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- $Unique_ID{SSP02253}
- $Title{A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act II, Scene I}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*02250.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
-
-
- ACT II
- ................................................................................
-
-
- SCENE I: A wood near Athens.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK.}
-
- PUCK: How now, spirit! whither wander you?
-
- Fairy: Over hill, over dale,
- Thorough bush, thorough brier,
- Over park, over pale,
- Thorough flood, thorough fire,
- I do wander everywhere,
- Swifter than the moon's sphere;
- And I serve the fairy queen,
- To dew her orbs upon the green.
- The cowslips tall her pensioners be: 10
- In their gold coats spots you see;
- Those be rubies, fairy favours,
- In those freckles live their savours:
- I must go seek some dewdrops here
- And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
- Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
- Our queen and all our elves come here anon.
-
- PUCK: The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
- Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
- For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, 20
- Because that she as her attendant hath
- A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
- She never had so sweet a changeling;
- And jealous Oberon would have the child
- Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
- But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
- Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:
- And now they never meet in grove or green,
- By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
- But, they do square, that all their elves for fear 30
- Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
-
- Fairy: Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
- Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
- Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
- That frights the maidens of the villagery;
- Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
- And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
- And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
- Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
- Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, 40
- You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
- Are not you he?
-
- PUCK: Thou speak'st aright;
- I am that merry wanderer of the night.
- I jest to Oberon and make him smile
- When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
- Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
- And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
- In very likeness of a roasted crab,
- And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
- And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. 50
- The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
- Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
- Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
- And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
- And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
- And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
- A merrier hour was never wasted there.
- But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
-
- Fairy: And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
-
- {Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train;
- from the other, TITANIA, with hers.}
-
- OBERON: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. 60
-
- TITANIA: What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
- I have forsworn his bed and company.
-
- OBERON: Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?
-
- TITANIA: Then I must be thy lady: but I know
- When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
- And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
- Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
- To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
- Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
- But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, 70
- Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
- To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
- To give their bed joy and prosperity.
-
- OBERON: How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
- Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
- Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
- Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
- From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
- And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
- With Ariadne and Antiopa? 80
-
- TITANIA: These are the forgeries of jealousy:
- And never, since the middle summer's spring,
- Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
- By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
- Or in the beached margent of the sea,
- To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
- But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
- Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
- As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
- Contagious fogs; which falling in the land 90
- Have every pelting river made so proud
- That they have overborne their continents:
- The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
- The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
- Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
- The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
- And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
- The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
- And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
- For lack of tread are undistinguishable: 100
- The human mortals want their winter here;
- No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
- Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
- Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
- That rheumatic diseases do abound:
- And thorough this distemperature we see
- The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
- Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
- And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
- An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds 110
- Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
- The childing autumn, angry winter, change
- Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
- By their increase, now knows not which is which:
- And this same progeny of evils comes
- From our debate, from our dissension;
- We are their parents and original.
-
- OBERON: Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
- Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
- I do but beg a little changeling boy, 120
- To be my henchman.
-
- TITANIA: Set your heart at rest:
- The fairy land buys not the child of me.
- His mother was a votaress of my order:
- And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
- Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
- And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
- Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
- When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
- And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
- Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait 130
- Following,--her womb then rich with my young
- squire,--
- Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
- To fetch me trifles, and return again,
- As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
- But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
- And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
- And for her sake I will not part with him.
-
- OBERON: How long within this wood intend you stay?
-
- TITANIA: Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
- If you will patiently dance in our round 140
- And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
- If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
-
- OBERON: Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
-
- TITANIA: Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
- We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.
-
- [Exit TITANIA with her train.]
-
- OBERON: Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
- Till I torment thee for this injury.
- My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest
- Since once I sat upon a promontory,
- And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back 150
- Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
- That the rude sea grew civil at her song
- And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
- To hear the sea-maid's music.
-
- PUCK: I remember.
-
- OBERON: That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
- Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
- Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
- At a fair vestal throned by the west,
- And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
- As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; 160
- But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
- Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
- And the imperial votaress passed on,
- In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
- Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
- It fell upon a little western flower,
- Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
- And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
- Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
- The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid 170
- Will make or man or woman madly dote
- Upon the next live creature that it sees.
- Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
- Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
-
- PUCK: I'll put a girdle round about the earth
- In forty minutes.
-
- [Exit.]
-
- OBERON: Having once this juice,
- I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
- And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
- The next thing then she waking looks upon,
- Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, 180
- On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
- She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
- And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
- As I can take it with another herb,
- I'll make her render up her page to me.
- But who comes here? I am invisible;
- And I will overhear their conference.
-
- {Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him.}
-
- DEMETRIUS: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
- Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
- The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. 190
- Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
- And here am I, and wode within this wood,
- Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
- Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
-
- HELENA: You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
- But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
- Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
- And I shall have no power to follow you.
-
- DEMETRIUS: Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
- Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth 200
- Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?
-
- HELENA: And even for that do I love you the more.
- I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
- The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
- Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
- Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
- Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
- What worser place can I beg in your love,--
- And yet a place of high respect with me,--
- Than to be used as you use your dog? 210
-
- DEMETRIUS: Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
- For I am sick when I do look on thee.
-
- HELENA: And I am sick when I look not on you.
-
- DEMETRIUS: You do impeach your modesty too much,
- To leave the city and commit yourself
- Into the hands of one that loves you not;
- To trust the opportunity of night
- And the ill counsel of a desert place
- With the rich worth of your virginity.
-
- HELENA: Your virtue is my privilege: for that 220
- It is not night when I do see your face,
- Therefore I think I am not in the night;
- Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
- For you in my respect are all the world:
- Then how can it be said I am alone,
- When all the world is here to look on me?
-
- DEMETRIUS: I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
- And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
-
- HELENA: The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
- Run when you will, the story shall be changed: 230
- Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
- The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
- Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
- When cowardice pursues and valour flies.
-
- DEMETRIUS: I will not stay thy questions; let me go:
- Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
- But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
-
- HELENA: Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
- You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
- Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: 240
- We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
- We should be wood and were not made to woo.
-
- [Exit DEMETRIUS.]
-
- I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
- To die upon the hand I love so well.
-
- [Exit.]
-
- OBERON: Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,
- Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.
-
- {Re-enter PUCK.}
-
- Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
-
- PUCK: Ay, there it is.
-
- OBERON: I pray thee, give it me.
- I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, 250
- Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
- Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
- With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
- There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
- Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
- And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
- Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
- And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
- And make her full of hateful fantasies.
- Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: 260
- A sweet Athenian lady is in love
- With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
- But do it when the next thing he espies
- May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
- By the Athenian garments he hath on.
- Effect it with some care, that he may prove
- More fond on her than she upon her love:
- And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
-
- PUCK: Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
-
- [Exeunt.]
-
