Array The griffin classics - William Shakespeare - Complete Collection

To Theseus must be wedded, and you come

To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Obe.

How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,

Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,

Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night

From Perigenia, whom he ravished?

And make him with fair [Aegles] break his faith,

With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

Tita.

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,

Hath 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.

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

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,

And on old Hiems’ [thin] and icy crown

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

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.

Obe.

Do you amend it then; it lies in you.

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy,

To be my henchman.

Tita.

Set your heart at rest;

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

His mother was a vot’ress 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 th’ 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,

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.

Obe.

How long within this wood intend you stay?

Tita.

Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day.

If you will patiently dance in our round,

And see our moonlight revels, go with us;

If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

Obe.

Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.

Tita.

Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!

We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.

Exeunt [Titania and her Train].

Obe.

Well; go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove

Till I torment thee for this injury.

My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest

Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back

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.

Obe.

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 loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;

But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

Quench’d in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon,

And the imperial vot’ress 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 flow’r; the herb I showed thee once.

The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid

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.]

Obe.

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,

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.

Dem.

I love thee not; therefore pursue me not.

Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?

The one I’ll [slay]; the other [slayeth] me.

Thou toldst me they were stol’n 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.

Hel.

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.

Dem.

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?

Hel.

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?

Dem.

Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,

For I am sick when I do look on thee.

Hel.

And I am sick when I look not on you.

Dem.

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.

Hel.

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?

Dem.

I’ll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes,