William Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act IV, scene 1.
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ACT IV
SCENE I. The Wood.
[Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH,
MUSTARDSEED, and other FAIRIES attending; OBERON behind, unseen.]
- TITANIA
- Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
- While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
- And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
- And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
- BOTTOM
- Where's Peasblossom?
- PEASBLOSSOM
- Ready.
- BOTTOM
- Scratch my head, Peasblossom.--
- Where's Monsieur Cobweb?
- COBWEB
- Ready.
- BOTTOM
- Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get you your weapons in
- your hand and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a
- thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not
- fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good
- monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be
- loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior.--
- Where's Monsieur Mustardseed?
- MUSTARDSEED
- Ready.
- BOTTOM
- Give me your neif, Monsieur Mustardseed.
- Pray you, leave your curtsy, good monsieur.
- MUSTARDSEED
- What's your will?
- BOTTOM
- 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.
- TITANIA
- What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
- BOTTOM
- I have a reasonable good ear in music; let us have 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 dry
- oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good
- hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
- TITANIA
- I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
- The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
- BOTTOM
- 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.
- TITANIA
- Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
- Fairies, 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.]
- OBERON
- Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?
- Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
- For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
- Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
- I did upbraid her and fall out with her:
- For she his hairy temples then had rounded
- 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,
- And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience,
- I then did ask of her her changeling child;
- Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
- To bear him to my bower in fairy-land.
- And now I have the boy, I will undo
- This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
- And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
- From off the head of this Athenian swain,
- That he awaking when the other do,
- May all to Athens back again repair,
- 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.
- Be as thou wast wont to be;
- [Touching her eyes with an herb.]
- See as thou was wont to see.
- Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
- Hath such force and blessed power.
- Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
- TITANIA
- My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
- Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
- OBERON
- There lies your love.
- TITANIA
- How came these things to pass?
- O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
- OBERON
- Silence awhile.--Robin, take off this head.
- Titania, music call; and strike more dead
- Than common sleep, of all these five, the sense.
- TITANIA
- Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep.
- PUCK
- Now when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep.
- OBERON
- 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 prosperity:
- 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.
- OBERON
- Then, my queen, in silence sad,
- Trip we after night's shade.
- We the globe can compass soon,
- Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
- TITANIA
- 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.]
- THESEUS
- 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; go:--
- Despatch, I say, and find the forester.--
[Exit an ATTENDANT.]
- We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
- And mark the musical confusion
- Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
- HIPPOLYTA
- 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.
- THESEUS
- 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-lap'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?
- EGEUS
- 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.
- THESEUS
- No doubt they rose up early to observe
- The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
- Came here in grace of our solemnity.--
- But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
- That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
- EGEUS
- It is, my lord.
- THESEUS
- Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
[Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER,HERMIA, and HELENA
awake and start up.]
- Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
- Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
- LYSANDER
- Pardon, my lord.
[He and the rest kneel to THESEUS.]
- THESEUS
- I pray you all, stand up.
- 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?
- LYSANDER
- My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
- 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.
- EGEUS
- 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.
- DEMETRIUS
- 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 gawd
- 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 a sickness, did I loathe this food;
- But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
- Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
- And will for evermore be true to it.
- THESEUS
- Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
- Of this discourse we more will hear 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 Train.]
- DEMETRIUS
- These things seem small and undistinguishable,
- Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
- HERMIA
- Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
- When every thing seems double.
- HELENA
- So methinks:
- And I have found Demetrius like a jewel.
- Mine own, and not mine own.
- DEMETRIUS
- It seems to me
- That yet we sleep, we dream.--Do not you think
- 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;
- And by the way let us recount our dreams.
[Exeunt.]
[As they go out, BOTTOM awakes.]
- BOTTOM
- When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is 'Most
- fair Pyramus.'--Heigh-ho!--Peter Quince! Flute, the
- bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,
- stol'n hence, 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 had,--but 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.]
William Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act IV, scene 1.
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