Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense:
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

Lys. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
Her. What love could press Lysander from my side?
Lys. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide;
Fair Helena; who more engilds the night
Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light.
Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,
The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?

a

Her. You speak not as you think; it cannot be.
Hel. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoin'd, all three,
To fashion this false sport in spite of me.
Injurious Hermia most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd
To bait me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us,-O, and is all forgot?
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Buth warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem :
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart,
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest b
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 't is not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it;
Though I alone do feel the injury.

Her. I am amazed at your passionate words: I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me. Hel. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn, To follow me, and praise my eyes and face? And made your other love, Demetrius,

Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,)
To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
And tender me, forsooth, affection;
But by your setting on, by your consent?
What though I be not so in grace as you,
So bung upon with love, so fortunate;
But miserable most, to love unlov'd!'
This you should pity, rather than despise.

Her. I understand not what you mean by this.
Hel. Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.
But, fare ye well: 't is partly mine own fault,
Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.

Lys. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse, My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena !

* Ues-circles.

There is a double comparison here-1st, Of the two bodies, mpared to two coats of heraldry; and, 2ndly. Of the one heart, compared to the one crest and the one owner. boxes are tion, but they are as united under one heart, as two

"Our

No, no, sir :

Lys. Away, you Ethiope!
Dem.
Seem to break loose; take on, as you would follow;
But yet come not: You are a tame man, go!

Lys. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr: vile thing, let loose;

Or I will shake thee from me, like a serpent.

Her. Why are you grown so rude? what change is this, Sweet love? Lys.

Thy love? out, tawny Tartar, out Out, loathed medicine! O, hated poison, hence Her. Do you not jest?

Hel. Yes, 'sooth; and so do you. Lys. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee. Dem. I would I had your bond; for I perceive A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word. Lys. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?

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

Her. What, can you do me greater harm than hate? Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love? Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?

I am as fair now as I was erewhile.

Since night you lov'd me; yet, since night you left me:
Why then you left me,-0, the gods forbid!
In earnest, shall I say?

Lys.

Ay, by my life;
And never did desire to see thee more.
Therefore, be out of hope, of question, of doubt,
Be certain, nothing truer, 't is no jest,
That I do hate thee, and love Helena.

Her. O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom!
You thief of love! what, have you come by night,
And stol'n my love's heart from him?

Hel. Fine, i' faith! Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear Impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!

Her. Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the game
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures, she hath urg'd her height;
And with her personage, her tall personage,

Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem,
Because I am so dwarfish, and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low,

But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

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

I have no gift at all in shrewishness;

I am a right maid for my cowardice;

Let her not strike me: You, perhaps, may think,
Because she's something lower than myself,
That I can match her.

Her.

0

Curst-shrew.

To measure out my length on this cold bed. By day's approach look to be visited.

[Lies down and sleeps. Enter HELENA.

Hel. O, weary night, O, long and tedious night, Abate thy hours: shine, comforts, from the east, That I may back to Athens by daylight,

[Sleeps.

From these that my poor company detest :-
And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
Steal me awhile from mine own company.
Puck. Yet but three? Come one more;
Two of both kinds makes up four.
Here she comes, curst and sad:
Cupid is a knavish lad,

Thus to make poor females mad.
Enter HERMIA.

Her. Never so weary, never so in woe,

Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briera;

I can no further crawl, no further go;

My legs can keep no pace with my desires.

Must Ready.

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

Bot. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help 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.

Tito. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love!

Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music: let us have the tongs and the bones.

Tita. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat. Bot. Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow. Tita. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

Bot. I had rather have a handful, or two, of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. Tita. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Faries, be gone, and be all ways away. So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm."

O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! [They sleep,
OBERON advances. Enter PUCK.
Obe. Welcome, good Robin. See'st thou this sweet
sight?

Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
For meeting her of late, behind the wood,
Seeking sweet savours for this hateful fool,
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
I did upbraid her and fall out with her:
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,
I then did ask of her her changeling child;
And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience,
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And now I have the boy, I will undo
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
From off the head of this Athenian swain;
May all to Athens back again repair;
That he awaking when the other do,
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.

Now,

Be thou, as thou wast wont to be,

[Touching her eyes with an herb.

See, as thou wast wont to see:
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
Tita. My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
Obe. There lies your love.

Tita.

How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

a Gifford pointed out the true meaning of this passage in his note upon a parallel passage in Ben Jonson :"behold!

How the blue bindweed doth itself enfold With honeysuckle, and both these entwine Themselves with bryony and jessamine." "In many of our counties," says Gifford, "the woodbine is still the name for the great convolvulus."

Obe. Silence a while.-Robin, take off this head.— Titania, music call; and strike more dead Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.

Tita. Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep. Puck. When thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep.

Obe. 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 posterity:
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.

Obe. Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade:
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
Tita. 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.
The. 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; let them go:
Despatch, I say, and find the forester.

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

Hip. 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.

The. 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-lapp'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?

Ege. 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.

The. No doubt they rose up early, to observe

The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
Came here in grace of our solemnitz.
But, speak, Egeus; is not this the day

That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
Ege. It is, my lord.

The. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their
horns.

Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER, HERMIA, and HELENA wake and start up.

The. Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is
past;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
Lys. Pardon, my lord. [He and the rest kneel to THE.
I pray you all, stand up.

The

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?

Lys. My lord, I shall reply amazedlv.
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.

Ege. 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.

Dem. 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 gaud,
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 in sickness, did I loathe this food:
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now do I wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.

The. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
Of this discourse we will hear more 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 Tram. Dem. These things seem small and undistinguish able,

Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.

Her. Methinks I see these things with parted eye, When everything seems double.

Hel.
So, methinks:
And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,b
Mine own, and not mine own.

Hel.

And Hippolyta.

Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple. Dem. Why, then, we are awake; let 's follow him: And, by the way, let us recount our dreams. [Exeunt.

As they go out, BorтOм awakes.

Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer:-my next is, "Most fair Pyramus."-Hey, ho!Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Suont, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life! stolen hence, a They intended to leave Athens for some place where they might be beyond (without) the perils of the Athenian law.

She has found Demetrius, as a person picks up a jewelfor the moment it is his own, bat its value may cause it to be reclaimed. She feels insecure in the possession of her treasure,

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 bad-Bet 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.

SCENE II.-Athens.

A Room in Quince's House. Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. Quin. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?

Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported.

Fix. If he come not, then the play is marred; It goes not forward, doth it?

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

Flu. No: he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.

Quin. Yea, and the best person too: and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

Flu. You must say, paragon: a paramour is, God bles us, a thing of naught.

Enter SNUG.

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

men.

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

Enter BOTTOM.

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

Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you I am no true Athenian. I will tell you everything, right as it fell out. Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

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

[Exeunt.

SCENE I-Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords, and Attendants.

Hip. T is strange, my, Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

The. More strange than true. I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

Levers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold

That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Deth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Tums them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Sach tricks hath strong imagination;

That, if it would but apprehend some joy,

It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!

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

And

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

* Patched fool-a fool in a particoloured coat. Probably, at the death of Thisbe.

Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA. The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love, Accompany your hearts!

Lys. More than to us Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed! The. Come now; what masks, what dances, snall we have,

To wear away this long age of three hours,

Between our after-supper and bedtime?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,

To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.

Philost. Here, mighty Theseus.

The. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?

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

Philost. There is a brief, how many sports are rife;
Make choice of which your highness will see first.
[Giving a paper.
Lys. [Reads.] "The battle with the Centaurs, to be

sung,

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp."

In the first act, Bottom has told us that he will "discharge" the part of Pyramus, "in either your straw colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow." He is now solicitous that the strings by which the artificial beards were to be fastened should be in good order.

Preferred-not in the sense of chosen in preference, bat offered as a suit is preferred.

e Abridgment-pastime; something that may abridge "the lazy time." This is one explanation. is it not, rather-wha. short thing have you, of play, or mask, or music?