[Enter two supernatural spirits from opposite sides of the stage. One is a typical female fairy; the other is a puck, a mischievous spirit, named Robin Goodfellow]
Robin
How now, spirit? Whither wander you?
Fairy
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Thorough flood, thorough fire.
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 favors;
In those freckles live their savors.
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.
Robin
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 stolen 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 lovèd 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 villag’ry,
Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
And sometime 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.
Robin
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 choir 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 King Oberon and his fairies from one side, Queen Titania and her fairies from the other]
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 step 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 not thou lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigouna, whom he ravished,
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 pavèd fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beachèd 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 drownèd 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 cheer;
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 mock’ry, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazèd 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
Titania
The fairyland buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot'ress of my order,
And in the spicèd Indian air by night
Full often hath she gossiped by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking th’embarkèd 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 fairies]
Oberon
Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest
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
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 thronèd 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 passèd 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
[Exit Robin]
Oberon
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 with Helena following him. Oberon remains nearby.]
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 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
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.
I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
[Exit Demetrius, Helena following him, leaving Oberon alone on the stage]
Oberon
Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
[Enter Robin with the flower which had been struck by Cupid's bow]
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
Robin (Puck)
Oberon
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite overcanopied 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.
[Oberon gives some of the flowers to Robin]
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.
Robin
Fear not, my lord. Your servant shall do so.
[Exit Robin and Oberon separately]
