HELENA         Your virtue is my privilege, for that It is not night when I do see your face. Therefore I think I am not in the night, Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world. Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look […]

DEMETRIUS   Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; For I am sick when I do look on thee. HELENA         And I am sick when I look not on you. DEMETRIUS   You do impeach your modesty too much, To leave the city and commit yourself Into the hands of one that loves you not, To trust the opportunity of night […]

HELENA         And even for that do I love you the more. I am your spaniel, and Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, loose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love (And […]

HELENA         You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; But yet you draw not iron, for my heart Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you. DEMETRIUS   Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather do I not in plainest truth Tell you I do not, nor I […]

Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. [Oberon stands apart.] DEMETRIUS   I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I’ll stay; the other stayeth me. Thou toldst me they were stolen unto this wood; And here am I, and wood within this wood, Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.       […]

OBERON                     Having once this juice, I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. The next thing then she, waking, looks upon, Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, On meddling monkey or on busy ape, She shall pursue it with the soul of love. And ere I take this charm from off her sight […]

OBERON         Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower: the herb I showed thee once. The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb, and be thou […]

OBERON         That very time I saw (but thou couldst not) Flying between the cold moon and the earth Cupid, all armed. A certain aim he took At a fair vestal, thronèd by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on In maiden meditation, fancy free.    […]

OBERON         Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury. My gentle puck, come hither. Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid’s music. PUCK                          I remember.   […]

TITANIA         But she, being mortal, of that boy did die, And for her sake do I rear up her boy; And for her sake, I will not part with him. OBERON         How long within this wood intend you stay? TITANIA         Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding day. If you will patiently dance in our round And see our moonlight revels, go with […]