SCENE I. A wood near Athens.
Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK
PUCK
How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fairy
Over hill, over dale,
Fairy
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Fairy
Over park, over pale,
Fairy
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
Fairy
I do wander everywhere,
Fairy
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
Fairy
And I serve the fairy queen,
Fairy
To dew her orbs upon the green.
Fairy
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
Fairy
In their gold coats spots you see;
Fairy
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
Fairy
In those freckles live their savours:
Fairy
I must go seek some dewdrops here
Fairy
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Fairy
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
Fairy
Our queen and all our elves come here anon.
PUCK
The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
PUCK
Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
PUCK
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
PUCK
Because that she as her attendant hath
PUCK
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
PUCK
She never had so sweet a changeling;
PUCK
And jealous Oberon would have the child
PUCK
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
PUCK
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
PUCK
Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:
PUCK
And now they never meet in grove or green,
PUCK
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
PUCK
But, they do square, that all their elves for fear
PUCK
Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
Fairy
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Fairy
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Fairy
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
Fairy
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Fairy
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
Fairy
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
Fairy
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
Fairy
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Fairy
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
Fairy
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
PUCK
Thou speak'st aright;
PUCK
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
PUCK
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
PUCK
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
PUCK
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
PUCK
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
PUCK
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
PUCK
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
PUCK
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
PUCK
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
PUCK
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
PUCK
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
PUCK
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
PUCK
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
PUCK
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
PUCK
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
PUCK
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
Fairy
And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers
OBERON
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
TITANIA
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
TITANIA
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
TITANIA
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
TITANIA
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
TITANIA
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
TITANIA
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
TITANIA
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
TITANIA
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
TITANIA
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
TITANIA
To give their bed joy and prosperity.
OBERON
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
OBERON
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
OBERON
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
OBERON
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
OBERON
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
OBERON
And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
OBERON
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy:
TITANIA
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
TITANIA
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
TITANIA
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
TITANIA
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
TITANIA
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
TITANIA
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
TITANIA
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
TITANIA
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
TITANIA
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
TITANIA
Have every pelting river made so proud
TITANIA
That they have overborne their continents:
TITANIA
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
TITANIA
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
TITANIA
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
TITANIA
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
TITANIA
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
TITANIA
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
TITANIA
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
TITANIA
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
TITANIA
The human mortals want their winter here;
TITANIA
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
TITANIA
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
TITANIA
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
TITANIA
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
TITANIA
And thorough this distemperature we see
TITANIA
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
TITANIA
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
TITANIA
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
TITANIA
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
TITANIA
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
TITANIA
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
TITANIA
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
TITANIA
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
TITANIA
And this same progeny of evils comes
TITANIA
From our debate, from our dissension;
TITANIA
We are their parents and original.
OBERON
Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
OBERON
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
OBERON
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
OBERON
To be my henchman.
TITANIA
Set your heart at rest:
TITANIA
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
TITANIA
His mother was a votaress of my order:
TITANIA
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
TITANIA
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
TITANIA
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
TITANIA
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
TITANIA
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
TITANIA
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
TITANIA
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
TITANIA
Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
TITANIA
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
TITANIA
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
TITANIA
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
TITANIA
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
TITANIA
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
TITANIA
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.
TITANIA
If you will patiently dance in our round
TITANIA
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
TITANIA
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!
TITANIA
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.
Exit TITANIA with her train
