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SCENE I. The Wood.
[Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED, and other FAIRIES
attending; OBERON behind, unseen.]
TITANIA Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do
coy, And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair large ears, my
gentle joy.
BOTTOM Where's Peasblossom?
PEASBLOSSOM Ready.
BOTTOM Scratch my head, Peasblossom.-- Where's Monsieur Cobweb?
COBWEB Ready.
BOTTOM Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand and kill me
a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the
honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have
a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag,
signior.-- Where's Monsieur Mustardseed?
MUSTARDSEED Ready.
BOTTOM Give me your neif, Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your curtsy, good
monsieur.
MUSTARDSEED What's your will?
BOTTOM Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalero Cobweb to scratch. I must to the
barber's, monsieur; for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a
tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.
TITANIA What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
BOTTOM I have a reasonable good ear in music; let us have the tongs and the
bones.
TITANIA Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
BOTTOM Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have
a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
TITANIA I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch
thee new nuts.
BOTTOM I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none
of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
TITANIA Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Fairies, be gone, and be all
ways away. So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist,--the female ivy
so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!
[They sleep.]
[OBERON advances. Enter PUCK.]
OBERON Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight? Her dotage now I do begin
to pity. For, meeting her of late behind the wood, Seeking sweet favours for this
hateful fool, I did upbraid her and fall out with her: For she his hairy temples then
had rounded With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers; And that same dew, which
sometime on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls, Stood now within
the pretty flow'rets' eyes, Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail. When I had,
at my pleasure, taunted her, And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience, I then did ask
of her her changeling child; Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent To bear him
to my bower in fairy-land. And now I have the boy, I will undo This hateful imperfection
of her eyes. And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp From off the head of this
Athenian swain, That he awaking when the other do, May all to Athens back again
repair, And think no more of this night's accidents But as the fierce vexation of a
dream. But first I will release the fairy queen. Be as thou wast wont to
be; [Touching her eyes with an herb.] See as thou was wont to see. Dian's bud o'er
Cupid's flower Hath such force and blessed power. Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet
queen.
TITANIA My Oberon! what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour'd of an
ass.
OBERON There lies your love.
TITANIA How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage
now!
OBERON Silence awhile.--Robin, take off this head. Titania, music call; and strike
more dead Than common sleep, of all these five, the sense.
TITANIA Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep.
PUCK Now when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep.
OBERON Sound, music. [Still music.] Come, my queen, take hands with me, And rock
the ground whereon these sleepers be. Now thou and I are new in amity, And will
to-morrow midnight solemnly Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, And bless it to
all fair prosperity: There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be Wedded, with Theseus,
all in jollity.
PUCK Fairy king, attend and mark; I do hear the morning lark.
OBERON Then, my queen, in silence sad, Trip we after night's shade. We the
globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
TITANIA Come, my lord; and in our flight, Tell me how it came this
night That I sleeping here was found With these mortals on the ground.
[Exeunt. Horns sound within.]
[Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train.]
THESEUS Go, one of you, find out the forester;-- For now our observation is
perform'd; And since we have the vaward of the day, My love shall hear the music of my
hounds,-- Uncouple in the western valley; go:-- Despatch, I say, and find the
forester.--
[Exit an ATTENDANT.]
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, And mark the musical confusion Of
hounds and echo in conjunction.
HIPPOLYTA I was with Hercules and Cadmus once When in a wood of Crete they bay'd
the bear With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for, besides the
groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never
heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
THESEUS My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, so sanded; and their
heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd
like Thessalian bulls; Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under
each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, In Crete, in
Sparta, nor in Thessaly. Judge when you hear.--But, soft, what nymphs are these?
EGEUS My lord, this is my daughter here asleep; And this Lysander; this Demetrius
is; This Helena, old Nedar's Helena: I wonder of their being here together.
THESEUS No doubt they rose up early to observe The rite of May; and, hearing our
intent, Came here in grace of our solemnity.-- But speak, Egeus; is not this the
day That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS It is, my lord.
THESEUS Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
[Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER,HERMIA, and HELENA awake and start
up.]
Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple
now?
LYSANDER Pardon, my lord.
[He and the rest kneel to THESEUS.]
THESEUS I pray you all, stand up. I know you two are rival enemies; How comes this
gentle concord in the world, That hatred is so far from jealousy To sleep by hate, and
fear no enmity?
LYSANDER My lord, I shall reply amazedly, Half 'sleep, half waking; but as yet, I
swear, I cannot truly say how I came here: But, as I think,--for truly would I
speak-- And now I do bethink me, so it is,-- I came with Hermia hither: our intent Was
to be gone from Athens, where we might be, Without the peril of the Athenian law.
EGEUS Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough; I beg the law, the law upon his
head.-- They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius, Thereby to have defeated you
and me: You of your wife, and me of my consent,-- Of my consent that she should be your
wife.
DEMETRIUS My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, Of this their purpose
hither to this wood; And I in fury hither follow'd them, Fair Helena in fancy following
me. But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,-- But by some power it is,--my love to
Hermia, Melted as the snow--seems to me now As the remembrance of an idle gawd Which in
my childhood I did dote upon: And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, The object and
the pleasure of mine eye, Is only Helena. To her, my lord, Was I betroth'd ere I saw
Hermia: But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food; But, as in health, come to my
natural taste, Now I do wish it, love it, long for it, And will for evermore be true to
it.
THESEUS Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: Of this discourse we more will hear
anon.-- Egeus, I will overbear your will; For in the temple, by and by with us, These
couples shall eternally be knit. And, for the morning now is something worn, Our
purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.-- Away with us to Athens, three and three, We'll
hold a feast in great solemnity.-- Come, Hippolyta.
[Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train.]
DEMETRIUS These things seem small and undistinguishable, Like far-off mountains
turned into clouds.
HERMIA Methinks I see these things with parted eye, When every thing seems
double.
HELENA So methinks: And I have found Demetrius like a jewel. Mine own, and not
mine own.
DEMETRIUS It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream.--Do not you think The duke
was here, and bid us follow him?
HERMIA Yea, and my father.
HELENA And Hippolyta.
LYSANDER And he did bid us follow to the temple.
DEMETRIUS Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him; And by the way let us recount
our dreams.
[Exeunt.]
[As they go out, BOTTOM awakes.]
BOTTOM When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is 'Most fair
Pyramus.'--Heigh-ho!--Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker!
Starveling! God's my life, stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream--past the wit of man to say what dream it was.--Man is but an
ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what.
Methought I was, and methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to
say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen;
man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my
dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called
Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play,
before the duke: peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
[Exit.]
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