LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

TITANIA

       Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep.

       PUCK

       Now when thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.

       OBERON

       Sound, music.

       [Still 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 tomorrow midnight solemnly

       Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,

       And bless it to all fair prosperity:

       There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be

       Wedded, 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 night’s shade.

       We the globe can compass soon,

       Swifter than the wand’ring moon.

       TITANIA

       Come, my lord; and in our flight,

       Tell me how it came this night

       That I sleeping here was found

       With these mortals on the ground.

       [Exeunt. Horns sound within.]

       [Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train.]

       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; go:—

       Despatch, I say, and find the forester.—

       [Exit an ATTENDANT.]

       We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top,

       And mark the musical confusion

       Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

       HIPPOLYTA

       I was with Hercules and Cadmus once

       When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear

       With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear

       Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,

       The skies, the fountains, every region near

       Seem’d all one mutual cry: I never heard

       So 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 hung

       With ears that sweep away the morning dew;

       Crook-knee’d and dew-lap’d like Thessalian bulls;

       Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells,

       Each under each. A cry more tuneable

       Was 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 observe

       The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,

       Came here in grace of our solemnity.—

       But speak, Egeus; is not this the day

       That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

       EGEUS

       It is, my lord.

       THESEUS

       Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

       [Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER,HERMIA, and HELENA awake and start up.]

       Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;

       Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

       LYSANDER

       Pardon, my lord.

       [He and the rest kneel to THESEUS.]

       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 I do bethink me, so it is,—

       I came with Hermia hither: our intent

       Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be,

       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 stol’n 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 now

       As the remembrance of an idle gawd

       Which 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 a 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 us,

       These couples shall eternally be knit.

      

Скачать книгу