Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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5.2 Enter Friar John at one door

FRIAR JOHN

Holy Franciscan friar, brother, ho!

Enter Friar Laurence at another door

FRIAR LAURENCE

This same should be the voice of Friar John.

Welcome from Mantua! What says Romeo?

Or if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

FRIAR JOHN

Going to find a barefoot brother out—5

One of our order—to associate me

Here in this city visiting the sick,

And finding him, the searchers of the town,

Suspecting that we both were in a house

Where the infectious pestilence did reign, ₁₀

Sealed up the doors, and would not let us forth,

So that my speed to Mantua there was stayed.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Who bare my letter then to Romeo?

FRIAR JOHN

I could not send it—here it is again—

Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,

So fearful were they of infection.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Unhappy fortuneǃ By my brotherhood,

The letter was not nice, but full of charge,

Of dear import, and the neglecting it

May do much danger. Friar John, go hence.

Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight

Unto my cell.

FRIAR JOHN Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee. Exit

FRIAR LAURENCE

Now must I to the monument alone.

Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.

She will beshrew me much that Romeo

Hath had no notice of these accidents.

But I will write again to Mantua,

And keep her at my cell till Romeo come.

Poor living corpse, closed in a dead man’s tomb! Exit

5.3 Enter Paris and his Page, with flowers, sweet water, and a torch

PARIS

Give me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof.

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.

⌈His Page puts out the torch⌉

Under yon yew trees lay thee all along,

Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground.

So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread, 5

Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,

But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me

As signal that thou hear’st something approach.

Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee. Go.

PAGE ⌈aside⌉

I am almost afraid to stand alone 10

Here in the churchyard, yet I will adventure.

He hides himself at a distance from Paris

PARIS (strewing flowers)

Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.

He sprinkles water

O woe! Thy canopy is dust and stones,

Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,

Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans.

The obsequies that I for thee will keep

Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

The Page whistles

The boy gives warning. Something doth approach.

What cursed foot wanders this way tonight

To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite? 20

Enter Romeo and ⌈Balthasar⌉ his man, with a torch, a mattock, and a crow of iron

What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, a while.

He stands aside

ROMEO

Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.

Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning

See thou deliver it to my lord and father.

Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee, 25

Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof,

And do not interrupt me in my course.

Why I descend into this bed of death

Is partly to behold my lady’s face,

But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger

A precious ring, a ring that I must use

In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.

But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry

In what I farther shall intend to do,

By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,

And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.

The time and my intents are savage-wild,

More fierce and more inexorable far

Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

⌈BALTHASAR⌉

I will be gone, sir, and not trouble ye. 40

ROMEO

So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.

He gives money

Live and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.

⌈BALTHASAR⌉ (aside)

For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout. His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

He hides himself at a distance from Romeo. ⌈Romeo begins to jorce open the tombs⌉

ROMEO

Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,

Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,

Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

And in despite I’ll cram thee with more food.

PARIS (aside)

This is that banished haughty Montague

That murdered my love’s cousin, with which grief

It is supposed the fair creature died;

And here is come to do some villainous shame

To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.

⌈Drawing⌉ Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!

Can vengeance be pursued further than death? 55

Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.

Obey and go with me, for thou must die.

ROMEO

I must indeed, and therefore came I hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp’rate man.

Fly hence, and leave me. Think upon these gone. 60

Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,

Put not another sin upon my head

By urging me to fury. O, be gone.

By heaven, I love thee better than myself,

For I come hither armed against myself. 65

Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say

A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.

PARIS

I do defy thy conjuration,

And apprehend thee for a felon here.

ROMEO (drawing)

Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy. 70

They fight

⌈PAGE⌉

O Lord, they fight! I I will go call the watch. Exit

PARIS

O, I am slainǃ If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

ROMEO

In faith, I will. Paris dies

Let me peruse this face.

Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris! 75

What said my man when my betossèd soul

Did not attend him as we rode? I think

He told me Paris should have married Juliet.

Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?

Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, 80

To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,

One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book.

I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.

⌈Heopens the tomb, revealing Juliet⌉

A grave—O no, a lantern, slaughtered youth,

For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes

This vault a feasting presence full of light.

⌈He bears the body of Paris to the tombs⌉

Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred.

How oft, when men are at the point of death,

Have they been merry, which their keepers call

A lightning before death! O, how may I 90

Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife!

Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

Thou art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.

Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?

O, what more favour can I do to thee

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain

To sunder his that was thine enemy?

Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe

That unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps

Thee here in dark to be his paramour? 105

For fear of that I still will stay with thee,

And never from this pallet of dim night

Depart again. Here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here

Will I set up my everlasting rest, 110

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.

Arms, take your last embrace, and lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death.

⌈He kisses Juliet, then pours poison into the cup⌉

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide,

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy seasick weary barque!

Here’s to my love.

He drinks the poison

O true apothecary,

Thy drugs are quick! Thus with a kiss I die.

He kisses Juliet, falls, and dies.

Enter Friar Laurence with lantern, crow, and spade

FRIAR LAURENCE

Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight

Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who’s there?

BALTHASAR

Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend,

What torch is yon that vainly lends his light 125

To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,

It burneth in the Capels’ monument.

BALTHASAR

It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,

One that you love.

FRIAR LAURENCE Who is it?

BALTHASAR Romeo.

FRIAR LAURENCE

How long hath he been there?

BALTHASAR Full half an hour.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Go with me to the vault.

BALTHASAR I dare not, sir.

My master knows not but I am gone hence,

And fearfully did menace me with death

If I did stay to look on his intents.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me. 135

O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.

BALTHASAR

As I did sleep under this yew tree here

I dreamt my master and another fought,

And that my master slew him.

FRIAR LAURENCE Romeo!

He ⌈stoops and⌉ looks on the blood and weapons

Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains 140

The stony entrance of this sepulchre?

What mean these masterless and gory swords

To lie discoloured by this place of peace?

Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris, too,

And steeped in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour

Is guilty of this lamentable chance I

Juliet awakes ⌈and rises⌉

The lady stirs.

JULIET

O comfortable friar, where is my lord?

I do remember well where I should be,

And there I am. Where is my Romeo? 150

FRIAR LAURENCE

I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest

Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.

A greater power than we can contradict

Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.

Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead, 155

And Paris, too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee

Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.

Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.

Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay. Exit

JULIET

Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. 160

What’s here? A cup closed in my true love’s hand?

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.

O churt!—drunk all, and left no friendly drop

To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,

To make me die with a restorative.

She kisses Romeo’s lips

Thy lips are warm.

CHIEF WATCHMAN ⌈within⌉ Lead, boy. Which way?

JULIET

Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief.

She takes Romeo’s dagger

O happy dagger,

This is thy sheath! There rust, and let me die.

She stabs herself, falls, and dies.

Enter the Page and Watchmen

⌈PAGE⌉

This is the place, there where the torch doth burn. 170

CHIEF WATCHMAN

The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.

Go, some of you. Whoe’er you find, attach.

Exeunt some Watchmen

Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain,

And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,

Who here hath lain this two days buried.

Go tell the Prince. Run to the Capulets,

Raise up the Montagues. Some others search.

Exeunt other Watchmen ⌈severally⌉

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,

But the true ground of all these piteous woes

We cannot without circumstance descry.

Enter ⌈Watchmen⌉ with Balthasar

⌈SECOND⌉ WATCHMAN

Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard.

CHIEF WATCHMAN

Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.

Enter another Watchman with Friar Laurence

THIRD WATCHMAN

Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.

We took this mattock and this spade from him

As he was coming from this churchyard’s side.

CHIEF WATCHMAN

A great suspicion. Stay the friar, too.

Enter the Prince ⌈with others⌉

PRINCE

What misadventure is so early up,

That calls our person from our morning rest?

Enter Capulet and his Wife

CAPULET

What should it be that is so shrieked abroad?

CAPULET’S WIFE

O, the people in the street cry ‘Romeo’,

Some ‘Juliet’, and some ‘Paris’, and all run

With open outcry toward our monument.

PRINCE

What fear is this which startles in our ears?

CHIEF WATCHMAN

Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,

And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,

Warm, and new killed.

PRINCE

Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

CHIEF WATCHMAN

Here is a friar, and slaughtered Romeo’s man,

With instruments upon them fit to open

These dead men’s tombs.

CAPULET

O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house

Is empty on the back of Montague,

And it mis-sheathèd in my daughter’s bosom.

CAPULET’S WIFE

O me, this sight of death is as a bell 205

That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

Enter Montague

PRINCE

Come, Montague, for thou art early up

To see thy son and heir more early down.

MONTAGUE

Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.

Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath. 210

What further woe conspires against mine age?

PRINCE Look, and thou shalt see.

MONTAGUE (seeing Romeo’s body)

O thou untaught! What manners is in this,

To press before thy father to a grave?

PRINCE

Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, 215

Till we can clear these ambiguities

And know their spring, their head, their true descent;

And then will I be general of your woes,

And lead you even to death. Meantime, forbear,

And let mischance be slave to patience. 220

Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

FRIAR LAURENCE

I am the greatest, able to do least,

Yet most suspected, as the time and place

Doth make against me, of this direful murder;

And here I stand, both to impeach and purge

Myself condemned and myself excused.

PRINCE

Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

FRIAR LAURENCE

I will be brief, for my short date of breath

Is not so long as is a tedious tale.

Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,

And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife.

I married them, and their stol’n marriage day

Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death

Banished the new-made bridegroom from this city,

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.

You, to remove that siege of grief from her,

Betrothed and would have married her perforce

To County Paris. Then comes she to me,

And with wild looks bid me devise some mean

To rid her from this second marriage,

Or in my cell there would she kill herself.

Then gave I her—so tutored by my art—

A sleeping potion, which so took effect

As I intended, for it wrought on her

The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo

That he should hither come as this dire night

To help to take her from her borrowed grave,

Being the time the potion’s force should cease.

But he which bore my letter, Friar John,

Was stayed by accident, and yesternight 250

Returned my letter back. Then all alone,

At the prefixèd hour of her waking,

Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault,

Meaning to keep her closely at my cell

Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.

But when I came, some minute ere the time

Of her awakening, here untimely lay

The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.

She wakes, and I entreated her come forth

And bear this work of heaven with patience. 260

But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,

And she, too desperate, would not go with me,

But, as it seems, did violence on herself.

All this I know, and to the marriage

Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this

Miscarried by my fault, let my old life

Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,

Unto the rigour of severest law.

PRINCE

We still have known thee for a holy man.

Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this? 270

BALTHASAR

I brought my master news of Juliet’s death,

And then in post he came from Mantua

To this same place, to this same monument.

This letter he early bid me give his father,

And threatened me with death, going in the vault,

If I departed not and left him there.

PRINCE

Give me the letter. I will look on it.

He takes the letter

Where is the County’s page that raised the watch?

Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

PAGE

He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave,

And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.

Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb,

And by and by my master drew on him,

And then I ran away to call the watch.

PRINCE

This letter doth make good the friar’s words,

Their course of love, the tidings of her death;

And here he writes that he did buy a poison

Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal

Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.

Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague, 290

See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.

And I, for winking at your discords, too

Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished.

CAPULET

O brother Montague, give me thy hand. 295

This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more

Can I demand.

MONTAGUE But I can give thee more,

For I will raise her statue in pure gold,

That whiles Verona by that name is known

There shall no figure at such rate be set 300

As that of true and faithful Juliet.

CAPULET

As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,

Poor sacrifices of our enmity.

PRINCE

A glooming peace this morning with it brings.

The sun for sorrow will not show his head. 305

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.

Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd;

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

⌈The tomb is closed.⌉ Exeunt

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

FRANCIS MERES mentions A Midsummer Night’s Dream in his Palladis Tamia, of 1598, and it was first printed in 1600. The Folio (1623) version offers significant variations apparently deriving from performance, and is followed in the present edition. It has often been thought that Shakespeare wrote the play for an aristocratic wedding, but there is no evidence to support this speculation, and the 1600 title-page states that it had been ’sundry times publicly acted’ by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In stylistic variation it resembles Love’s Labour’s Lost: both plays employ a wide variety of verse measures and rhyme schemes, along with prose that is sometimes (as in Bottom’s account of his dream, 4.1.202―15) rhetorically patterned. Probably it was written in 1594 or 1595, either just before or just after Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare built his own plot from diverse elements of literature, drama, legend, and folklore, supplemented by his imagination and observation. There are four main strands. One, which forms the basis of the action, shows the preparations for the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and (in the last act) its celebration. This is indebted to Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, as is the play’s second strand, the love story of Lysander and Hermia (who elope to escape her father’s opposition) and of Demetrius. In Chaucer, two young men fall in love with the same girl and quarrel over her; Shakespeare adds the comic complication of another girl (Helena) jilted by, but still loving, one of the young men. A third strand shows the efforts of a group of Athenian workmen—the ‘mechanicals’—led by Bottom the Weaver to prepare a play, Pyramus and Thisbe (based mainly on Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses) for performance at the Duke’s wedding. The mechanicals themselves belong rather to Elizabethan England than to ancient Greece. Bottom’s partial transformation into an ass has many literary precedents. Fourthly, Shakespeare depicts a quarrel between Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies. Oberon’s attendant, Robin Goodfellow, a puck (or pixie), interferes mischievously in the workmen’s rehearsals and the affairs of the lovers. The fairy part of the play owes something to both folklore and literature; Robin Goodfellow was a well-known figure about whom Shakespeare could have read in Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft (1586).

A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers a glorious celebration of the powers of the human imagination while also making comic capital out of its limitations. It is one of Shakespeare’s most polished achievements, a poetic drama of exquisite grace, wit, and humanity. In performance, its imaginative unity has sometimes been violated, but it has become one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, with a special appeal for the young.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

THESEUS, Duke of Athens

HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus

PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus

EGEUS, father of Hermia

HERMIA, daughter of Egeus, in love with Lysander

LYSANDER, loved by Hermia

DEMETRIUS, suitor to Hermia

HELENA, in love with Demetrius

OBERON, King of Fairies

TITANIA, Queen of Fairies

ROBIN GOODFELLOW, a puck

Peter QUINCE, a carpenter

Nick BOTTOM, a weaver

Francis FLUTE, a bellows-mender

Tom SNOUT, a tinker

SNUG, a joiner

Robin STARVELING, a tailor

Attendant lords and fairies

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1.1 Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, and Philostrate, with others

THESEUS

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in

Another moon—but O, methinks how slow

This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires

Like to a stepdame or a dowager

Long withering out a young man’s revenue.

HIPPOLYTA

Four days will quickly steep themselves in night,

Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New bent in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.

THESEUS Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments.

Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.

Turn melancholy forth to funerals—

The pale companion is not for our pomp.

⌈Exit Philostrate⌉

Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,

And won thy love doing thee injuries.

But I will wed thee in another key—

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

Enter Egeus and his daughter Hermia, and Lysander and Demetrius

EGEUS

Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke.

THESEUS

Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?

EGEUS

Full of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.—

Stand forth Demetrius.—My noble lord,

This man hath my consent to marry her.—

Stand forth Lysander.—And, my gracious Duke,

This hath bewitched the bosom of my child.

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,

And interchanged love tokens with my child.

Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung

With feigning voice verses of feigning love,

And stol’n the impression of her fantasy

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats—messengers

Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth. 35

With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,

Turned her obedience which is due to me

To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,

Be it so she will not here before your grace

Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:

As she is mine, I may dispose of her,

Which shall be either to this gentleman

Or to her death, according to our law

Immediately provided in that case.

THESEUS

What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.

To you your father should be as a god,

One that composed your beauties, yea, and one

To whom you are but as a form in wax,

By him imprinted, and within his power

To leave the figure or disfigure it.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HERMIA

So is Lysander.

THESEUS In himself he is,

But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,

The other must be held the worthier.

HERMIA

I would my father looked but with my eyes.

THESEUS

Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.

HERMIA

I do entreat your grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold,

Nor how it may concern my modesty

In such a presence here to plead my thoughts,

But I beseech your grace that I may know

The worst that may befall me in this case

If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THESEUS

Either to die the death, or to abjure

For ever the society of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires.

Know of your youth, examine well your blood,

Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,

You can endure the livery of a nun,

For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,

To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

Thrice blessed they that master so their blood

To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

But earthlier happy is the rose distilled

Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,

Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

HERMIA

So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship whose unwishèd yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

THESEUS

Take time to pause, and by the next new moon—

The sealing day betwixt my love and me

For everlasting bond of fetlowship—

Upon that day either prepare to die

For disobedience to your father’s will,

Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,

Or on Diana’s altar to protest

For aye austerity and single life.

DEMETRIUS

Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

LYSANDER

You have her father’s love, Demetrius;

Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.

EGEUS

Scornful Lysander! True, he hath my love;

And what is mine my love shall render him,

And she is mine, and all my right of her

I do estate unto Demetrius.

LYSANDER ⌈to Theseus⌉

I am, my lord, as well derived as he,

As well possessed. My love is more than his,

My fortunes every way as fairly ranked,

If not with vantage, as Demetrius;

And—which is more than all these boasts can be—

I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.

Why should not I then prosecute my right?

Demetrius—I’ll avouch it to his head-

Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,

And won her soul, and she, sweet lady, dotes,

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THESEUS

I must confess that I have heard so much,

And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;

But, being over-full of self affairs,

My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;

And come, Egeus. You shall go with me.

I have some private schooling for you both.

For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself

To fit your fancies to your father’s will,

Or else the law of Athens yields you up—

Which by no means we may extenuate—

To death or to a vow of single life.

Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?—

Demetrius and Egeus, go along.

I must employ you in some business

Against our nuptial, and confer with you

Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

EGEUS

With duty and desire we follow you.

Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia

LYSANDER

How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pate ?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIA

Belike for want of rain, which I could well

Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

LYSANDER

Ay me, for aught that I could ever read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth,

But either it was different in btood—

HERMIA

O cross!—too high to be enthralled to low.

LYSANDER

Or else misgrafted in respect of years—

HERMIA

O spite!—too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDER

Or merit stood upon the choice of friends—

HERMIA

O hell!—to choose love by another’s eyes.

LYSANDER

Or if there were a sympathy in choice,

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,

Making it momentany as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,

And, ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’

The jaws of darkness do devour it up.

So quick bright things come to confusion.

HERMIA

If then true lovers have been ever crossed,

It stands as an edict in destiny.

Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross,

As due to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs,

Wishes, and tears, poor fancy’s followers.

LYSANDER

A good persuasion. Therefore hear me, Hermia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child,

And she respects me as her only son.

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,

And to that place the sharp Athenian law

Cannot pursue us. If thou lov’st me then,

Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night,

And in the wood, a league without the town,

Where I did meet thee once with Helena

To do observance to a morn of May,

There will I stay for thee.

HERMIA My good Lysander,

I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,

By his best arrow with the golden head,

By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,

By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,

And by that fire which burned the Carthage queen

When the false Trojan under sail was seen;

By all the vows that ever men have broke—

In number more than ever women spoke—

In that same place thou hast appointed me

Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.

LYSANDER

Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter Helena

HERMIA

God speed, fair Helena. Whither away?

HELENA

Call you me fair? That ’fair’ again unsay.

Demetrius loves your fair—O happy fair!

Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongue’s sweet air

More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear

When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

Sickness is catching. O, were favour so!

Your words I catch, fair Hermia; ere I go,

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,

My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,

The rest I’d give to be to you translated.

O, teach me how you look, and with what art

You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.

HERMIA

I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

HELENA

O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

HERMIA

I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

HELENA

O that my prayers could such affection move!

HERMIA

The more I hate, the more he follows me.

HELENA

The more I love, the more he hateth me.

HERMIA

His folly, Helen, is no fault of mine.

HELENA

None but your beauty; would that fault were mine!

HERMIA

Take comfort. He no more shall see my face.

Lysander and myself will fly this place.

Before the time I did Lysander see

Seemed Athens as a paradise to me.

O then, what graces in my love do dwell,

That he hath turned a heaven unto a hell?

LYSANDER

Helen, to you our minds we will unfold.

Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold

Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass—

A time that lovers’ sleights doth still conceal—

Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

HERMIA

And in the wood where often you and I

Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,

Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,

There my Lysander and myself shall meet,

And thence from Athens turn away our eyes

To seek new friends and stranger companies.

Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us,

And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius.—

Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight

From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.

LYSANDER

I will, my Hermia. Exit Hermia

Helena, adieu.

As you on him, Demetrius dote on you. Exit

HELENA

How happy some o’er other some can be!

Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.

But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.

He will not know what all but he do know.

And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,

So I, admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,

Love can transpose to form and dignity.