LITMIR.BIZ

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Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

       PUCK

       I’ll put a girdle round about the earth

       In forty minutes.

       [Exit PUCK.]

       OBERON

       Having once this juice,

       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, HELENA following him.]

       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 into this wood,

       And here am I, and wode within this wood,

       Because I cannot meet with 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 usèd 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 chang’d;

       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 valour 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 woo’d, 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.

       [Exeunt DEMETRIUS and HELENA.]

       OBERON

       Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,

       Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.—

       [Re-enter PUCK.]

       Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.

       PUCK

       Ay, there it is.

       OBERON

       I pray thee give it me.

       I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,

       Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;

       Quite over-canopied 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 enamell’d 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.

       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.

       PUCK

       Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so.

       [Exeunt.]

      SCENE II. Another part of the wood

      [Enter TITANIA, with her Train.]

       TITANIA

       Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;

       Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;

      

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