A Midsummer Night's Dream — Act 4, Scene 1

lying asleep.

TITANIA

Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

BOTTOM

Where's Peaseblossom?

PEASEBLOSSOM

Ready.

BOTTOM

Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?

COBWEB

Ready.

BOTTOM

Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you yourweapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hippedhumble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, goodmounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fretyourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;I would be loath to have you overflown with ahoney-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?

MUSTARDSEED

Ready.

BOTTOM

Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.

MUSTARDSEED

What's your Will?

BOTTOM

Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobwebto scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; formethinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and Iam such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,I must scratch.

TITANIA

What, wilt thou hear some music,my sweet love?

BOTTOM

I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's havethe tongs and the bones.

TITANIA

Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

BOTTOM

Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your gooddry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottleof hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

TITANIA

I have a venturous fairy that shall seekThe squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

BOTTOM

I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: Ihave an exposition of sleep come upon me.

TITANIA

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.

TITANIA

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckleGently entwist; the female ivy soEnrings the barky fingers of the elm.O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

OBERON

[Advancing] Welcome, good Robin.See'st thou this sweet sight?Her dotage now I do begin to pity:For, meeting her of late behind the wood,Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,I did upbraid her and fall out with her;For she his hairy temples then had roundedWith a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;And that same dew, which sometime on the budsWas wont to swell like round and orient pearls,Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyesLike tears that did their own disgrace bewail.When I had at my pleasure taunted herAnd she in mild terms begg'd my patience,I then did ask of her her changeling child;Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sentTo bear him to my bower in fairy land.And now I have the boy, I will undoThis hateful imperfection of her eyes:And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalpFrom off the head of this Athenian swain;That, he awaking when the other do,May all to Athens back again repairAnd think no more of this night's accidentsBut as the fierce vexation of a dream.But first I will release the fairy queen.Be as thou wast wont to be;See as thou wast wont to see:Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flowerHath such force and blessed power.Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.

TITANIA

My Oberon! what visions have I seen!Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.

OBERON

There lies your love.

TITANIA

How came these things to pass?O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

OBERON

Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.Titania, music call; and strike more deadThan common sleep of all these five the sense.

TITANIA

Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!

PUCK

Now, when thou wakest, with thineown fool's eyes peep.

OBERON

Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.Now thou and I are new in amity,And will to-morrow midnight solemnlyDance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,And bless it to all fair prosperity:There shall the pairs of faithful lovers beWedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

PUCK

Fairy king, attend, and mark:I do hear the morning lark.

OBERON

Then, my queen, in silence sad,Trip we after the night's shade:We the globe can compass soon,Swifter than the wandering moon.

TITANIA

Come, my lord, and in our flightTell me how it came this nightThat I sleeping here was foundWith these mortals on the ground.

THESEUS

Go, one of you, find out the forester;For now our observation is perform'd;And since we have the vaward of the day,My love shall hear the music of my hounds.Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.

THESEUS

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,And mark the musical confusionOf hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIPPOLYTA

I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bearWith hounds of Sparta: never did I hearSuch gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,The skies, the fountains, every region nearSeem'd all one mutual cry: I never heardSo musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

THESEUS

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hungWith ears that sweep away the morning dew;Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,Each under each. A cry more tuneableWas never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?

EGEUS

My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:I wonder of their being here together.

THESEUS

No doubt they rose up early to observeThe rite of May, and hearing our intent,Came here in grace our solemnity.But speak, Egeus; is not this the dayThat Hermia should give answer of her choice?

EGEUS

It is, my lord.

THESEUS

Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

THESEUS

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

LYSANDER

Pardon, my lord.

THESEUS

I pray you all, stand up.I know you two are rival enemies:How comes this gentle concord in the world,That hatred is so far from jealousy,To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?

LYSANDER

My lord, I shall reply amazedly,Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,I cannot truly say how I came here;But, as I think,--for truly would I speak,And now do I bethink me, so it is,--I came with Hermia hither: our intentWas to be gone from Athens, where we might,Without the peril of the Athenian law.

EGEUS

Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:I beg the law, the law, upon his head.They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,Thereby to have defeated you and me,You of your wife and me of my consent,Of my consent that she should be your wife.

DEMETRIUS

My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,Of this their purpose hither to this wood;And I in fury hither follow'd them,Fair Helena in fancy following me.But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,--But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,Melted as the snow, seems to me nowAs the remembrance of an idle gaudWhich in my childhood I did dote upon;And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,The object and the pleasure of mine eye,Is only Helena. To her, my lord,Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;But, as in health, come to my natural taste,Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,And will for evermore be true to it.

THESEUS

Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:Of this discourse we more will hear anon.Egeus, I will overbear your will;For in the temple by and by with usThese couples shall eternally be knit:And, for the morning now is something worn,Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.Away with us to Athens; three and three,We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.Come, Hippolyta.

DEMETRIUS

These things seem small and undistinguishable,

HERMIA

Methinks I see these things with parted eye,When every thing seems double.

HELENA

So methinks:And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,Mine own, and not mine own.

DEMETRIUS

Are you sureThat we are awake? It seems to meThat yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you thinkThe duke was here, and bid us follow him?

HERMIA

Yea; and my father.

HELENA

And Hippolyta.

LYSANDER

And he did bid us follow to the temple.

DEMETRIUS

Why, then, we are awake: let's follow himAnd by the way let us recount our dreams.

BOTTOM

[Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I willanswer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolenhence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rarevision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man tosay what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he goabout to expound this dream. Methought I was--thereis no man can tell what. Methought I was,--andmethought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, ifhe will offer to say what methought I had. The eyeof man hath not heard, the ear of man hath notseen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongueto conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dreamwas. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad ofthis dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in thelatter end of a play, before the duke:peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shallsing it at her death.