Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
Hel. 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.
Lys. Content with Hermia? No: I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia, but Helena now 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,1
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.

Hel. 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.

1 My senses being now at the utmost height of perfection.

O, that a lady, of one man refused,

Should of another therefore be abused!

[Exit.

Lys. 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 honor Helen, and to be her knight!

[Exit. Her. [starting.] Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best,

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ah 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; 1 I swoon almost with fear.
No?-then I well perceive you are not nigh:
Either death or you I'll find immediately.

¡Exit.

By all that is dear.

ACT II I.

SCENE I.

The same. The queen of fairies lying asleep. Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and

STARVELING.

Bot. 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 tiringhouse; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the duke.

Bot. Peter Quince,

Quince. What say'st thou, bully Bottom?

Bot. 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,1 a parlous fear.

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

Bot. 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.

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

Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion? Starve. I fear it, I promise you.

Bot. 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 fearful1 wild-fowl than your lion, living; and we ought to look to it.

Snout. Therefore another prologue must tell, he is not a lion.

Bot. 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

1 Frightful.

hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber for you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.

Snug. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

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

Quince. Yes, it doth shine that night.

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

Quince. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say, he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moonshine. Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall. Snug. You never can bring in a wall.-What say you, Bottom?

Bot. Some man or other must present wall: and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; or let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

Quince. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; 1 and so every one according to his cue.2

1 Thicket.

A cue, in theatrical language, signifies the last words of