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Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM, Fairies attending; OBERON behind unseen.

TITA. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coya,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

BOT. Where's Peas-blossom?

VOL. I.

Do coy. To coy is here to caress.

HH

PEAS. Ready.

Bor. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom.-Where's monsieur Cobweb? COв. Ready. BOT. Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loth to have you overflowna with a honey bag, signior.-Where's monsieur Mustard-seed?

MUST. Ready.

Bor. Give me your neif', monsieur Mustard-seed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur.

MUST. What's your will?

Bor. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help cavalero Cobwebe to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for, methinks, I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.

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

Bor. I have a reasonable good ear in music: let us have the tongs and the bones d.

TITA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat.

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

TITA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek

1

The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

Bor. I had rather have a handful, or two, of dried peas. But, I

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none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

TITA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist; the female ivy so

Enrings the barky fingers of the elm 29.

O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

[They sleep.

Overflown-flooded-drowned. The sense in which this word is here used may explain a passage in Milton, which has been thought corrupt:

"Then wander forth the sons

Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine."-(Paradise Lost, book i.) Neif-fist. Thus in 'Henry IV., Part II.,' Act II., Scene 4:-"Sweet knight, I kiss thy neiƒ” • Cobweb. This is probably a misprint for Peas-blossom. Cobweb has been sent after the "redhipped humble-bee;" and Peas-blossom has already been appointed to the honoured office in which Mustard-seed is now called to assist him.

The folio has here a stage-direction:-" Music, Tongs; Rural music."

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OBE. 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 savours for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her:
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes,
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
When I had, at my pleasure, taunted her,
And 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 sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
And now I have the boy, I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
From off the head of this Athenian swain ;
That he awaking when the other do,
May all to Athens back again repair;

And think no more of this night's accidents,
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.

But first I will release the fairy queen.

Be thou3, as thou wast wont to be, [Touching her eyes with an herb.

See, as thou wast wont to see :

Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower

Hath such force and blessed power.

Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
TITA. My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
OBE. There lies your love.

TITA.

How came these things to pass?

O, how mine eyes do loath his visage now!
OBE. Silence a while.-Robin, take off this head.-

Titania, music call; and strike more dead

Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.

TITA. Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep.

PUCK. When thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peepb.

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So the original copies. The modern editors have inserted now at the beginning of the line.

OBE. 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, to-morrow midnight, solemnly,

Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair posterity a:

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.

OBE. Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade:

We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.

TITA. 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.

THE. Go one of you, find out the forester 30;

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:
Despatch, I say, and find the forester.

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIP. 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.
THE. 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-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable

"In Fisher's quarto, prosperity.

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? EGE. 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.
THE. 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?

EGE. It is, my lord.

THE. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER, HERMIA, and HELENA, wake and start up.

THE. Good morrow, friends.

Saint Valentine is past;

[He and the rest kneel to THESEUS.

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

Lys. Pardon, my lord.

THE.

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?

Lys. 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 lawa.

EGE. 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.

DEM. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,

Of this their purpose hither, to this wood;

They intended to leave Athens for some place where they might be beyond (without) the perils of the Athenian law. Fisher's quarto, which Mr. Collier follows, omits be, and leaves the sense incomplete.

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