Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!
Her. Puppet? Why so? Ay, that way goes
the game.

Now I perceive that she hath made compare Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height;

And with her personage, her tall personage. Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.

And are you grown so high in his esteem,
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak.
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
Hel. I pray you, though you mock me, gen-
tlemen,

Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;

Hel. A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.
Her. What, with Lysander?
Hel.

With Demetrius. Lys. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.

Dem. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.

Hel. O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!

She was a vixen when she went to school;
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
Her. Little again! Nothing but low and
little!

Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.

Lys.

Get you gone, you dwarf. You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made; You bead, you acorn.

Dem.

You are too officious

Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully. Robin. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.

[nd not you tell me I should know the man
by the Athenian garments he had on?

And so far blameless proves my enterprise, 350
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;
And so far am I glad it so did sort,

As this their jangling I esteem a sport.

Ove. Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight;

He therefore, Robin, overcast the night.
The starry welkin cover thou anon
W drooping fog as black as Acheron,
And lead these testy rivals so astray

As che come not within another's way.

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361

Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
Wrh leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
We liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his might,
And take his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When they next wake, all this derision
hal sem a dream and fruitless vision;
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
th league whose date till death shall never

end.

This I in this affair do thee employ,

370

375

to my queen and beg her Indian boy; And then I will her charmed eye release monster's view, and all things shall be

390

Obe. But we are spirits of another sort. I with the morning's love have oft made sport, And, like a forester, the groves may tread, Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red, Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams, Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams. But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay. We may effect this business yet ere day.

[Exit.] 305

Robin. Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down.
I am fear'd in field and town.
Goblin, lead them up and down.

Here comes one.

Re-enter LYSANDER.

400

When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I;
I followed fast, but faster he did fly,
That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
And here will rest me. Come, thou gentle day!
Lies down.
For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.

420

[Sleeps.]

Re-enter ROBIN GOODFELLOW and DEMETRIUS. Robin. Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not?

Dem. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I

wot

Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place, And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face. Where art thou now?

If ever I thy face by daylight see.

Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me

420

Enter ROBIN GOODFELLOW.

Obe. [Advancing.] Welcome, good Robin
See'st 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 th
buds

Was wont to swell like round and orient pearl
Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes
Like tears that did their own disgrace b
wail.

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;

The. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

[Horns and shout within. Lys., Dem., Hel., and Her, wake and start up. Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past; Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Lys. Pardon, my lord.

The.

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150

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? Lys. 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, Without the peril of the Athenian law

153

Ege. Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough.

I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
They would have stolen away; they would,
Demetrius,

160

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.
Dem. My lord, fair Helen told me of their
stealth,

163

170

Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither followed 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 [is] the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
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,

175

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.

The. 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 'Il hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.

180

185

190

[Exeunt The., Hip., Ege.. and train. Dem. These things seem small and undistinguishable,

Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
Her. Methinks I see these things with parted

him;

And by the way let us recount our dreams. [Exeunt lovers. Bot. (Awaking.) When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is, Most fair Pyramus." Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! [205 Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen 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 [210 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 patch'd fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not [215 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 [220 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.

[SCENE II. Athens. Quince's house.] Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVE

LING.

Quin. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?

Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.

Snug. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

Flu. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a day. An the Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hang'd. He would have deserved it. Sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter BOTTOM.

Bot. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?

Quin. Bottom! O most courageous day! most happy hour!

Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders, but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no [ true Athenian. I will tell you everything, righ as it fell out.

Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tel you is, that the Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently a the palace; every man look o'er his part; fo the short and the long is, our play is preferr'd In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; an let not him that plays the lion pare his nails. for they shall hang out for the lion's claws And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do no doubt but to hear them say, it is a swee comedy. No more words; away! go, away! [Exeun

ACT V

[SCENE I. Athens. The palace of Theseus. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE Lords (and Attendants].

Hip. T is strange, my Theseus, that the lovers speak of.

The. More strange than true; I never m believe

These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brain
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold