A Wood near Athens.
 Enter a FAIRY at one door, and PUCK at another.

Puck	How now, spirit! Whither wander you?

Fairy	Over hill, over dale,
		Thorough bush, thorough briar,
	Over park, over pale,
		Thorough flood, thorough fire.
	I do wander everywhere,
	Swifter than the moon's sphere;
	And I serve the Fairy Queen,
	To dew her orbs upon the green.
	The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
	In their gold coats spots you see;
	Those be rubies, fairy favours;
	In those freckles live their savours.
	I must go seek some dewdrops here,
	And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
	Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.
	Our queen and all her elves come here anon.

Puck	The king doth keep his revels here tonight.
	Take heed the queen come not within his sight,
	For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
	Because that she as her attendant hath
	A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king.
	She never had so sweet a changeling;
	And jealous Oberon would have the child
	Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
	But she perforce withholds the lovd boy,
	Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
	And now they never meet in grove or green,
	By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
	But they do square, that all their elves for fear
	Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

Fairy	Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
	Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
	Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
	That frights the maidens of the villagery,
	Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
	And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
	And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm,
	Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
	Those that 'Hobgoblin' call you, and 'Sweet Puck',
	You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
	Are not you he?

Puck						Thou speak'st aright;
	I am that merry wanderer of the night.
	I jest to Oberon, and make him smile
	When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
	Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
	And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl
	In very likeness of a roasted crab,
	And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
	And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
	The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
	Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
	Then slip I from her bum. Down topples she,
	And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
	And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
	And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
	A merrier hour was never wasted there.
	But room, fairy! Here comes Oberon.

Fairy	And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

                Enter OBERON, at one door, with his Train;
                   and TITANIA, at another, with hers.

Oberon	Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Titania	What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;
	I have forsworn his bed and company.

Oberon	Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?

Titania	Then I must be thy lady; but I know
	When thou hast stol'n away from Fairyland,
	And in the shape of Corin sat all day
	Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
	To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
	Come from the farthest steepe of India,
	But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
	Your buskined mistress and your warrior love,
	To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
	To give their bed joy and prosperity?

Oberon	How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
	Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
	Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
	Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
	From Perigenia, whom he ravishd,
	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 pavd fountain or by rushy brook,
	Or in the beachd 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 ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
	Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard.
	The fold stands empty in the drownd field,
	And crows are fatted with the murrion 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 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.

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 fairy land buys not the child of me.
	His mother was a vot'ress of my order;
	And in the spicd Indian air by night
	Full often hath she gossiped by my side,
	And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
	Marking th' embarkd 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.
											[Exit TITANIA with her Train.

Oberon	Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove
	Till I torment thee for this injury.
	My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st
	Since once I sat upon a promontory,
	And heard a mermaid on a dolphins 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.

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 thrond 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 passd 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.

Puck	I'll put a girdle round about the earth
	In forty minutes.
											[Exit.
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 slay, the other slayeth 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 usd 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 valour flies.

Demetrius	I will not stay thy questions. Let me go;
	Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
	But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.

Helena	Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
	You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius,
	Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
	We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
	We should be wooed, and were not made to woo.
											[Exit DEMETRIUS.
	I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
	To die upon the hand I love so well.
											[Exit.

Oberon	Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove
	Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.

                              Re-enter PUCK.

	Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.

Puck	Ay, there it is.

Oberon						I pray thee, give it me.
	I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
	Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
	Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
	With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
	There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
	Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;
	And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,
	Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
	And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
	And make her full of hateful fantasies.
	Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove.
	A sweet Athenian lady is in love
	With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes;
	But do it when the next thing he espies
	May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
	By the Athenian garments he hath on.
	Effect it with some care, that he may prove
	More fond on her than she upon her love.
	And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.

Puck	Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
											[Exeunt.
