MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Athens. A Room in the Palace of THESEUS. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Altendants.

Theseus.

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, oh, methinks how slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man's revenue.

Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

The. Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals,

The pale companion is not for our pomp.
-Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

[Ex. PHIL.

Enter EGEUS, Hermia, Lysander, and DEMETRIUS.
Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!

The. Thanks, good Egeus: What's the news with thee?
Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

-Stand forth, Demetrius :-My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her:

-Stand forth, Lysander;-and, my gracious duke,
This hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child:

-Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang'd love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast by moon-light at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweet-meats; messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harshness :-And, my gracious duke,
Be it so she will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens ;
As she is mine, I may dispose of her:
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death; according to our law,
Immediately provided in that case.'

The. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid. To you your father should be as a god;

One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one

To whom you are but as a form in wax,

By him imprinted, and within his power

To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
Her. So is Lysander.

The. In himself he is:

But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.

Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.

The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look. Her. I do entreat your grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold;

Nor how it may concern my modesty,

In such a presence here, to plead my thoughts:
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befal me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

The. Either to die the death, or to abjure

[1] By a law of Solon, parents had an absolute power of life and death over their children. So it suited the poet's purpose well enough to suppose the Athenians had it before. Or perhaps he neither thought nor knew any thing of the matter. WARBURTON.

[2] Shakespeare employs this scriptural expression in King John; and I meet with it again in the 2d part of the Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon.

STEEVENS.

For ever the society of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice
You can endure the livery of a nun;

For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage:
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that, which, with'ring on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship, to whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty

The. Take time to pause: and, by the next new moon (The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,

For everlasting bond of fellowship)

Upon that day either prepare to die,

For disobedience to your father's will,

Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would:

Or on Diana's altar to protest,

For aye, austerity, and single life.

Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia ;-And, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius;

Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

Ege. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love;

And what is mine my love shall render him;
And she is mine; and all my right of her

I do estate unto Demetrius.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, As well possess'd; my love is more than his; My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,

If not with vantage, as Demetrius';

And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia:

Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.'

The. I must confess, that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,

My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,

I have some private schooling for you both.
-For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
father's will;
fancies to your
your

To fit

Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death, or to a vow of single life.
-Come, my Hippolyta; What cheer, my love?
-Demetrius, and Egeus, go along :

I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial; and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
Ege. With duty and desire, we follow you.

[Exe. THES. HIP. EGEUS, DEM. and train. Lys. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Her. Belike, for want of rain; which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes.
Lys. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear my tale or history,,
'The course of true love never did run smooth
But, either it was different in blood ;-

Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!
Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years ;-
Her. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young!
Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends ;-
Her. O hell! to choose love by another's eye!
Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;
Making it momentary as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,"

JOHNSON.

As spotless is innocent, so spotted is wicked.
Give them, bestow upon them. The word is used by Spenser.
"So would I, said the enchanter, glad and fain
"Beteem to you his sword, you to defend." Fairy Queen.

JOHN.

But I rather think that to beteem, in this place, signifies (as in the northern counties)

to pour out; from tomner, Danish. STEEVENS.

[5] Collied, i. e black, smutted with coal, a word still used in the midland counties. STEEVENS.

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say,-Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,

It stands as an edict in destiny:

Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross;

As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs,
Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers.

+

Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child:

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us: If thou lov'st me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee.

Her. My good Lysander !

I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow;
By his best arrow with the golden head;
By the simplicity of Venus' doves;

By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves:
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
When the false Trojan under sail was seen;
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke ;- -
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow, truly will I meet with thee.

Lys. Keep promise, love: Look, here comes Helena.

[6] Though the word spleen be here employed oddly enough, yet I believe it right. Shakespeare, always hurried on by the grandeur and multitude of his ideas, assumes every now and then an uncommon license in the use of his words. Particularly in complex moral modes it is usual with him to employ one, only to express a very few ideas of that number of which it is composed. Thus, wanting here to express the ideas-of a sudden, or-in a trice, he uses the word spleen; which, partially considered, signifying a hasty sudden fit, is enough for him, and he never troubles himself about the further or fuller signification of the word. Here, he uses the word spleen for a sudden hasty fit; so just the contrary, in The Two Genlemen of Verona, he uses sudden for solenetic: “sudden quips." And it must be owned this sort of conversation adds a force to the diction. WARBURTON. $*