What best is boded me, to mischief! I,
Beyond all limit of what else i' the world,
Do love, prize, honour you.
To weep at what I am glad of.
Mira. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer
What I desire to give; and much less take,
What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;
And all the more it seeks to hide itself,
The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning,
And prompt me, plain and holy innocence !
I am your wife, if you will marry me!
If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no.
Fer. Ay, with a heart as willing
As bondage e'er of freedom: here's my hand.
Mira. And mine, with my heart in't and now fare
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly,
After summer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not
Hear a foot fall.
DRUNKARDS ENCHANTED BY ARIEL.
I told you, sir, that they were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valour, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet: yet always bending
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses,
As they smelt music; so I charm'd their ears,
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns,
Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them
I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to the chins.
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that
By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight-mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though you be) I have bedimm'd
The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves, at my command,
Have waked their sleepers; oped and let them forth
By my so potent art.
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.-
That strain again; it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing, and giving odour.
ESCAPE FROM DANGER.
I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself
(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the wave,
So long as I could see.
For they shall yet belie thy happy years
That say, thou art a man: Diana's lip
Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe
Is, as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part.
Come hither, boy: if ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it remember me.
For such as I am, all true lovers are;
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved.
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
This fellow's wise enough to play the fool;
And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit :
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time;
And, like the haggard,* check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice,
As full of labour as a wise man's art:
For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit;
But wise men, folly-fallen, quite taint their wit.
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