Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 1
The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA
Titania : Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
[p]While I thy amiable
cheeks do coy,
[p]And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth
head,
[p]And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
Bottom : Where's Peaseblossom?
Peaseblossom : Ready.
Bottom : Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?
Cobweb : Ready.
Bottom : Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your
[p]weapons in your
hand, and kill me a red-hipped
[p]humble-bee on the top of a thistle;
and, good
[p]mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not
fret
[p]yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,
[p]good
mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;
[p]I would be loath to
have you overflown with a
[p]honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur
Mustardseed?
Mustardseed : Ready.
Bottom : Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,
[p]leave your
courtesy, good mounsieur.
Mustardseed : What's your Will?
Bottom : Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb
[p]to scratch. I
must to the barber's, monsieur; for
[p]methinks I am marvellous hairy
about the face; and I
[p]am such a tender ass, if my hair do but
tickle me,
[p]I must scratch.
Titania : What, wilt thou hear some music,
[p]my sweet love?
Bottom : I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have
[p]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
[p]dry oats.
Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle
[p]of hay: good hay, sweet
hay, hath no fellow.
Titania : I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
[p]The squirrel's hoard, and
fetch thee new nuts.
Bottom : I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.
[p]But, I pray you,
let none of your people stir me: I
[p]have an exposition of sleep come
upon me.
Titania : Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
[p]Fairies, begone, and
be all ways away.
[p][Exeunt fairies]
[p]So doth the woodbine the
sweet honeysuckle
[p]Gently entwist; the female ivy so
[p]Enrings the
barky fingers of the elm.
[p]O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!
Oberon : [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin.
[p]See'st thou this sweet
sight?
[p]Her dotage now I do begin to pity:
[p]For, meeting her of
late behind the wood,
[p]Seeking sweet favours from this hateful
fool,
[p]I did upbraid her and fall out with her;
[p]For she his hairy
temples then had rounded
[p]With a coronet of fresh and fragrant
flowers;
[p]And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
[p]Was wont
to swell like round and orient pearls,
[p]Stood now within the pretty
flowerets' eyes
[p]Like tears that did their own disgrace
bewail.
[p]When I had at my pleasure taunted her
[p]And she in mild
terms begg'd my patience,
[p]I then did ask of her her changeling
child;
[p]Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
[p]To bear
him to my bower in fairy land.
[p]And now I have the boy, I will
undo
[p]This hateful imperfection of her eyes:
[p]And, gentle Puck,
take this transformed scalp
[p]From off the head of this Athenian
swain;
[p]That, he awaking when the other do,
[p]May all to Athens
back again repair
[p]And think no more of this night's
accidents
[p]But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
[p]But first I
will release the fairy queen.
[p]Be as thou wast wont to be;
[p]See as
thou wast wont to see:
[p]Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
[p]Hath such
force and blessed power.
[p]Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet
queen.
Titania : My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
[p]Methought I was enamour'd of
an ass.
Oberon : There lies your love.
Titania : How came these things to pass?
[p]O, how mine eyes do loathe his
visage now!
Oberon : Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
[p]Titania, music call; and
strike more dead
[p]Than common sleep of all these five the sense.
Titania : Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!
Puck : Now, when thou wakest, with thine
[p]own fool's eyes peep.
Oberon : Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,
[p]And rock the
ground whereon these sleepers be.
[p]Now thou and I are new in
amity,
[p]And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
[p]Dance in Duke
Theseus' house triumphantly,
[p]And bless it to all fair
prosperity:
[p]There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
[p]Wedded,
with Theseus, all in jollity.
Puck : Fairy king, attend, and mark:
[p]I do hear the morning lark.
Oberon : Then, my queen, in silence sad,
[p]Trip we after the night's
shade:
[p]We the globe can compass soon,
[p]Swifter than the wandering
moon.
Titania : Come, my lord, and in our flight
[p]Tell me how it came this
night
[p]That I sleeping here was found
[p]With these mortals on the
ground.
Theseus : Go, one of you, find out the forester;
[p]For now our observation is
perform'd;
[p]And since we have the vaward of the day,
[p]My love
shall hear the music of my hounds.
[p]Uncouple in the western valley;
let them go:
[p]Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
[p][Exit an
Attendant]
[p]We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
[p]And
mark the musical confusion
[p]Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
Hippolyta : I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
[p]When in a wood of Crete they
bay'd the bear
[p]With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
[p]Such
gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
[p]The skies, the fountains,
every region near
[p]Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
[p]So
musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Theseus : My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
[p]So flew'd, so sanded,
and their heads are hung
[p]With ears that sweep away the morning
dew;
[p]Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
[p]Slow in
pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
[p]Each under each. A cry
more tuneable
[p]Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
[p]In
Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
[p]Judge when you hear. But, soft!
what nymphs are these?
Egeus : My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;
[p]And this, Lysander; this
Demetrius is;
[p]This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:
[p]I wonder of their
being here together.
Theseus : No doubt they rose up early to observe
[p]The rite of May, and hearing
our intent,
[p]Came here in grace our solemnity.
[p]But speak, Egeus;
is not this the day
[p]That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
Egeus : It is, my lord.
Theseus : Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
[p][Horns and shout
within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS,]
[p]HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start
up]
[p]Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:
[p]Begin these
wood-birds but to couple now?
Lysander : Pardon, my lord.
Theseus : I pray you all, stand up.
[p]I know you two are rival enemies:
[p]How
comes this gentle concord in the world,
[p]That hatred is so far from
jealousy,
[p]To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
Lysander : My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
[p]Half sleep, half waking: but as
yet, I swear,
[p]I cannot truly say how I came here;
[p]But, as I
think,--for truly would I speak,
[p]And now do I bethink me, so it
is,--
[p]I came with Hermia hither: our intent
[p]Was to be gone from
Athens, where we might,
[p]Without the peril of the Athenian law.
Egeus : Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:
[p]I beg the law, the law,
upon his head.
[p]They would have stolen away; they would,
Demetrius,
[p]Thereby to have defeated you and me,
[p]You of your wife
and me of my consent,
[p]Of my consent that she should be your wife.
Demetrius : My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
[p]Of this their purpose
hither to this wood;
[p]And I in fury hither follow'd them,
[p]Fair
Helena in fancy following me.
[p]But, my good lord, I wot not by what
power,--
[p]But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,
[p]Melted as
the snow, seems to me now
[p]As the remembrance of an idle
gaud
[p]Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
[p]And all the faith,
the virtue of my heart,
[p]The object and the pleasure of mine
eye,
[p]Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
[p]Was I betroth'd ere I saw
Hermia:
[p]But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;
[p]But, as
in health, come to my natural taste,
[p]Now I do wish it, love it,
long for it,
[p]And will for evermore be true to it.
Theseus : Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
[p]Of this discourse we more
will hear anon.
[p]Egeus, I will overbear your will;
[p]For in the
temple by and by with us
[p]These couples shall eternally be
knit:
[p]And, for the morning now is something worn,
[p]Our purposed
hunting shall be set aside.
[p]Away with us to Athens; three and
three,
[p]We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
[p]Come, Hippolyta.
Demetrius : These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Hermia : Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
[p]When every thing seems
double.
Helena : So methinks:
[p]And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
[p]Mine own,
and not mine own.
Demetrius : Are you sure
[p]That we are awake? It seems to me
[p]That yet we
sleep, we dream. Do not you think
[p]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
[p]And by the way let us
recount our dreams.
Bottom : [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will
[p]answer: my next
is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
[p]Peter Quince! Flute, the
bellows-mender! Snout,
[p]the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,
stolen
[p]hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
[p]vision.
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
[p]say what dream it was:
man is but an ass, if he go
[p]about to expound this dream. Methought
I was--there
[p]is no man can tell what. Methought I
was,--and
[p]methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if
[p]he
will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
[p]of man hath not
heard, the ear of man hath not
[p]seen, man's hand is not able to
taste, his tongue
[p]to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my
dream
[p]was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
[p]this
dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
[p]because it hath no
bottom; and I will sing it in the
[p]latter end of a play, before the
duke:
[p]peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
[p]sing
it at her death.
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