And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,

With Ariadne and Antiopa?

TITANIA

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 disturbed our sport.

Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,

As in revenge have sucked 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 stretched his yoke in vain,

The plowman lost his sweat, and the green corn

Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard.

The fold stands empty in the drowned field,

And crows are fatted with the murrain flock.

The nine-men’s-morris is filled 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 blessed.

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.

OBERON

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.

TITANIA Set your heart at rest:

The Fairyland buys not the child of me.

His mother was a votaress of my order,

And in the spiced Indian air by night

Full often hath she gossiped by my side

And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,

Marking th’ embarked traders on the flood,

When we have laughed 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.

OBERON

How long within this wood intend you stay?

TITANIA

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.

OBERON

Give me that boy and I will go with thee.

TITANIA

Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.

We shall chide downright if I longer stay.

Titania and her fairies exit.

OBERON

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

Till I torment thee for this injury.—

My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest

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.

ROBIN I remember.

OBERON

That very time I saw (but thou couldst not),

Flying between the cold moon and the Earth,

Cupid all armed. A certain aim he took

At a fair vestal throned by the west,

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.

But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon,

And the imperial vot’ress passed on

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet marked 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 flower; 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.

ROBIN

I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth

In forty minutes.      He exits.

OBERON 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.

DEMETRIUS

I love thee not; therefore pursue me not.

Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?

The one I’ll stay; the other stayeth me.

Thou told’st me they were stol’n unto this wood,

And here am I, and wood within this wood

Because I cannot meet my Hermia.

Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

HELENA

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.

DEMETRIUS

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?

HELENA

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?

DEMETRIUS

Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,

For I am sick when I do look on thee.

HELENA

And I am sick when I look not on you.

DEMETRIUS

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.

HELENA

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?

DEMETRIUS

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

And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

HELENA

The wildest hath not such a heart as you.

Run when you will. The story shall be changed:

Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase;

The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind

Makes speed to catch the tiger. Bootless speed

When cowardice pursues and valor flies!

DEMETRIUS

I will not stay thy questions. Let me go,

Or if thou follow me, do not believe