Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Isn’t it you who makes wanderers lost and laughs at them?
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
Some call you Hobgoblin or Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
And whoever does gets your help, and you give them good luck.
Are not you he?
Isn’t that you?
PUCK
Thou speak'st aright;
You are correct,
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I am that happy traveler of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
I make jokes for King Oberon and make him smile –
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Sometimes by tricking a calm, domestic horse
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
By neighing and tricking him that I am a young filly –
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
And sometimes I hide in an old woman’s bowl of ale
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
Looking like a roasted crabapple
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And when she drinks, I bob up to her lips
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
Making her spill the drink all over her wrinkled neck.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
A wise aunt telling a sad story
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Sometimes mistakes me for a three-foot high stool
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And then when she sits, I slip from her rear and she falls,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
Crying out in pain and coughing –
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
Then everyone laughs, holding their sides,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
And have fun, and sneeze and swear:
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
A more joyful time was never had.
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
But make way, fairy! Oberon is coming.
FAIRY
And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
And here is Queen Titania! I wish he were gone!
Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers
OBERON
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
It makes me feel ill to see you, Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
Are you jealous, Oberon? Fairies, come along:
I have forsworn his bed and company.
I have promised not to sleep with him or speak to him.
OBERON
Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?
Stay, impulsive witch: aren’t I your King, and husband?
TITANIA
Then I must be thy lady: but I know
Then I must be your Queen and wife, but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
That you snuck away from fairy-land
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
And changed your shape to that of a shepherd, spending all day
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
Playing music and reciting love poetry
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
To your fling, Phillida. And why did you come here,
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
So far from our land in India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
I know why: that swaggering Amazon
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
who was your animal skin wearing, warrior of a mistress and love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
Is marrying Theseus, and you have come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.
To celebrate and bless their union.
OBERON
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
How can you speak so shamelessly, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
And attack my thoughts of Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
When you know that I know of your love for Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
Didn’t you lead him through the night away from
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
Perigenia, whom he raped?
And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
And didn’t you make him cheat on Aegle
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
With both Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy:
You are making this up from your jealousy.
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Never, since the beginning of midsummer,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
Can I meet with the fairies, not on a hill or in the valley, or the forest,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Not by a fountain or by a stream
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
Or on the beach next to the sea.
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
We aren’t able to dance and shake our hair in the wind
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Without you interrupting us to argue and fight.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
So, the winds, making noise in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Have taken their revenge by lifting up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Great clouds that rain all over the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud
Pelting the river until each one is puffed up, like they are proud,
That they have overborne their continents:
Spilling over their banks and flooding.
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ox in the fields can’t pull the yoke through the wet mud,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
The farmer can do nothing, and the young corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
Has rotted before it grew out its yellow tassel marking its ripeness.
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
The sheep pens are empty in the flooded fields,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
And crows are fat from eating the sheep who died from disease.
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
Places where people could play games like “nine men’s morris” are now muddy,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
And mazes cut into fields of weeds
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
Have collapsed from the water and are unusable.
The human mortals want their winter here;
Since it is not winter for the humans,
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
They have not blessed the night with their songs to protect them,
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
And so the moon, who controls the water,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
Can put water into the air in her anger
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
Which causes sicknesses to arise.
And thorough this distemperature we see
And since the temperatures are off for the time of year,
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
The se
asons are changing: frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
Are appearing on the blooming rose
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
And on Winter’s crown of ice,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
A row of sweet smelling flowers, like prayer beads,
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
hangs like a joke. Spring, summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
fertile autumn, and cold, angry winter, have exchanged
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
their places, and now the confused world
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
doesn’t know which season it is in.
And this same progeny of evils comes
This list of evils and poor effects all come
From our debate, from our dissension;
For our arguments and disagreement:
We are their parents and original.
We are the causes.
OBERON
Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
Then fix it: you are the one at fault.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
Why are you being mean to me?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
All I want is a little orphan boy
To be my henchman.
To be my servant.
TITANIA
Set your heart at rest:
Let it go:
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
You cannot buy the child from me for all of fairy-land.
His mother was a votaress of my order:
His mother worshipped me as part of my order,
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
And at night, in the perfumed Indian air,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
She gossiped with me at my side,
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
And sat with me on the yellow sands of the beach,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
Watching the traders in their ships out at sea,
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
And laughing to watch the sails grow,
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Like a pregnant woman’s belly, with the wind.
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
She, beautiful and graceful,
Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
And already pregnant with the boy you want,
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
Would imitate the ships and pretend to sail on the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
Fetching me little gifts and returning
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
Like she had been on a voyage and came back with treasures.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
But she was mortal, and she died giving birth to the boy
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
Whom now I raise for her sake,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
And for her sake I will not give him to you.
OBERON
How long within this wood intend you stay?
How long are you staying in this forest?
TITANIA
Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
Probably until after Theseus’ wedding.
If you will patiently dance in our round
If you can dance with us nicely
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
And partake in our parties beneath the moon, then come with us,
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
And if not, leave me alone and I will leave you alone.
OBERON
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
Give me the boy and I will go with you.
TITANIA
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
Not for the entire kingdom. Fairies, come!
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.
We will fight openly if I longer stay.
Exit TITANIA with her train
OBERON
Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
Fine, go your way. You won’t leave here
Till I torment thee for this injury.
Until I get my revenge for this.
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest
Puck, come here. Do you remember
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
when I sat on a cliff
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
And heard a mermaid riding on a dolphin,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
Singing such a sweet melody
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
That it made the stormy sea become calm
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
And the stars twinkled brighter
To hear the sea-maid's music.
just to hear her song?
PUCK
I remember.
OBERON
That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Also then, I saw something you couldn’t:
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Flying high in the sky, between the moon and earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
Was Cupid, armed iwth his bow. He took aim
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
At a vestal virgin, a worshipper sitting on a throne in the west
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
And shot an enchanted arrow from his bow strongly,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
As if he was trying to shoot it through a hundred thousand hearts at once.
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
But I saw this enflamed arrow of Cupid’s
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
Put out by the virginal beams of the moon
And the imperial votaress passed on,
And so the young royal worshipper walked on
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Meditating beautifully, and spared from the arrow.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
But, I saw where the arrow fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
It struck a little wester flower
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
That had been milk white, but after turned purple where the arrow hit it.
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Maidens refer to it as “love-in-idleness.”
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
Bring me that flower, the one I once showed you.
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
If its juice is put on the eyelids of someone asleep,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
It will make any man, woman, or creature fall in love
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
With the next living creature it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Bring me this flower and return
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
Before the great sea monster can swim a league.
PUCK
I'll put a girdle round about the earth
I can circle the earth
In forty minutes.
In forty minutes.
Exit
OBERON
Having once this juice,
Once I have this flower and its potion,
I'll watch Titania when she is a
sleep,
I will go to Titania when she is asleep
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
And place a drop of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
When she wakes, the next thing she sees,
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
Whether it is a lion, bear, wolf, bull
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
A bothersome monkey, or an ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
She will fall in love with it and pursue it.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
Then, before I remove this potion –
As I can take it with another herb,
Since I can do that with another flower –
I'll make her render up her page to me.
I will force her to give me the orphan boy.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
Who is coming now? Since I am invisible
And I will overhear their conference.
I will overhear their conversation.
Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him
DEMETRIUS
I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
I don’t love you, now stop following me.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
Where are Lysander and beautiful Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
I will kill Lysander, while Hermia has me head over heels for her.
Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
You told me they had snuck off into this forest,
And here am I, and wode within this wood,
And here I am, going crazy in a forest,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
All because I can’t meet Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
Now go away and stop following me.
HELENA
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
You attract me like a cruel magnet,
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
One that must not attract iron because my heart
Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
Is pure, like steel. Stop pulling me to you
And I shall have no power to follow you.
And I will not be forced to follow you.
DEMETRIUS
Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
Do I flirt with you? Do I speak kindly to you?
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Or instead, am I honest with you
Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated) Page 313