A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM - Уильям Шекспир

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sake.

       Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,

       That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

       Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word

       Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

       HELENA

       Do not say so, Lysander; say not so:

       What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

       Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.

       LYSANDER.

       Content with Hermia? No: I do repent

       The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

       Not Hermia but Helena I love:

       Who will not change a raven for a dove?

       The will of man is by his reason sway’d;

       And reason says you are the worthier maid.

       Things growing are not ripe until their season;

       So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;

       And touching now the point of human skill,

       Reason becomes the marshal to my will,

       And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook

       Love’s stories, written in love’s richest book.

       HELENA

       Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?

       When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?

       Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man,

       That I did never, no, nor never can

       Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,

       But you must flout my insufficiency?

       Good troth, you do me wrong,—good sooth, you do—

       In such disdainful manner me to woo.

       But fare you well: perforce I must confess,

       I thought you lord of more true gentleness.

       O, that a lady of one man refus’d

       Should of another therefore be abus’d!

       [Exit.]

       LYSANDER

       She sees not Hermia:—Hermia, sleep thou there;

       And never mayst thou come Lysander near!

       For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things

       The deepest loathing to the stomach brings;

       Or, as the heresies that men do leave

       Are hated most of those they did deceive;

       So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,

       Of all be hated, but the most of me!

       And, all my powers, address your love and might

       To honour Helen, and to be her knight!

       [Exit.]

       HERMIA

       [Starting.]

       Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best

       To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!

       Ay me, for pity!—What a dream was here!

       Lysander, look how I do quake with fear!

       Methought a serpent eat my heart away,

       And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.—

       Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!

       What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?

       Alack, where are you? speak, an if you hear;

       Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.

       No?—then I well perceive you are not nigh:

       Either death or you I’ll find immediately.

       [Exit.]

       Table of Contents

      SCENE I. The Wood. The Queen of Fairies lying asleep

      [Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.]

       BOTTOM

       Are we all met?

       QUINCE

       Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the duke.

       BOTTOM

       Peter Quince,—

       QUINCE

       What sayest thou, bully Bottom?

       BOTTOM

       There are things in this comedy of ‘Pyramus and Thisby’ that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

       SNOUT

       By’r lakin, a parlous fear.

       STARVELING

       I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

       BOTTOM

       Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not Pyramus but Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear.

       QUINCE

       Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.

       BOTTOM

       No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

       SNOUT

       Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

       STARVELING

       I fear it, I promise you.

       BOTTOM

       Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in, God shield us! a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing: for there is not a more fearful wildfowl than your lion living; and we ought to look to it.

       SNOUT

       Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

       BOTTOM

       Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,—‘Ladies,’ or, ‘Fair ladies, I would wish you, or, I would request you, or, I would entreat you, not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are:’—and there, indeed, let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.

       QUINCE

       Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber: for, you know, Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.

       SNOUT

       Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

       BOTTOM

       A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanack; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.

       QUINCE

       Yes, it doth shine that night.

       BOTTOM

       Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber-window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement.

      

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