And I in fury hither follow'd them;

Fair Helena in fancy following a 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 gaud,
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 in sickness, did I loath this food:
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now do I wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.
THE. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
Of this discourse we will hear more anon.
Egeus, I will overbear your will;
For in the temple, by and by with us,
These couples shall eternally be knit.
And, for the morning now is something worn,
Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.
Away, with us, to Athens: Three and three,
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.

Come, Hippolyta.

[Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train.

DEM. These things seem small and undistinguishable,

Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
HER. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
When everything seems double.

That we are awake?] It seems to me,

That yet we sleep, we dream.-Do not you think,
The duke was here, and bid us follow him?
HER. Yea, and my father.

Following, in Fisher's quarto. The other copies, followed.

[Exeunt.

She has found Demetrius, as a person picks up a jewel-for the moment it is his own, but

its value may cause it to be reclaimed. She feels insecure in the possession of her treasure. The words in brackets are omitted in the folio. They are scarcely wanted.

As they go out, BOTTOм awakes.

Bor. When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer:-my next is, "Most fair Pyramus."-Hey, ho!-Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life! stolen hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream,-past the wit of man to say what dream it was:-Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was-there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had.-But man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke: Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death".

[Exit.

SCENE II.-Athens. A Room in Quince's House.

Enter QUINCE, Flute, Snout, and STARVELING.

QUIN. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?
STAR. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported.

FLU. If he come not, then the play is marred; It goes not forward, doth it?
QUIN. It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge
Pyramus, but he.

FLU. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.

QUIN. Yea, and the best person too: and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

FLU. You must say, paragon: a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught.

Enter SNUG.

SNUG. Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone forward we had all been made men.

FLU. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a-day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it sixpence a-day, in Pyramus, or nothing.

b

Patched fool-a fool in a particoloured coat.

Probably, at the death of Thisbe. Theobald would read "after death,"-that is, after Bottom had been killed in the part of Pyramus.

Enter BOTTOM.

BOT. Where are these lads? where are these hearts?

QUIN. Bottom!-O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

Bor. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you I am no true Athenian. I will tell you everything, right as it fell out. QUIN. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

BOT. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined: Get your apparel together; good strings to your beards", new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for, the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions, nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away. [Exeunt.

b

Right is omitted in the folio.

Preferred-not in the sense of chosen in preference-but offered-as a suit is preferred.

SCENE I.-Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus.

HIP. "T is strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

THE. More strange than true. I never may believe

These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold

That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination;
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear.
HIP. But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigur'd so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,

And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange, and admirable.

Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA.

THE. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love,
Accompany your hearts!

Lys.

More than to us

Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!

THE. Come now; what masks, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours,
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

Call Philostrate a.

PHILOST.

Here, mighty Theseus.

b

THE. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?
What mask, what music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time, if not with some delight?

The folio has "Call Egeus;" and to him nearly all the speeches subsequently given to Philostrate are assigned. As some stage convenience possibly suggested this arrangement in the folio, it is not worth while to derange the received allotment of the dialogue to Philostrate, which is that of the quartos.

b

Abridgment-pastime-something that may abridge "the lazy time." This is one explanation. Is it not, rather,-what short thing have you, of play, or mask, or music?