Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense, Lys. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go? a Her. You speak not as you think; it cannot be. Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd, Two lovely berries moulded on one stem : Her. I am amazed at your passionate words: I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me. Hel. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn, To follow me, and praise my eyes and face? And made your other love, Demetrius, Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,) Her. I understand not what you mean by this. Lys. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse, My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena ! * Ues-circles. There is a double comparison here-1st, Of the two bodies, mpared to two coats of heraldry; and, 2ndly. Of the one heart, compared to the one crest and the one owner. boxes are tion, but they are as united under one heart, as two "Our No, no, sir : Lys. Away, you Ethiope! Lys. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr: vile thing, let loose; Or I will shake thee from me, like a serpent. Her. Why are you grown so rude? what change is this, Sweet love? Lys. Thy love? out, tawny Tartar, out Out, loathed medicine! O, hated poison, hence Her. Do you not jest? Hel. Yes, 'sooth; and so do you. Lys. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee. Dem. I would I had your bond; for I perceive A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word. Lys. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead? Although I hate her, I 'll not harm her so. Her. 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: Lys. Ay, by my life; Her. O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom! Hel. 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! Her. Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the game Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him. But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. Hel. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me: I was never cuist;a 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, Her. Lower! hark, again. Hel. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. ats of arms (when quartered or impaled) are borne by one I evermore did love you, Hermia, 0 Curst-shrew. Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you; I told him of your stealth unto this wood: When they next wake, all this derision I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy; Her. Why, get you gone: Who is 't that hinders you? And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; Hel. With Demetrius. I will not trust you, I; [Exit. Nor longer stay in your curst company. Puck. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook. Obe. Thou seest, these lovers seek a place to fight: The starry welkin cover thou anon Knot-grass-a low reptant herb. Intend. This word is explained by pretend; but the meaning is rather to direct. • Aby it-suffer for it. At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, I with the morning's love have oft made sport; Here comes one. Enter LYSANDer. [Exit OBR Lys. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now. Puck. Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou? Lys. I will be with thee straight. Puck. Follow me then to plainer ground. [Exit Lxs. as following the voice. Enter DEMETRIUS. Dem. Lysander! speak again. Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? Speak. In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head! And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child; To measure out my length on this cold bed. By day's approach look to be visited. [Lies down and sleeps. Enter HELENA. Hel. O, weary night, O, long and tedious night, Abate thy hours: shine, comforts, from the east, That I may back to Athens by daylight, [Sleeps. From these that my poor company detest :- Thus to make poor females mad. Her. Never so weary, never so in woe, Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briera; I can no further crawl, no further go; My legs can keep no pace with my desires. ACT IV. Must Ready. Bot. Give me your neif, monsieur Mustard-seed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur. Must. What's your will? Bot. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help cavalero Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for. methinks, I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch. Tito. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love! Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music: let us have the tongs and the bones. Tita. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st 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. Faries, be gone, and be all ways away. So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist; the female ivy so O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! [They sleep, Her dotage now I do begin to pity. Now, Be thou, as thou wast wont to be, [Touching her eyes with an herb. See, as thou wast wont to see: Tita. How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now! a Gifford pointed out the true meaning of this passage in his note upon a parallel passage in Ben Jonson :"behold! How the blue bindweed doth itself enfold With honeysuckle, and both these entwine Themselves with bryony and jessamine." "In many of our counties," says Gifford, "the woodbine is still the name for the great convolvulus." 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. Puck. When thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep. Obe. Sound, music. [Still 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, Obe. Then, my queen, in silence sad, We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, Of hounds and echo in conjunction. Hip. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, The. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, Judge, when you hear.-But, soft; what nymphs are these? Ege. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep; I wonder of their being here together. The. No doubt they rose up early, to observe The rite of May; and, hearing our intent, That Hermia should give answer of her choice? The. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER, HERMIA, and HELENA wake and start up. The. Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? The I know, you two are rival enemies; Lys. My lord, I shall reply amazedlv. I came with Hermia hither: our intent Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be 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 follow'd them; Fair Helena in fancy following me. But, my good lord, I wot not by what power, The. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: [Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Tram. Dem. These things seem small and undistinguish able, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. Her. Methinks I see these things with parted eye, When everything seems double. Hel. Hel. And Hippolyta. Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple. Dem. Why, then, we are awake; let 's follow him: And, by the way, let us recount our dreams. [Exeunt. As they go out, BorтOм awakes. Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer:-my next is, "Most fair Pyramus."-Hey, ho!Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Suont, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life! stolen hence, a They intended to leave Athens for some place where they might be beyond (without) the perils of the Athenian law. She has found Demetrius, as a person picks up a jewelfor the moment it is his own, bat its value may cause it to be reclaimed. She feels insecure in the possession of her treasure, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, —past the wit of man to say what dream it was:-Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I bad-Bet man is but a patched fool" if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke: Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death. [Exit. SCENE II.-Athens. A Room in Quince's House. Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. Quin. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet? Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported. Fix. If he come not, then the play is marred; It goes not forward, doth it? Quin. It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus, but he. Flu. No: he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens. Quin. Yea, and the best person too: and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice. Flu. You must say, paragon: a paramour is, God bles us, a thing of naught. Enter SNUG. Snug. Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married if our sport had gone forward we had all been made men. Flu. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a-day: an the duke had not given him six pence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a-day, in Pyramus, or nothing. Enter BOTTOM. Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts? Quin. Bottom!-O most courageous day! O most happy hour! Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you I am no true Athenian. I will tell you everything, right as it fell out. Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom. Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined: Get your apparel together; good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for, the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions, nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I-Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords, and Attendants. Hip. T is strange, my, Theseus, that these lovers speak of. The. More strange than true. I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Levers and madmen have such seething brains, The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Deth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Tums them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Sach tricks hath strong imagination; That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Hip. But all the story of the night told over, And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange, and admirable. * Patched fool-a fool in a particoloured coat. Probably, at the death of Thisbe. Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA. The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love, Accompany your hearts! Lys. More than to us Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed! The. Come now; what masks, what dances, snall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours, Between our after-supper and bedtime? To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? Philost. Here, mighty Theseus. The. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening? What mask, what music? How shall we beguile Philost. There is a brief, how many sports are rife; sung, By an Athenian eunuch to the harp." In the first act, Bottom has told us that he will "discharge" the part of Pyramus, "in either your straw colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow." He is now solicitous that the strings by which the artificial beards were to be fastened should be in good order. Preferred-not in the sense of chosen in preference, bat offered as a suit is preferred. e Abridgment-pastime; something that may abridge "the lazy time." This is one explanation. is it not, rather-wha. short thing have you, of play, or mask, or music? |