A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. PERSONS REPRESENTED. THESEUS, Duke of Athens. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1. EGEUS, father to Hermia. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. PHILOSTRATE, master of the revels to Theseus. QUINCE, the carpenter. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2. Appears, Act 1. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2. TITANIA, queen of the fairies. Appears, Act II. sc. 2: se. 3. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, a fairy. PEAS-BLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARD-SEED, Appear, Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Pyramus, Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, Lion, characters Other Fairies attending their King and Queen. SCENE, ATHENS, AND A WOOD NEAR. ACT I. SCENE I-Athens. A Room in the Palace of Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Long withering out a young man's revenue. Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves Four nights will quickly dream away the time; The. Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals, The. Thanks, good Egeus: What's the news witt Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint To stubborn harshness :-And, my gracious duke, The pale companion is not for our pomp. [Exit PHIL. I beg the ancient privilege of Athens; Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries; Enter EGEUS, HERmia, Lysander, and Demetrius. The word duke was a corruption of the Latin dur, which was indiscriminately applied to any military chief. Chaucer has duke Theseus,-Gower, duke Spartacus,-Stanyhurst, duke Areas. The word is also so used in our translation of the Bible. As she is mine, I may dispose of her: The. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid: To you your father should be as a god; To leave the figure, or disfigure it. In himself he is: The. Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes. I know not by what power I am made bold, In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts: The. Either to die the death, or to abjure Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Or else the law of Athens yields you up I must employ you in some business [Exeunt THES., HIP., EGE., DEM., and train. Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale î How chance the roses there do fade so fast? Her. Belike for want of rain; which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes. Lys. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, The course of true love never did run smooth: Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low ! So quick bright things come to confusion. Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross`d, The. Take time to pause; and, by the next new moon, It stands as an edict in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience, As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear I have a widow aunt, a dowager me, Hermi Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia :-And, Lysander, yield From Athens is her house remov'd seven leagues; Thy crazed title to my certain right. Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius; Ege. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love; Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, And, which is more than all these boasts can be, Why should not I then prosecute my right? Upon this spottedd and inconstant man. The. I must confess that I have heard so much, My mind did lose it.-But, Demetrius, come; a Earthly happier-more happy in an earthly sense. Lordship-authority. This is one of those elliptical expressions which frequently secur in our poet: to must be understood after sovereignty. 4 Spotted-stained, impure; the opposite of spotless. I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow; By the simplicity of Venus' doves; By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves, By all the vows that ever men have broke, Lys. Keep promise, love: Look, here comes Helena Her. God speed fair Helena! Whit er away ? Your eyes are load-stars; and your tongue's sweet air More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear, My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face; Lysander and myself will fly this place. O then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell! Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: Her. And in the wood, where often you and I [Exit Lys. Hel. How happy some o'er other some can be! Things base and vild,d holding no quantity, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; SCENE II-The same. A Room in a Cottage. Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING. Quin. Is all our company here? Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip." Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and the duchess on his weddingday at night. Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow on to a point. Quin. Marry, our play is-The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll: Masters, spread yourselves. Quin. Answer, as I call you.-Nick Bottom, the weaver. Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love. Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest :-Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. "The raging rocks, And shivering shocks, And make and mar The foolish fates." This was lofty!-Now name the rest of the players.-This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Flu. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You must take Thisby on you. Flu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Flu. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. Quin. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;" Thisne, Thisne,-Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!" Quin. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute you, Thisby. Bot. Well, proceed. Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor. Star. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's | shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, genmother. Tom Snout, the tinker. tleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Py Snout. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:-and, I hope, here is a play fitted. Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. Bot. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's neart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, "Let him roar again, let him roar again." Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all. All. That would hang us, every mother's son. Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 't were any nightingale. Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus: for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man as one! SCENE I.-A Wood near Athens. ramus. Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? Quin. Why, what you will. Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced.-But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night: and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there we will rehearse: for if we meet in the city we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not. Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu. Quin. At the duke's oak we meet. Bot. Enough. Hold, or cut bow-strings.b [Exeunt. ACT II. Enter a Fairy on one side, and PUCK on the other. Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, In those freckles live their savours: Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night; Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy: And now they never meet in grove, or green, Orbs. The fairy rings, as they are popularly called. It was the Fairy's office to dew these orbs, which had been parched under the fairy-feet in the moonlight revels. Pensioners. These courtiers, whom Mrs. Quickly put above earls (Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act II. Scene 2), were Queen Enzabeth's favourite attendants. They were the handsomest men of the first families. Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite, Call'd Robin Goodfellow; are you not he, That frights the maidens of the villagery; Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern ; And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; And sometime make the drink to bear no barm ;d Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck : Are not you he? Puck. Thou speak'st aright; .d I am that merry wanderer of the night. But room, Fairy, here comes Oberon. Fai. And here my mistress :-Would that ne were gone! SCENE II.-Enter OBERON, on one side, with his Train, and TITANIA, on the other, with hers. Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. Tita. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company. a Properties. The person who has charge of the wooden swords, and pasteboard shields, and other trumpery required for the business of the stage, is still called the property-man. b A proverbial expression derived from the days of archery -"When a party was made at butts, assurance of meeting wa given in the words of that phrase." • Quern-a handmill. d Barm-yeast. Obe. Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord? Obe. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania, Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering nignt And make him with fair Eglé break his faith, Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy: Is, as in mockery, set: The spring, the summer, By their increase, now knows not which is which: Obe. Do you amend it then it lies in you: * Middle suramer's spring. The spring is the beginning-as the tring of the day, a common expression in our early writers. The middle summer is the midsummer. Paced fountain--a fountain, or clear stream, rushing over petles: certainly not an artificially paved fountain. • Priting petty, contemptible. 4 Continents-banks. A continent is that which contains. Con the green turf of their commons the shepherds and ploachmen of England were wont to cut a rude series of lines, apon which they arranged eighteen stones, divided between two plasers, who moved them alternately, as at chess or draughts, the game was finished by one of the players having all his pieces taken or impounded. This was the nine men's morris. Human mortals. Chapman, in his 'Homer,' has an inversion of the phrase" mortal humans." The human mortals want. Their winter is here-is comealthough the season is the latter summer, or autumn; and in sequence the hymns and carols which gladdened the nights ✔ a seasonable winter are wanting to this premature one. Chiding-producing. Increase-produce. I do but beg a little changeling boy, To be my henchman." Tita. Set your heart at rest, The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a vot'ress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side; And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking th' embarked traders on the flood; When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive, And grow big-bellied, with the wanton wind: Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait, Following (her womb then rich with my young squire); Would imitate; and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy: And, for her sake, I will not part with him. Obe. How long within this wood intend you stay? Tita. Perchance, till after Theseus' wedding-day. If you will patiently dance in our round, And see our moonlight revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. Tita. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away: We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exeunt TITANIA and her Train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this Obe. That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not,) Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd; a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon; In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before, milk-white; now, purple with love's wound,- Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once; Obe. a Henchman-a page; originally a horseman. |