The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Two of both kinds makes up four.

  Here she comes, curst and sad:

  Cupid is a knavish lad

  440

  Thus to make poor females mad!

  Enter HERMIA.

  HERMIA Never so weary, never so in woe,

  Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briars,

  I can no further crawl, no further go;

  My legs can keep no pace with my desires.

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  Here will I rest me till the break of day. [Lies down.]

  Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray! [Sleeps.]

  PUCK On the ground

  Sleep sound;

  I’ll apply

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  To your eye,

  Gentle lover, remedy.

  [Squeezes the juice on Lysander’s eyelids.]

  When thou wak’st,

  Thou tak’st

  True delight

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  In the sight

  Of thy former lady’s eye;

  And the country proverb known,

  That every man should take his own,

  In your waking shall be shown:

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  Jack shall have Jill,

  Nought shall go ill;

  The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be

  well. Exit.

  4.1 Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia, still

  lying asleep. Enter TITANIA, Queen of Fairies, and

  BOTTOM; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH,

  MUSTARDSEED and other fairies; OBERON, the King,

  behind, unseen.

  TITANIA Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed,

  While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,

  And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,

  And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

  BOTTOM Where’s Peaseblossom?

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  PEASEBLOSSOM Ready.

  BOTTOM Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s

  Mounsieur Cobweb?

  COBWEB Ready.

  BOTTOM Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you

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  your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped

  humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and good

  mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret

  yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and good

  mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I

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  would be loath to have you overflowen with a honey-

  bag, signior. Where’s Mounsieur Mustardseed?

  MUSTARDSEED Ready.

  BOTTOM Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed.

  Pray you, leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.

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  MUSTARDSEED What’s your will?

  BOTTOM Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help

  Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber’s,

  mounsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about

  the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but

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  tickle me, I must scratch.

  TITANIA

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

  BOTTOM I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s

  have the tongs and the bones.

  TITANIA Or say, sweet love, what thou desir’st to eat?

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  BOTTOM 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.

  TITANIA I have a venturous fairy that shall seek

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

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  BOTTOM

  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.

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

  Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away. Exeunt Fairies.

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  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 PUCK

  OBERON [advancing]

  Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight.

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  Her dotage now I do begin to pity;

  For, meeting her of late behind the wood

  Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,

  I did upbraid her and fall out with her:

  For she his hairy temples then had rounded

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  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 flowerets’ eyes

  Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.

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  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.

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  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,

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  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.

  [Squeezes the juice on her eyelids.]

  Be as thou wast wont to be;

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  See as thou 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.

  TITANIA [waking]

  My Oberon! What visions have I seen!

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  Methought I was enamour’d of an ass.

  OBERON There lies your love.

  TITANIA How came these things to pass?

  O how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

  OBERON Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.

  Titania, music call; and strike more dead

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  Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.

  TITANIA Music ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!

  [Soft music.]

  PUCK [taking the ass-head off Bottom]

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

  OBERON Sound, music! [Music strikes into a dance.]

  Come my queen, take hands with me,

  And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

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  [Oberon and Titania dance.]

  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

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  Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

  PUCK Fairy king, attend and mark:

  I do hear the morning lark.

  OBERON Then my queen, in silence sad,

  Trip we after night’s shade:

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  We the globe can compass soon,

  Swifter than the wandering moon.

  TITANIA Come my lord, and in our flight

  Tell me how it came this night

  That I sleeping here was found

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  With these mortals on the ground.

  Exeunt. The four lovers and Bottom still lie asleep.

  To the winding of horns within, enter THESEUS,


  HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS and train.

  THESEUS 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.

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  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.

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  HIPPOLYTA 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

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  Seem’d all one mutual cry; I never heard

  So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

  THESEUS 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;

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  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 holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,

  In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.

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  Judge when you hear. But soft, what nymphs are

  these?

  EGEUS My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,

  And this Lysander; this Demetrius is,

  This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena.

  I wonder of their being here together.

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  THESEUS 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?

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  EGEUS It is, my lord.

  THESEUS

  Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

  [Shout within; winding of horns.]

  [The lovers wake and start up.]

  Good-morrow friends. Saint Valentine is past:

  Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

  LYSANDER Pardon, my lord. [The lovers kneel.]

  THESEUS I pray you all, stand up.

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  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?

  LYSANDER My lord, I shall reply amazedly,

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  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

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  Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,

  Without the peril of the Athenian law –

  EGEUS 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,

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  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.

  DEMETRIUS

  My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,

  Of this their purpose hither to this wood;

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  And I in fury hither follow’d 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

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  As the remembrance of an idle gaud

  Which in my childhood I did dote upon;

  And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,

  The object and the pleasure of mine eye,

  Is only Helena. To her, my lord,

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  Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia;

  But like a sickness did I loathe this food:

  But as in health, come to my natural taste,

  Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,

  And will for evermore be true to it.

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  THESEUS Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;

  Of this discourse we more will hear anon.

  Egeus, I will overbear your will;

  For in the temple, by and by, with us,