The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?

Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth 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?

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: 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 chang’d: 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.

We cannot fight for love as men may do; We should be woo’d, 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 HELENA 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, 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: 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

SCENE II.

Another part of the wood

Enter TITANIA, with her train

TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence: Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds; Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats; and some keep back The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep; Then to your offices, and let me rest.

The FAIRIES Sing FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong, Come not near our fairy Queen.

CHORUS. Philomel with melody

Sing in our sweet lullaby.

Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.

Never harm

Nor spell nor charm

Come our lovely lady nigh.

So good night, with lullaby.

SECOND FAIRY. Weaving spiders, come not here; Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence.

Beetles black, approach not near; Worm nor snail do no offence.

CHORUS. Philomel with melody, etc. [TITANIA Sleeps]

FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.

One aloof stand sentinel. Exeunt FAIRIES

Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA’S eyelids OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true-love take;

Love and languish for his sake.

Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,

Pard, or boar with bristled hair,

In thy eye that shall appear

When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.

Wake when some vile thing is near. Exit Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood; And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way; We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, And tarry for the comfort of the day.

HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed, For I upon this bank will rest my head.

LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.

HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear, Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.

LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!

Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.

I mean that my heart unto yours is knit, So that but one heart we can make of it; Two bosoms interchained with an oath, So then two bosoms and a single troth.

Then by your side no bed-room me deny, For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.

HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.

Now much beshrew my manners and my pride, If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!

But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy Lie further off, in human modesty;

Such separation as may well be said

Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid, So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.

Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!

LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I; And then end life when I end loyalty!

Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!

HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be press’d!

[They sleep]

Enter PUCK

PUCK. Through the forest have I gone, But Athenian found I none

On whose eyes I might approve This flower’s force in stirring love.

Night and silence-Who is here?

Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said,

Despised the Athenian maid;

And here the maiden, sleeping sound, On the dank and dirty ground.

Pretty soul! she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.

Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe: When thou wak’st let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.

So awake when I am gone;

For I must now to Oberon. Exit Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.

DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.

HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.

DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go. Exit HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!

The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.

Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies, For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.

How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears; If so, my eyes are oft’ner wash’d than hers.

No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,

For beasts that meet me run away for fear; Therefore no marvel though Demetrius

Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.

What wicked and dissembling glass of mine Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?

But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!

Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.

Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.

LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.

Transparent Helena! Nature shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.

What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.

LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Not Hermia but Helena I love:

Who will not change a raven for a dove?

The will of man is by his reason sway’d, And reason says you are the worthier maid.

Things growing are not ripe until their season; So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason; And touching now the point of human skill, Reason becomes the marshal to my will, And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook Love’s stories, written in Love’s richest book.

HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?

When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?

Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man, That I did never, no, nor never can,

Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye, But you must flout my insufficiency?

Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do, In such disdainful manner me to woo.

But fare you well; perforce I must confess I thought you lord of more true gentleness.

O, that a lady of one man refus’d

Should of another therefore be abus’d! Exit LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there; And never mayst thou come Lysander near!

For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings, Or as the heresies that men do leave

Are hated most of those they did deceive, So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,

Of all be hated, but the most of me!

And, all my powers, address your love and might To honour Helen, and to be her knight! Exit HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.

Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!

Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.

Methought a serpent eat my heart away, And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.

Lysander! What, remov’d? Lysander! lord!

What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?

Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear; Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.

No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.

Either death or you I’ll find immediately. Exit

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ACT III. SCENE I.

The wood. TITANIA lying asleep

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

BOTTOM. Are we all met?

QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the Duke.

BOTTOM. Peter Quince!

QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?

BOTTOM. There are