Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

[They sleep.]

Enter Robin Goodfellow.

good Robin.

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Obe. [Advancing.] Welcome,
See'st thou this sweet sight?
Her dotage now I do begin to pity;
For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
Seeking sweet favours 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; 55
And that same dew, which sometime on the
buds

Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,

бо

And will to-morrow midnight solemnly Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, And bless it to all fair prosperity. There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity. Robin. Fairy king, attend, and mark; I do hear the morning lark. Then, my queen, in silence sad Trip we after the night's shade. We the globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wandering moon.

Obe.

sent

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105

Tell me how it came this night That I sleeping here was found With these mortals on the ground. Sleepers lie still. Exeunt [Oberon, Titania, and Robin Goodfellow]. Horns winded [within].

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and all his

115

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 120 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 Thessalias bulls;

126

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Lys. Pardon, my lord.

The.

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150

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

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170

175

Fair Helena in fancy followed me. But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,But by some power it is, my love to Hermia, Melted as is the snow, seems to me now As the remembrance of an idle gawd 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 a sickness did I loathe this food; But, as in health, come to my natural taste, Now I do 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 more will hear 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.

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185

190

The Duke was here, and bid us follow him? Her. Yea; and my father. Hel.

And Hippolyta. 200 Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple. Dem. Why, then, we are awake. Let's follow him;

And by the way let us recount our dreams. Bottom wakes. Exeunt lovers.

Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-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 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. 224

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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. And 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. 24 Enter Bottom.

All that I will tell you

Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom. Bot. Not a word of me. 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! 46 Exeunt.

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 noth-
ing

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;

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