Array MyBooks Classics - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Illustrated edition (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents)

Mus. What’s your will?

Bot. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber’s, mounsieur; for methinks I am marvail’s hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.

Tita.

What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and the bones.

[Music. Tongs. Rural music.]

Tita.

Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

Bot. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

Tita.

I have a venturous fairy that shall seek

The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

Bot. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

Tita.

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, be gone, and be [all ways] away.

[Exeunt Fairies.]

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist; the female ivy so

Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.

O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

[They sleep.]

Enter Robin Goodfellow [Puck].

Obe. [Advancing.]

Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?

Her dotage now I do begin to pity.

For meeting her of late behind the wood,

Seeking sweet favors 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 the buds

Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,

Stood now within the pretty flouriets’ eyes,

Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.

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;

Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent

To bear him to my bower in fairy land.

And now I have the boy, I will undo

This hateful imperfection of her eyes.

And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp

From off the head of this Athenian swain,

That he, awaking when the other do,

May all to Athens back again repair,

And think no more of this night’s accidents

But as the fierce vexation of a dream.

But first I will release the Fairy Queen.

[Touching her eyes.]

Be as thou wast wont to be;

See as thou wast wont to see.

Dian’s bud [o’er] Cupid’s flower

Hath such force and blessed power.

Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.

Tita.

My Oberon, what visions have I seen!

Methought I was enamor’d of an ass.

Obe.

There lies your love.

Tita.

How came these things to pass?

O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

Obe.

Silence a while. Robin, take off this head.

Titania, music call, and strike more dead

Than common sleep of all these [five] the sense.

Tita.

Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!

[Music, still.]

Puck.

Now, when thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.

Obe.

Sound, music!

[Louder music.]

Come, my queen, take hands with me,

And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

Now thou and I are new in amity,

And will to-morrow midnight solemnly

Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,

And bless it to all fair prosperity.

There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be

Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

Puck.

Fairy King, attend and mark;

I do hear the morning lark.

Obe.

Then, my queen, in silence sad,

Trip we after night’s shade.

We the globe can compass soon,

Swifter than the wand’ring moon.

Tita.

Come, my lord, and in our flight,

Tell me how it came this night

That I sleeping here was found,

With these mortals on the ground.

Exeunt. Wind horn [within].

Enter Theseus, [Hippolyta, Egeus,] and all his Train.

The.

Go, one of you, find out the forester,

For now our observation is perform’d,

And since we have the vaward of the day,

My love shall hear the music of my hounds.

Uncouple in the western valley, let them go.

Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.

[Exit an Attendant.]

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top,

And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

Hip.

I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,

When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear

With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear

Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves,

The skies, the fountains, every region near

Seem all one mutual cry. I never heard

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

The.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind;

So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung

With ears that sweep away the morning dew;

Crook-knee’d, and dewlapp’d like Thessalian bulls;

Slow in pursuit; but match’d in mouth like bells,

Each under each. A cry more tuneable

Was never hollow’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,

In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.

Judge when you hear. But soft! What nymphs are these?

Ege.

My lord, this’ my daughter here asleep,

And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,

This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena.

I wonder of their being here together.

The.

No doubt they rose up early to observe

The rite of May; and hearing our intent,

Came here in grace of our solemnity.

But speak, Egeus, is not this the day

That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

Ege.

It is, my lord.

The.

Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

[Exit an Attendant] Shout within. Wind horns. They all start up.

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

Lys.

Pardon, my lord.

[They kneel.]

The.

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—

Ege.

Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough.

I beg the law, the law, upon his head.

They would have stol’n away, they would, Demetrius,

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,

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 the snow) seems to me now

As the remembrance of an idle gaud,