William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

I swear by that which I will lose for thee

To prove him false that says I love thee not.

DEMETRIUS

I say I love thee more than he can do.

LYSANDER

If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.

DEMETRIUS

Quick, come,—

HERMIA

Lysander, whereto tends all this?

LYSANDER

Away, you Ethiope!

DEMETRIUS

No, no, sir:—he will

Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow:

But yet come not. You are a tame man; go!

LYSANDER

Hang off, thou cat, thou burr: vile thing, let loose,

Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.

HERMIA

Why are you grown so rude? what change is this,

Sweet love?

LYSANDER

Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!

Out, loathèd medicine! hated potion, hence!

HERMIA

Do you not jest?

HELENA

Yes, sooth; and so do you.

LYSANDER

Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.

DEMETRIUS

I would I had your bond; for I perceive

A weak bond holds you; I’ll not trust your word.

LYSANDER

What! should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?

Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.

HERMIA

What! can you do me greater harm than hate?

Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?

Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?

I am as fair now as I was erewhile.

Since night you lov’d me; yet since night you left me:

Why then, you left me,—O, the gods forbid!—

In earnest, shall I say?

LYSANDER

Ay, by my life;

And never did desire to see thee more.

Therefore be out of hope, of question, doubt,

Be certain, nothing truer; ‘tis no jest

That I do hate thee and love Helena.

HERMIA

O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!

You thief of love! What! have you come by night,

And stol’n my love’s heart from him?

HELENA

Fine, i’ faith!

Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,

No touch of bashfulness? What! will you tear

Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?

Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!

HERMIA

Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the game.

Now I perceive that she hath made compare

Between our statures; she hath urg’d her height;

And with her personage, her tall personage,

Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail’d with him.—

And are you grown so high in his esteem

Because I am so dwarfish and so low?

How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;

How low am I? I am not yet so low

But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

HELENA

I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,

Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;

I have no gift at all in shrewishness;

I am a right maid for my cowardice;

Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,

Because she is something lower than myself,

That I can match her.

HERMIA

Lower! hark, again.

HELENA

Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.

I evermore did love you, Hermia;

Did ever keep your counsels; never wrong’d you;

Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

I told him of your stealth unto this wood:

He follow’d you; for love I follow’d him;

But he hath chid me hence, and threaten’d me

To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:

And now, so you will let me quiet go,

To Athens will I bear my folly back,

And follow you no farther. Let me go:

You see how simple and how fond I am.

HERMIA

Why, get you gone: who is’t that hinders you?

HELENA

A foolish heart that I leave here behind.

HERMIA

What! with Lysander?

HELENA

With Demetrius.

LYSANDER

Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.

DEMETRIUS

No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.

HELENA

O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd:

She was a vixen when she went to school;

And, though she be but little, she is fierce.

HERMIA

Little again! nothing but low and little!—

Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?

Let me come to her.

LYSANDER

Get you gone, you dwarf;

You minimus, of hind’ring knot-grass made;

You bead, you acorn.

DEMETRIUS

You are too officious

In her behalf that scorns your services.

Let her alone: speak not of Helena;

Take not her part; for if thou dost intend

Never so little show of love to her,

Thou shalt aby it.

LYSANDER

Now she holds me not;

Now follow, if thou dar’st, to try whose right,

Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.

DEMETRIUS

Follow! nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jole.

[Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS.]

HERMIA

You, mistress, all this coil is ‘long of you:

Nay, go not back.

HELENA

I will not trust you, I;

Nor longer stay in your curst company.

Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray;

My legs are longer though, to run away.

[Exit.]

HERMIA

I am amaz’d, and know not what to say.

[Exit, pursuing HELENA.]

OBERON

This is thy negligence: still thou mistak’st,

Or else commit’st thy knaveries willfully.

PUCK

Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.

Did not you tell me I should know the man

By the Athenian garments he had on?

And so far blameless proves my enterprise

That I have ‘nointed an Athenian’s eyes:

And so far am I glad it so did sort,

As this their jangling I esteem a sport.

OBERON

Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight;

Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;

The starry welkin cover thou anon

With drooping fog, as black as Acheron,

And lead these testy rivals so astray

As one come not within another’s way.

Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,

Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;

And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;

And from each other look thou lead them thus,

Till o’er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep

With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep:

Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye;

Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,

To take from thence all error with his might

And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.

When they next wake, all this derision

Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;

And back to Athens shall the lovers wend

With league whose date till death shall never end.

Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,

I’ll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;

And then I will her charmèd eye release

From monster’s view, and all things shall be peace.

PUCK

My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,

For night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;

And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger,

At whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there,

Troop home to churchyards: damnèd spirits all,

That in cross-ways and floods have burial,

Already to their wormy beds are gone;

For fear lest day should look their shames upon

They wilfully exile themselves from light,

And must for aye consort with black-brow’d night.

OBERON

But we are spirits of another sort:

I with the morning’s love have oft made sport;

And, like a forester, the groves may tread

Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,

Opening on Neptune with fair blessèd beams,

Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams.

But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:

We may effect this business yet ere day.

[Exit OBERON.]

PUCK

Up and down, up and down;

I will lead them up and down:

I am fear’d in field and town.