Faculty of English

TITANIA                     Why art thou here Come from the farthest steep of India, But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskined mistress and your warrior love, To Theseus must be wedded; and you come To give their bed joy and prosperity. OBERON         How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night From Perigenia, whom […]

Enter OBERON at one door with his train, and TITANIA at another with hers. OBERON         Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. TITANIA         What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence. I have forsworn his bed and company. OBERON         Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord? TITANIA         Then I must be thy lady; but I know When thou hast stolen away from fairy land And in the shape […]

PUCK  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; And then the whole choir 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. FAIRY  And here my mistress. Would that he were gone.  (2.1.51-59) […]

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 […]

FAIRY  Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Called 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, You do their work, and […]

PUCK  The king doth keep his revels here tonight. Take heed the queen come not within his sight; For Oberon is passing fell and wrath 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, […]

FAIRY  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 dew drops 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.         (2.1.10-17) The magic intensifies, so subtly, so cleverly, picture this, now this, now this: the cowslips tall […]

Enter a FAIRY at one door, and PUCK at another. PUCK  How now, spirit, whither wander you? FAIRY  Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere Swifter than the moon’s sphere, And I serve the Fairy Queen To dew her orbs upon the green.     (2.1.1-9) Fairies! Puck! (I’m going with Puck although many current critical editions […]

QUINCE          But masters, here are your parts; and I am to intreat you, request you and desire you to con them by tomorrow night, and meet me in the palace wood a mile without the town by moonlight. There will we rehearse; for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, […]

QUINCE          You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man, a proper man as one shall see in a summer’s day, a most lovely gentlemanlike man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus. BOTTOM        Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? QUINCE          Why, what you […]