is a sweet-faced man; a proper man as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus. BOT. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? QUIN. Why, what you will. BOT. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow. : : QUIN. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced.—But, masters, here are your parts and I am to intreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there we will rehearse: for if we meet in the city we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not. BOT. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu. QUIN. At the duke's oak we meet. BOT. Enough. Hold, or cut bow-strings. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I.-A Wood near Athens. Enter a Fairy on one side, and PUCK on the other. PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you? FAI. Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In those freckles live their savours: Our queen and all her elves come here anon. PUCK. The king doth keep his revels here to-night; 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 loved 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. FAI. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, PUCK. And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe, A merrier hour was never wasted there. But room, Faery, here comes Oberon. FAI. And here my mistress:-Would that he were gone! SCENE II.-Enter OBERON, on one side, with his train, and TITANIA, on the other, with hers. OBE. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. OBE. Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord? OBE. 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 ravished? And make him with fair Æglé break his faith, With Ariadne, and Antiopa? TITA. These are the forgeries of jealousy: To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, Therefore, the winds, piping to us in vain, From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original. OBE. 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. TITA. VOL. V. B Marking th' embarked traders on the flood; To fetch me trifles, and return again, OBE. How long within this wood intend you stay? If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. OBE. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. TITA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away: We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exeunt TITANIA and her train OBE. 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 dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, PUCK. I remember. OBE. That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not,) Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon; In maiden meditation, fancy-free. |