Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Act 2 - Scene 1

A wood near Athens.

Puck : How now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fairy : Over hill, over dale, [p]Thorough bush, thorough brier, [p]Over park,
over pale, [p]Thorough flood, thorough fire, [p]I do wander
everywhere, [p]Swifter than the moon's sphere; [p]And I serve the
fairy queen, [p]To dew her orbs upon the green. [p]The cowslips tall
her pensioners be: [p]In their gold coats spots you see; [p]Those be
rubies, fairy favours, [p]In those freckles live their savours: [p]I
must go seek some dewdrops here [p]And hang a pearl in every cowslip's
ear. [p]Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone: [p]Our queen and
all our elves come here anon.

Puck : The king doth keep his revels here to-night: [p]Take heed the queen
come not within his sight; [p]For Oberon is passing fell and
wrath, [p]Because that she as her attendant hath [p]A lovely boy,
stolen from an Indian king; [p]She never had so sweet a
changeling; [p]And jealous Oberon would have the child [p]Knight of
his train, to trace the forests wild; [p]But she perforce withholds
the loved boy, [p]Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her
joy: [p]And now they never meet in grove or green, [p]By fountain
clear, or spangled starlight sheen, [p]But, they do square, that all
their elves for fear [p]Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

Fairy : Either I mistake your shape and making quite, [p]Or else you are that
shrewd and knavish sprite [p]Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you
he [p]That frights the maidens of the villagery; [p]Skim milk, and
sometimes labour in the quern [p]And bootless make the breathless
housewife churn; [p]And sometime make the drink to bear no
barm; [p]Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? [p]Those
that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, [p]You do their work, and they
shall have good luck: [p]Are not you he?

Puck : Thou speak'st aright; [p]I am that merry wanderer of the night. [p]I
jest to Oberon and make him smile [p]When I a fat and bean-fed horse
beguile, [p]Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: [p]And sometime lurk
I in a gossip's bowl, [p]In very likeness of a roasted crab, [p]And
when she drinks, against her lips I bob [p]And on her wither'd dewlap
pour the ale. [p]The wisest aunt, telling the saddest
tale, [p]Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; [p]Then slip I
from her bum, down topples she, [p]And 'tailor' cries, and falls into
a cough; [p]And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, [p]And
waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear [p]A merrier hour was never
wasted there. [p]But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.

Fairy : And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Oberon : Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Titania : What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence: [p]I have forsworn his bed
and company.

Oberon : Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?

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

Oberon : How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, [p]Glance at my credit with
Hippolyta, [p]Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? [p]Didst thou not
lead him through the glimmering night [p]From Perigenia, whom he
ravished? [p]And make him with fair AEgle break his faith, [p]With
Ariadne and Antiopa?

Titania : These are the forgeries of jealousy: [p]And never, since the middle
summer's spring, [p]Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, [p]By
paved fountain or by rushy brook, [p]Or in the beached margent of the
sea, [p]To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, [p]But with thy
brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. [p]Therefore the winds, piping
to us in vain, [p]As in revenge, have suck'd up from the
sea [p]Contagious fogs; which falling in the land [p]Have every
pelting river made so proud [p]That they have overborne their
continents: [p]The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in
vain, [p]The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn [p]Hath
rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard; [p]The fold stands empty in the
drowned field, [p]And crows are fatted with the murrion flock; [p]The
nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud, [p]And the quaint mazes in
the wanton green [p]For lack of tread are undistinguishable: [p]The
human mortals want their winter here; [p]No night is now with hymn or
carol blest: [p]Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, [p]Pale
in her anger, washes all the air, [p]That rheumatic diseases do
abound: [p]And thorough this distemperature we see [p]The seasons
alter: hoary-headed frosts [p]Far in the fresh lap of the crimson
rose, [p]And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown [p]An odorous chaplet of
sweet summer buds [p]Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the
summer, [p]The childing autumn, angry winter, change [p]Their wonted
liveries, and the mazed world, [p]By their increase, now knows not
which is which: [p]And this same progeny of evils comes [p]From our
debate, from our dissension; [p]We are their parents and original.

Oberon : Do you amend it then; it lies in you: [p]Why should Titania cross her
Oberon? [p]I do but beg a little changeling boy, [p]To be my
henchman.

Titania : Set your heart at rest: [p]The fairy land buys not the child of
me. [p]His mother was a votaress of my order: [p]And, in the spiced
Indian air, by night, [p]Full often hath she gossip'd by my
side, [p]And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, [p]Marking the
embarked traders on the flood, [p]When we have laugh'd to see the
sails conceive [p]And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; [p]Which
she, with pretty and with swimming gait [p]Following,--her womb then
rich with my young squire,-- [p]Would imitate, and sail upon the
land, [p]To fetch me trifles, and return again, [p]As from a voyage,
rich with merchandise. [p]But she, being mortal, of that boy did
die; [p]And for her sake do I rear up her boy, [p]And for her sake I
will not part with him.

Oberon : How long within this wood intend you stay?

Titania : Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. [p]If you will patiently
dance in our round [p]And see our moonlight revels, go with us; [p]If
not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

Oberon : Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.

Titania : Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away! [p]We shall chide downright,
if I longer stay.

Oberon : Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove [p]Till I torment
thee for this injury. [p]My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou
rememberest [p]Since once I sat upon a promontory, [p]And heard a
mermaid on a dolphin's back [p]Uttering such dulcet and harmonious
breath [p]That the rude sea grew civil at her song [p]And certain
stars shot madly from their spheres, [p]To hear the sea-maid's music.

Puck : I remember.

Oberon : That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, [p]Flying between the cold
moon and the earth, [p]Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took [p]At a
fair vestal throned by the west, [p]And loosed his love-shaft smartly
from his bow, [p]As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; [p]But
I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft [p]Quench'd in the chaste beams
of the watery moon, [p]And the imperial votaress passed on, [p]In
maiden meditation, fancy-free. [p]Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid
fell: [p]It fell upon a little western flower, [p]Before milk-white,
now purple with love's wound, [p]And maidens call it
love-in-idleness. [p]Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee
once: [p]The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid [p]Will make or man
or woman madly dote [p]Upon the next live creature that it
sees. [p]Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again [p]Ere the
leviathan can swim a league.

Puck : I'll put a girdle round about the earth [p]In forty minutes.

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

Demetrius : I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. [p]Where is Lysander and
fair Hermia? [p]The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. [p]Thou
told'st me they were stolen unto this wood; [p]And here am I, and wode
within this wood, [p]Because I cannot meet my Hermia. [p]Hence, get
thee gone, and follow me no more.

Helena : You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; [p]But yet you draw not iron,
for my heart [p]Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, [p]And
I shall have no power to follow you.

Demetrius : Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? [p]Or, rather, do I not in
plainest truth [p]Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

Helena : And even for that do I love you the more. [p]I am your spaniel; and,
Demetrius, [p]The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: [p]Use me but
as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, [p]Neglect me, lose me; only
give me leave, [p]Unworthy as I am, to follow you. [p]What worser
place can I beg in your love,-- [p]And yet a place of high respect
with me,-- [p]Than to be used as you use your dog?

Demetrius : Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; [p]For I am sick when I do
look on thee.

Helena : And I am sick when I look not on you.

Demetrius : You do impeach your modesty too much, [p]To leave the city and commit
yourself [p]Into the hands of one that loves you not; [p]To trust the
opportunity of night [p]And the ill counsel of a desert place [p]With
the rich worth of your virginity.

Helena : Your virtue is my privilege: for that [p]It is not night when I do see
your face, [p]Therefore I think I am not in the night; [p]Nor doth
this wood lack worlds of company, [p]For you in my respect are all the
world: [p]Then how can it be said I am alone, [p]When all the world is
here to look on me?

Demetrius : I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, [p]And leave thee to the
mercy of wild beasts.

Helena : The wildest hath not such a heart as you. [p]Run when you will, the
story shall be changed: [p]Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the
chase; [p]The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind [p]Makes speed
to catch the tiger; bootless speed, [p]When cowardice pursues and
valour flies.

Demetrius : I will not stay thy questions; let me go: [p]Or, if thou follow me, do
not believe [p]But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.

Helena : Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, [p]You do me mischief. Fie,
Demetrius! [p]Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: [p]We cannot
fight for love, as men may do; [p]We should be wood and were not made
to woo. [p][Exit DEMETRIUS] [p]I'll follow thee and make a heaven of
hell, [p]To die upon the hand I love so well.

Oberon : Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove, [p]Thou shalt fly
him and he shall seek thy love. [p][Re-enter PUCK] [p]Hast thou the
flower there? Welcome, wanderer.

Puck : Ay, there it is.

Oberon : I pray thee, give it me. [p]I know a bank where the wild thyme
blows, [p]Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, [p]Quite
over-canopied with luscious woodbine, [p]With sweet musk-roses and
with eglantine: [p]There sleeps Titania sometime of the
night, [p]Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight; [p]And
there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, [p]Weed wide enough to wrap
a fairy in: [p]And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, [p]And
make her full of hateful fantasies. [p]Take thou some of it, and seek
through this grove: [p]A sweet Athenian lady is in love [p]With a
disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; [p]But do it when the next thing he
espies [p]May be the lady: thou shalt know the man [p]By the Athenian
garments he hath on. [p]Effect it with some care, that he may
prove [p]More fond on her than she upon her love: [p]And look thou
meet me ere the first cock crow.

Puck : Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.

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