her I swore.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Awaking O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!<br> +To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?<br> +Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show<br> +Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!<br> +That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,<br> +Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow<br> +When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss<br> +This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent<br> +To set against me for your merriment:<br> +If you we re civil and knew courtesy,<br> +You would not do me thus much injury.<br> +Can you not hate me, as I know you do,<br> +But you must join in souls to mock me too?<br> +If you were men, as men you are in show,<br> +You would not use a gentle lady so;<br> +To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,<br> +When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.<br> +You both are rivals, and love Hermia;<br> +And now both rivals, to mock Helena:<br> +A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,<br> +To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes<br> +With your derision! none of noble sort<br> +Would so offend a virgin, and extort<br> +A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;<br> +For you love Hermia; this you know I know:<br> +And here, with all good will, with all my heart,<br> +In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;<br> +And yours of Helena to me bequeath,<br> +Whom I do love and will do till my death.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Never did mockers waste more idle breath.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none:<br> +If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone.<br> +My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,<br> +And now to Helen is it home return'd,<br> +There to remain.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Helen, it is not so.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,<br> +Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.<br> +Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,<br> +The ear more quick of apprehension makes;<br> +Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,<br> +It pays the hearing double recompense.<br> +Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;<br> +Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound<br> +But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +What love could press Lysander from my side?<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,<br> +Fair Helena, who more engilds the night<br> +Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light.<br> +Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,<br> +The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +You speak not as you think: it cannot be.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Lo, she is one of this confederacy!<br> +Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three<br> +To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.<br> +Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!<br> +Have you conspired, have you with these contrived<br> +To bait me with this foul derision?<br> +Is all the counsel that we two have shared,<br> +The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,<br> +When we have chid the hasty-footed time<br> +For parting us,--O, is it all forgot?<br> +All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?<br> +We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,<br> +Have with our needles created both one flower,<br> +Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,<br> +Both warbling of one song, both in one key,<br> +As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,<br> +Had been incorporate. So we grow together,<br> +Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,<br> +But yet an union in partition;<br> +Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;<br> +So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;<br> +Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,<br> +Due but to one and crowned with one crest.<br> +And will you rent our ancient love asunder,<br> +To join with men in scorning your poor friend?<br> +It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:<br> +Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,<br> +Though I alone do feel the injury.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +I am amazed at your passionate words.<br> +I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,<br> +To follow me and praise my eyes and face?<br> +And made your other love, Demetrius,<br> +Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,<br> +To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,<br> +Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this<br> +To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander<br> +Deny your love, so rich within his soul,<br> +And tender me, forsooth, affection,<br> +But by your setting on, by your consent?<br> +What thought I be not so in grace as you,<br> +So hung upon with love, so fortunate,<br> +But miserable most, to love unloved?<br> +This you should pity rather than despise.<br> + +<p><b>HERNIA</b></p> +I understand not what you mean by this.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,<br> +Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;<br> +Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:<br> +This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.<br> +If you have any pity, grace, or manners,<br> +You would not make me such an argument.<br> +But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault;<br> +Which death or absence soon shall remedy.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:<br> +My love, my life my soul, fair Helena!<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O excellent!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Sweet, do not scorn her so.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +If she cannot entreat, I can compel.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Thou canst compel no more than she entreat:<br> +Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.<br> +Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do:<br> +I swear by that which I will lose for thee,<br> +To prove him false that says I love thee not.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +I say I love thee more than he can do.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Quick, come!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Lysander, whereto tends all this?<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Away, you Ethiope!<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +No, no; he'll<br> +Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,<br> +But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,<br> +Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Why are you grown so rude? what change is this?<br> +Sweet love,--<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!<br> +Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Do you not jest?<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Yes, sooth; and so do you.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +I would I had your bond, for I perceive<br> +A weak bond holds you: I'll not trust your word.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?<br> +Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +What, can you do me greater harm than hate?<br> +Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love!<br> +Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?<br> +I am as fair now as I was erewhile.<br> +Since night you loved me; yet since night you left<br> +me:<br> +Why, then you left me--O, the gods forbid!--<br> +In earnest, shall I say?<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Ay, by my life;<br> +And never did desire to see thee more.<br> +Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;<br> +Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest<br> +That I do hate thee and love Helena.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!<br> +You thief of love! what, have you come by night<br> +And stolen my love's heart from him?<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Fine, i'faith!<br> +Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,<br> +No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear<br> +Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?<br> +Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game.<br> +Now I perceive that she hath made compare<br> +Between our statures; she hath urged her height;<br> +And with her personage, her tall personage,<br> +Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.<br> +And are you grown so high in his esteem;<br> +Because I am so dwarfish and so low?<br> +How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;<br> +How low am I? I am not yet so low<br> +But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,<br> +Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;<br> +I have no gift at all in shrewishness;<br> +I am a right maid for my cowardice:<br> +Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,<br> +Because she is something lower than myself,<br> +That I can match her.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Lower! hark, again.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.<br> +I evermore did love you, Hermia,<br> +Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;<br> +Save that, in love unto Demetrius,<br> +I told him of your stealth unto this wood.<br> +He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him;<br> +But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me<br> +To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:<br> +And now, so you will let me quiet go,<br> +To Athens will I bear my folly back<br> +And follow you no further: let me go:<br> +You see how simple and how fond I am.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you?<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +What, with Lysander?<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +With Demetrius.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!<br> +She was a vixen when she went to school;<br> +And though she be but little, she is fierce.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and 'little'!<br> +Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?<br> +Let me come to her.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Get you gone, you dwarf;<br> +You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;<br> +You bead, you acorn.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +You are too officious<br> +In her behalf that scorns your services.<br> +Let her alone: speak not of Helena;<br> +Take not her part; for, if thou dost intend<br> +Never so little show of love to her,<br> +Thou shalt aby it.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Now she holds me not;<br> +Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right,<br> +Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you:<br> +Nay, go not back.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +I will not trust you, I,<br> +Nor longer stay in your curst company.<br> +Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,<br> +My legs are longer though, to run away.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +I am amazed, and know not what to say.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest,<br> +Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.<br> +Did not you tell me I should know the man<br> +By the Athenian garment be had on?<br> +And so far blameless proves my enterprise,<br> +That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;<br> +And so far am I glad it so did sort<br> +As this their jangling I esteem a sport.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight:<br> +Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;<br> +The starry welkin cover thou anon<br> +With drooping fog as black as Acheron,<br> +And lead these testy rivals so astray<br> +As one come not within another's way.<br> +Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,<br> +Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;<br> +And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;<br> +And from each other look thou lead them thus,<br> +Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep<br> +With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:<br> +Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;<br> +Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,<br> +To take from thence all error with his might,<br> +And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.<br> +When they next wake, all this derision<br> +Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,<br> +And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,<br> +With league whose date till death shall never end.<br> +Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,<br> +I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;<br> +And then I will her charmed eye release<br> +From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,<br> +For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,<br> +And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;<br> +At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,<br> +Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,<br> +That in crossways and floods have burial,<br> +Already to their wormy beds are gone;<br> +For fear lest day should look their shames upon,<br> +They willfully themselves exile from light<br> +And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +But we are spirits of another sort:<br> +I with the morning's love have oft made sport,<br> +And, like a forester, the groves may tread,<br> +Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,<br> +Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,<br> +Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.<br> +But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:<br> +We may effect this business yet ere day.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Up and down, up and down,<br> +I will lead them up and down:<br> +I am fear'd in field and town:<br> +Goblin, lead them up and down.<br> +Here comes one.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou?<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +I will be with thee straight.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Follow me, then,<br> +To plainer ground.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Lysander! speak again:<br> +Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?<br> +Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,<br> +Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,<br> +And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child;<br> +I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled<br> +That draws a sword on thee.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Yea, art thou there?<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Follow my voice: we'll try no manhood here.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +He goes before me and still dares me on:<br> +When I come where he calls, then he is gone.<br> +The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I:<br> +I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly;<br> +That fallen am I in dark uneven way,<br> +And here will rest me.<br> +Lies down +Come, thou gentle day!<br> +For if but once thou show me thy grey light,<br> +I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not?<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot<br> +Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place,<br> +And darest not stand, nor look me in the face.<br> +Where art thou now?<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Come hither: I am here.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,<br> +If ever I thy face by daylight see:<br> +Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me<br> +To measure out my length on this cold bed.<br> +By day's approach look to be visited.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +O weary night, O long and tedious night,<br> +Abate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east,<br> +That I may back to Athens by daylight,<br> +From these that my poor company detest:<br> +And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,<br> +Steal me awhile from mine own company.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Yet but three? Come one more;<br> +Two of both kinds make up four.<br> +Here she comes, curst and sad:<br> +Cupid is a knavish lad,<br> +Thus to make poor females mad.<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Never so weary, never so in woe,<br> +Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,<br> +I can no further crawl, no further go;<br> +My legs can keep no pace with my desires.<br> +Here will I rest me till the break of day.<br> +Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +On the ground<br> +Sleep sound:<br> +I'll apply<br> +To your eye,<br> +Gentle lover, remedy.<br> +Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER's eyes +When thou wakest,<br> +Thou takest<br> +True delight<br> +In the sight<br> +Of thy former lady's eye:<br> +And the country proverb known,<br> +That every man should take his own,<br> +In your waking shall be shown:<br> +Jack shall have Jill;<br> +Nought shall go ill;<br> +The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.<br> +<h3>ACT IV</h3> +<h3>SCENE I. The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA lying asleep.</h3> +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,<br> +While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,<br> +And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,<br> +And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Where's Peaseblossom?<br> + +<p><b>PEASEBLOSSOM</b></p> +Ready.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?<br> + +<p><b>COBWEB</b></p> +Ready.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your<br> +weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped<br> +humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good<br> +mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret<br> +yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,<br> +good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;<br> +I would be loath to have you overflown with a<br> +honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?<br> + +<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p> +Ready.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,<br> +leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.<br> + +<p><b>MUSTARDSEED</b></p> +What's your Will?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb<br> +to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for<br> +methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I<br> +am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,<br> +I must scratch.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +What, wilt thou hear some music,<br> +my sweet love?<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have<br> +the tongs and the bones.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good<br> +dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle<br> +of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +I have a venturous fairy that shall seek<br> +The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.<br> +But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I<br> +have an exposition of sleep come upon me.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.<br> +Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.<br> +Exeunt fairies +So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle<br> +Gently entwist; the female ivy so<br> +Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.<br> +O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Advancing Welcome, good Robin.<br> +See'st thou this sweet sight?<br> +Her dotage now I do begin to pity:<br> +For, meeting her of late behind the wood,<br> +Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,<br> +I did upbraid her and fall out with her;<br> +For she his hairy temples then had rounded<br> +With a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;<br> +And that same dew, which sometime on the buds<br> +Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,<br> +Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes<br> +Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.<br> +When I had at my pleasure taunted her<br> +And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,<br> +I then did ask of her her changeling child;<br> +Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent<br> +To bear him to my bower in fairy land.<br> +And now I have the boy, I will undo<br> +This hateful imperfection of her eyes:<br> +And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp<br> +From off the head of this Athenian swain;<br> +That, he awaking when the other do,<br> +May all to Athens back again repair<br> +And think no more of this night's accidents<br> +But as the fierce vexation of a dream.<br> +But first I will release the fairy queen.<br> +Be as thou wast wont to be;<br> +See as thou wast wont to see:<br> +Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower<br> +Hath such force and blessed power.<br> +Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +My Oberon! what visions have I seen!<br> +Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +There lies your love.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +How came these things to pass?<br> +O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.<br> +Titania, music call; and strike more dead<br> +Than common sleep of all these five the sense.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Now, when thou wakest, with thine<br> +own fool's eyes peep.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,<br> +And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.<br> +Now thou and I are new in amity,<br> +And will to-morrow midnight solemnly<br> +Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,<br> +And bless it to all fair prosperity:<br> +There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be<br> +Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Fairy king, attend, and mark:<br> +I do hear the morning lark.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Then, my queen, in silence sad,<br> +Trip we after the night's shade:<br> +We the globe can compass soon,<br> +Swifter than the wandering moon.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +Come, my lord, and in our flight<br> +Tell me how it came this night<br> +That I sleeping here was found<br> +With these mortals on the ground.<br> +Exeunt + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Go, one of you, find out the forester;<br> +For now our observation is perform'd;<br> +And since we have the vaward of the day,<br> +My love shall hear the music of my hounds.<br> +Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:<br> +Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.<br> +Exit an Attendant +We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,<br> +And mark the musical confusion<br> +Of hounds and echo in conjunction.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,<br> +When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear<br> +With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear<br> +Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,<br> +The skies, the fountains, every region near<br> +Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard<br> +So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,<br> +So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung<br> +With ears that sweep away the morning dew;<br> +Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;<br> +Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,<br> +Each under each. A cry more tuneable<br> +Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,<br> +In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:<br> +Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?<br> + +<p><b>EGEUS</b></p> +My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;<br> +And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;<br> +This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:<br> +I wonder of their being here together.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +No doubt they rose up early to observe<br> +The rite of May, and hearing our intent,<br> +Came here in grace our solemnity.<br> +But speak, Egeus; is not this the day<br> +That Hermia should give answer of her choice?<br> + +<p><b>EGEUS</b></p> +It is, my lord.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.<br> +Horns and shout within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, +HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start up +Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:<br> +Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Pardon, my lord.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +I pray you all, stand up.<br> +I know you two are rival enemies:<br> +How comes this gentle concord in the world,<br> +That hatred is so far from jealousy,<br> +To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +My lord, I shall reply amazedly,<br> +Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,<br> +I cannot truly say how I came here;<br> +But, as I think,--for truly would I speak,<br> +And now do I bethink me, so it is,--<br> +I came with Hermia hither: our intent<br> +Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,<br> +Without the peril of the Athenian law.<br> + +<p><b>EGEUS</b></p> +Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:<br> +I beg the law, the law, upon his head.<br> +They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,<br> +Thereby to have defeated you and me,<br> +You of your wife and me of my consent,<br> +Of my consent that she should be your wife.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,<br> +Of this their purpose hither to this wood;<br> +And I in fury hither follow'd them,<br> +Fair Helena in fancy following me.<br> +But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,--<br> +But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,<br> +Melted as the snow, seems to me now<br> +As the remembrance of an idle gaud<br> +Which in my childhood I did dote upon;<br> +And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,<br> +The object and the pleasure of mine eye,<br> +Is only Helena. To her, my lord,<br> +Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:<br> +But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;<br> +But, as in health, come to my natural taste,<br> +Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,<br> +And will for evermore be true to it.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:<br> +Of this discourse we more will hear anon.<br> +Egeus, I will overbear your will;<br> +For in the temple by and by with us<br> +These couples shall eternally be knit:<br> +And, for the morning now is something worn,<br> +Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.<br> +Away with us to Athens; three and three,<br> +We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.<br> +Come, Hippolyta.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +These things seem small and undistinguishable,<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Methinks I see these things with parted eye,<br> +When every thing seems double.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +So methinks:<br> +And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,<br> +Mine own, and not mine own.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Are you sure<br> +That we are awake? It seems to me<br> +That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think<br> +The duke was here, and bid us follow him?<br> + +<p><b>HERMIA</b></p> +Yea; and my father.<br> + +<p><b>HELENA</b></p> +And Hippolyta.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +And he did bid us follow to the temple.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him<br> +And by the way let us recount our dreams.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Awaking When my cue comes, call me, and I will<br> +answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!<br> +Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,<br> +the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen<br> +hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare<br> +vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to<br> +say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go<br> +about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there<br> +is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and<br> +methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if<br> +he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye<br> +of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not<br> +seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue<br> +to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream<br> +was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of<br> +this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,<br> +because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the<br> +latter end of a play, before the duke:<br> +peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall<br> +sing it at her death.<br> +<h3>SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house.</h3> +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?<br> + +<p><b>STARVELING</b></p> +He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is<br> +transported.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes<br> +not forward, doth it?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +It is not possible: you have not a man in all<br> +Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft<br> +man in Athens.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Yea and the best person too; and he is a very<br> +paramour for a sweet voice.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us,<br> +a thing of naught.<br> + +<p><b>SNUG</b></p> +Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and<br> +there is two or three lords and ladies more married:<br> +if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made<br> +men.<br> + +<p><b>FLUTE</b></p> +O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a<br> +day during his life; he could not have 'scaped<br> +sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him<br> +sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;<br> +he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in<br> +Pyramus, or nothing.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Where are these lads? where are these hearts?<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not<br> +what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I<br> +will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.<br> + +<p><b>QUINCE</b></p> +Let us hear, sweet Bottom.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that<br> +the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together,<br> +good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your<br> +pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look<br> +o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our<br> +play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have<br> +clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion<br> +pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the<br> +lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions<br> +nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I<br> +do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet<br> +comedy. No more words: away! go, away!<br> +<h3>ACT V</h3> +<h3>SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.</h3> +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +'Tis strange my Theseus, that these<br> +lovers speak of.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +More strange than true: I never may believe<br> +These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.<br> +Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,<br> +Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend<br> +More than cool reason ever comprehends.<br> +The lunatic, the lover and the poet<br> +Are of imagination all compact:<br> +One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,<br> +That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,<br> +Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:<br> +The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,<br> +Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;<br> +And as imagination bodies forth<br> +The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen<br> +Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing<br> +A local habitation and a name.<br> +Such tricks hath strong imagination,<br> +That if it would but apprehend some joy,<br> +It comprehends some bringer of that joy;<br> +Or in the night, imagining some fear,<br> +How easy is a bush supposed a bear!<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +But all the story of the night told over,<br> +And all their minds transfigured so together,<br> +More witnesseth than fancy's images<br> +And grows to something of great constancy;<br> +But, howsoever, strange and admirable.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.<br> +Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA +Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love<br> +Accompany your hearts!<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +More than to us<br> +Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,<br> +To wear away this long age of three hours<br> +Between our after-supper and bed-time?<br> +Where is our usual manager of mirth?<br> +What revels are in hand? Is there no play,<br> +To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?<br> +Call Philostrate.<br> + +<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p> +Here, mighty Theseus.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?<br> +What masque? what music? How shall we beguile<br> +The lazy time, if not with some delight?<br> + +<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p> +There is a brief how many sports are ripe:<br> +Make choice of which your highness will see first.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Reads 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung<br> +By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'<br> +We'll none of that: that have I told my love,<br> +In glory of my kinsman Hercules.<br> +Reads +'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,<br> +Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'<br> +That is an old device; and it was play'd<br> +When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.<br> +Reads +'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death<br> +Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.'<br> +That is some satire, keen and critical,<br> +Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.<br> +Reads +'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus<br> +And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'<br> +Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!<br> +That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.<br> +How shall we find the concord of this discord?<br> + +<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p> +A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,<br> +Which is as brief as I have known a play;<br> +But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,<br> +Which makes it tedious; for in all the play<br> +There is not one word apt, one player fitted:<br> +And tragical, my noble lord, it is;<br> +For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.<br> +Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,<br> +Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears<br> +The passion of loud laughter never shed.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +What are they that do play it?<br> + +<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p> +Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,<br> +Which never labour'd in their minds till now,<br> +And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories<br> +With this same play, against your nuptial.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +And we will hear it.<br> + +<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p> +No, my noble lord;<br> +It is not for you: I have heard it over,<br> +And it is nothing, nothing in the world;<br> +Unless you can find sport in their intents,<br> +Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,<br> +To do you service.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +I will hear that play;<br> +For never anything can be amiss,<br> +When simpleness and duty tender it.<br> +Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged<br> +And duty in his service perishing.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +He says they can do nothing in this kind.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.<br> +Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:<br> +And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect<br> +Takes it in might, not merit.<br> +Where I have come, great clerks have purposed<br> +To greet me with premeditated welcomes;<br> +Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,<br> +Make periods in the midst of sentences,<br> +Throttle their practised accent in their fears<br> +And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,<br> +Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,<br> +Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;<br> +And in the modesty of fearful duty<br> +I read as much as from the rattling tongue<br> +Of saucy and audacious eloquence.<br> +Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity<br> +In least speak most, to my capacity.<br> + +<p><b>PHILOSTRATE</b></p> +So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Let him approach.<br> + +<p><b>Prologue</b></p> +If we offend, it is with our good will.<br> +That you should think, we come not to offend,<br> +But with good will. To show our simple skill,<br> +That is the true beginning of our end.<br> +Consider then we come but in despite.<br> +We do not come as minding to contest you,<br> +Our true intent is. All for your delight<br> +We are not here. That you should here repent you,<br> +The actors are at hand and by their show<br> +You shall know all that you are like to know.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +This fellow doth not stand upon points.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows<br> +not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not<br> +enough to speak, but to speak true.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child<br> +on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing<br> +impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?<br> + +<p><b>Prologue</b></p> +Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;<br> +But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.<br> +This man is Pyramus, if you would know;<br> +This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.<br> +This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present<br> +Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;<br> +And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content<br> +To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.<br> +This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,<br> +Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,<br> +By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn<br> +To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.<br> +This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,<br> +The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,<br> +Did scare away, or rather did affright;<br> +And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,<br> +Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.<br> +Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,<br> +And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:<br> +Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,<br> +He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;<br> +And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,<br> +His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,<br> +Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain<br> +At large discourse, while here they do remain.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +I wonder if the lion be to speak.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.<br> + +<p><b>Wall</b></p> +In this same interlude it doth befall<br> +That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;<br> +And such a wall, as I would have you think,<br> +That had in it a crannied hole or chink,<br> +Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,<br> +Did whisper often very secretly.<br> +This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show<br> +That I am that same wall; the truth is so:<br> +And this the cranny is, right and sinister,<br> +Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard<br> +discourse, my lord.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!<br> +O night, which ever art when day is not!<br> +O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,<br> +I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!<br> +And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,<br> +That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!<br> +Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,<br> +Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!<br> +Wall holds up his fingers +Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!<br> +But what see I? No Thisby do I see.<br> +O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!<br> +Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'<br> +is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to<br> +spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will<br> +fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,<br> +For parting my fair Pyramus and me!<br> +My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,<br> +Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +I see a voice: now will I to the chink,<br> +To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +My love thou art, my love I think.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;<br> +And, like Limander, am I trusty still.<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.<br> + +<p><b>Wall</b></p> +Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;<br> +And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear<br> +without warning.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst<br> +are no worse, if imagination amend them.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +If we imagine no worse of them than they of<br> +themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here<br> +come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.<br> + +<p><b>Lion</b></p> +You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear<br> +The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,<br> +May now perchance both quake and tremble here,<br> +When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.<br> +Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am<br> +A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;<br> +For, if I should as lion come in strife<br> +Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +This lion is a very fox for his valour.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +True; and a goose for his discretion.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his<br> +discretion; and the fox carries the goose.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;<br> +for the goose carries not the fox. It is well:<br> +leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.<br> + +<p><b>Moonshine</b></p> +This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;--<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +He should have worn the horns on his head.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +He is no crescent, and his horns are<br> +invisible within the circumference.<br> + +<p><b>Moonshine</b></p> +This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;<br> +Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man<br> +should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the<br> +man i' the moon?<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +He dares not come there for the candle; for, you<br> +see, it is already in snuff.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +It appears, by his small light of discretion, that<br> +he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all<br> +reason, we must stay the time.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Proceed, Moon.<br> + +<p><b>Moonshine</b></p> +All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the<br> +lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this<br> +thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all<br> +these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?<br> + +<p><b>Lion</b></p> +Roaring Oh--<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Well roared, Lion.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Well run, Thisbe.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a<br> +good grace.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Well moused, Lion.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +And so the lion vanished.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +And then came Pyramus.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;<br> +I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;<br> +For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,<br> +I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.<br> +But stay, O spite!<br> +But mark, poor knight,<br> +What dreadful dole is here!<br> +Eyes, do you see?<br> +How can it be?<br> +O dainty duck! O dear!<br> +Thy mantle good,<br> +What, stain'd with blood!<br> +Approach, ye Furies fell!<br> +O Fates, come, come,<br> +Cut thread and thrum;<br> +Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would<br> +go near to make a man look sad.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.<br> + +<p><b>Pyramus</b></p> +O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?<br> +Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:<br> +Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame<br> +That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd<br> +with cheer.<br> +Come, tears, confound;<br> +Out, sword, and wound<br> +The pap of Pyramus;<br> +Ay, that left pap,<br> +Where heart doth hop:<br> +Stabs himself +Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.<br> +Now am I dead,<br> +Now am I fled;<br> +My soul is in the sky:<br> +Tongue, lose thy light;<br> +Moon take thy flight:<br> +Exit Moonshine +Now die, die, die, die, die.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and<br> +prove an ass.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes<br> +back and finds her lover?<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and<br> +her passion ends the play.<br> + +<p><b>HIPPOLYTA</b></p> +Methinks she should not use a long one for such a<br> +Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which<br> +Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us;<br> +she for a woman, God bless us.<br> + +<p><b>LYSANDER</b></p> +She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +And thus she means, videlicet:--<br> + +<p><b>Thisbe</b></p> +Asleep, my love?<br> +What, dead, my dove?<br> +O Pyramus, arise!<br> +Speak, speak. Quite dumb?<br> +Dead, dead? A tomb<br> +Must cover thy sweet eyes.<br> +These My lips,<br> +This cherry nose,<br> +These yellow cowslip cheeks,<br> +Are gone, are gone:<br> +Lovers, make moan:<br> +His eyes were green as leeks.<br> +O Sisters Three,<br> +Come, come to me,<br> +With hands as pale as milk;<br> +Lay them in gore,<br> +Since you have shore<br> +With shears his thread of silk.<br> +Tongue, not a word:<br> +Come, trusty sword;<br> +Come, blade, my breast imbrue:<br> +Stabs herself +And, farewell, friends;<br> +Thus Thisby ends:<br> +Adieu, adieu, adieu.<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.<br> + +<p><b>DEMETRIUS</b></p> +Ay, and Wall too.<br> + +<p><b>BOTTOM</b></p> +Starting up No assure you; the wall is down that<br> +parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the<br> +epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two<br> +of our company?<br> + +<p><b>THESEUS</b></p> +No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no<br> +excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all<br> +dead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he<br> +that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself<br> +in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine<br> +tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably<br> +discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your<br> +epilogue alone.<br> +A dance +The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:<br> +Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.<br> +I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn<br> +As much as we this night have overwatch'd.<br> +This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled<br> +The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.<br> +A fortnight hold we this solemnity,<br> +In nightly revels and new jollity.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +Now the hungry lion roars,<br> +And the wolf behowls the moon;<br> +Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,<br> +All with weary task fordone.<br> +Now the wasted brands do glow,<br> +Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,<br> +Puts the wretch that lies in woe<br> +In remembrance of a shroud.<br> +Now it is the time of night<br> +That the graves all gaping wide,<br> +Every one lets forth his sprite,<br> +In the church-way paths to glide:<br> +And we fairies, that do run<br> +By the triple Hecate's team,<br> +From the presence of the sun,<br> +Following darkness like a dream,<br> +Now are frolic: not a mouse<br> +Shall disturb this hallow'd house:<br> +I am sent with broom before,<br> +To sweep the dust behind the door.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Through the house give gathering light,<br> +By the dead and drowsy fire:<br> +Every elf and fairy sprite<br> +Hop as light as bird from brier;<br> +And this ditty, after me,<br> +Sing, and dance it trippingly.<br> + +<p><b>TITANIA</b></p> +First, rehearse your song by rote<br> +To each word a warbling note:<br> +Hand in hand, with fairy grace,<br> +Will we sing, and bless this place.<br> + +<p><b>OBERON</b></p> +Now, until the break of day,<br> +Through this house each fairy stray.<br> +To the best bride-bed will we,<br> +Which by us shall blessed be;<br> +And the issue there create<br> +Ever shall be fortunate.<br> +So shall all the couples three<br> +Ever true in loving be;<br> +And the blots of Nature's hand<br> +Shall not in their issue stand;<br> +Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,<br> +Nor mark prodigious, such as are<br> +Despised in nativity,<br> +Shall upon their children be.<br> +With this field-dew consecrate,<br> +Every fairy take his gait;<br> +And each several chamber bless,<br> +Through this palace, with sweet peace;<br> +And the owner of it blest<br> +Ever shall in safety rest.<br> +Trip away; make no stay;<br> +Meet me all by break of day.<br> + +<p><b>PUCK</b></p> +If we shadows have offended,<br> +Think but this, and all is mended,<br> +That you have but slumber'd here<br> +While these visions did appear.<br> +And this weak and idle theme,<br> +No more yielding but a dream,<br> +Gentles, do not reprehend:<br> +if you pardon, we will mend:<br> +And, as I am an honest Puck,<br> +If we have unearned luck<br> +Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,<br> +We will make amends ere long;<br> +Else the Puck a liar call;<br> +So, good night unto you all.<br> +Give me your hands, if we be friends,<br> +And Robin shall restore amends.<br> +</body> +</html> |