Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw colour

beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-
in-grain beard, or your French crown colour
beard, your perfect yellow.

Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at

all, and then you will play barefaced. But, 100
masters, here are your parts: and I am to
entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con
them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the
palace wood, a mile without the town, by moon-
light; there will we rehearse, for if we meet in
the city, we shall be dogged with company, and
our devices known. In the mean time I will
draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants.
I pray you, fail me not.

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse 110

most obscenely and courageously. Take pains;

be perfect: adieu.

Quin. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bot. Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.

[Exeunt.

Act Second.

Scene I.

A wood near Athens.

Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone :
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.

10

Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,

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30

Because that she as her attendant hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; She never had so sweet a changeling: And jealous Oberon would have the child Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; But she perforce withholds the loved boy, Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy: And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, But they do square, that all their elves for fear Creep into acorn cups and hide them there. Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Goodfellow : are not you he That frights the maidens of the villagery; Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, 40 You do their work, and they shall have good luck : Are not you he?

Puck.

Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me ;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;

50

And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Enter, from one side, Oberon, with his train; from the other, Titania, with hers.

Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Tita. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
I have forsworn his bed and company.

Obe. Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?

60

Tita. Then I must be thy lady: but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steppe of India ?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Obe. How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

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Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?

And make him with fair Ægle break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?

Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy:

And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,

By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,

To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,

But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,

80