More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O, were favour" so,
(Your words I catch,) fair Hermia, ere I go,

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'll give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look; and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles
such skill!

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move!
Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
Hel. None. But your beauty; would that fault were
mine!

Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face;

Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me:

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:
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,)
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.

Her. And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet :
And thence, frorn Athens, turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!-
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight. [Ex. HER.
Lys. I will, my Hermia.-Helena, adieu:
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

[Exit Lys.

Hel. How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vild,d holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste :
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil d.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjur'd everywhere:
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths, that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt.
So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt.
*I will go tell hi of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he, to-morrow night,

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,
Shall break the locks
Of prison-gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,

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.

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.

Enter a Fairy on one side, and PUCK on the other.
Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs & upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners b be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours:
must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone;
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.

Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night;
Take heed the queen come not within his sight.
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling :d
And jealons Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:
But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,

Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her

joy:

And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square; that all their elves, for ear,
Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there.

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.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip 1 from her bum, down topples she,
And "Tailor" cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.-

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?
Tita. Then I must be thy lady: But I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Plaving on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress, and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Obe. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering nignt
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?

And make him with fair Eglé break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore, the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents:d
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;e
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable;
The human mortals want; their winter here,
No night is now with hymn or carol bless'd :-
Therefore, the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound :
And thorough this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mockery, set: The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,

By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.

Obe. Do you amend it then it lies in you:
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

* 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;
And the imperial votaress passed on,

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,-
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.

Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once;
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again,
Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
[Exit PUCK.

Obe.
Having once this juice,
I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes:
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,)
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm off from her sight,
As I can take it, with another herb,)
I'll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will overhear their conference.

a Henchman-a page; originally a horseman.