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
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else the law of Athens yield 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.

[Exeunt THES. HIP. EGE. 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 by 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 engaged 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 momentany† as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied‡ night,

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

* Give, bestow.

+ Black.

+ Momentary.

§ Love s.

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 woman 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.
Enter HELENA.

Her. God speed, fair Helena! Whither away?
Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!

Your eyes are lode-stars ;* and your tongue's sweet air,
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,

When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O, were favourt so!
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'll give to be to you translated.

O, teach me how you look; and with what art

You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move!

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.

Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me.

Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

Hel. None, but your beauty; Would that fault were mine! Her. Take comfort; he no more shall see my face;

Lysander and myself will fly this place.

Before the time I did Lysander see,

Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
O then, what graces in my love do dwell,

That he hath turn'd a heaven into hell!'

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass

* Pole-stars.

† Countenance.

(A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal),
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.
Her. And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet;
There my Lysander and myself shall meet:
And thence, from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight.
Lys. I will, my Hermia.-Helena adieu:
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

[Exit HERMIA.

[Exit LYSANDER.

Hel. How happy some, o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game* themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjured everywhere:
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,t
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he, to-morrow night,
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither, and back again.

[Exit.

SCENE II.-The same. A Room in a Cottage.

Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and

STARVELING.

Quin. Is all our company here?

Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and duchess, on his wedding-day at night.

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.

Quin. Marry, our play is-The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merryNow, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll: Masters, spread yourselves.

Quin. Answer as I call you.-Nick Bottom the weaver.

Bot. Ready: Name what part I am for, and proceed.
Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?

Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love.

Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes, I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest-Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

"The raging rocks,

"With shivering shocks,
"Shall break the locks
"Of prison-gates:

"And Phibbus' car

"Shall shine from far,

"And make and mar

"The foolish fates."

This was lofty!-Now name the rest of the players.-This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling.

Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

Flu. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. You must take Thisby on you.

Flu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

Flu. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

Quin. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice ;-Thisne, Thisne,-Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!

Quin. No no; you must play Pyramus, and Flute, you Thisby. Bot. Well, proceed.

Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor.

Star. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.Tom Snout, the tinker.

Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father;-Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:-and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

Snug. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. Bot. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any

man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again, Let him roar again.

Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek: and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us every mother's son.

Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove: I will roar you an* 'twere any nightingale.

Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus: for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in ?

Quin. Why, what you will.

Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.

Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced.-But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moon-light; there will we rehearse: for if we meet in the city, we shall be dog'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely, and courageously. Take pains: be perfect; adieu. Quin. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bot. Enough; Hold, or cut bow-strings.‡

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I-A Wood near Athens.

Enter a FAIRY at one door, and PUCK at another.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moones sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs§ upon the green :

* As if.

At all events.

† Articles required in performing a play.
§ Circles.