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y

SHAKESPEARE'S

A Midsummer-Nights Dream.

Introduction, Notes, Examination Papers, and Plan of Preparation.

(selected.)

By BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M^

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn

Polytechnic Institute, and author of a " Text-Book on Rhetoric, "

a " Text-Book on English Literature," and one of the authors

of Reed &* Kellogg 's "Graded Lessons in English"

and " Higher Lessons in English."

New Yor£ :

Effingham Maynard & Co., Publishers,

771 Broadway and 67 & 69 Ninth St.

1890.

kellogg's editions. Shakespeare's Plays,

WITH NOTES.

Uniform i?i style and price with this volume.

THUS FAR COMPRISE :

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

KING HENRY V.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

JULIUS CAESAR.

KING LEAR.

MACBETH.

TEMPEST.

HAMLET.

KING HENRY VIII.

KING HENRY IV., Part I.

KING RICHARD III.

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

A WINTER'S TALE.

Copyright, 1890, by EFFINGHAM MAYNARD & CO,

EDITOR'S NOTE.

The text here presented, adapted for use in mixed classes, has been carefully collated with that of six or seven of the latest and best editions. Where there was any disagreement those readings have been adopted which seemed most reasonable and were supported bj the best authority.

The notes of English editors have been freely used. Those taken as the basis of our work have been rigor- ously pruned wherever they were thought too learned or too minute, or contained matter that for any other reason seemed unsuited to our purpose. We have generously added to them, also, wherever they seemed to be lacking. B. K.

GENERAL NOTICE.

" An attempt has been made in these new editions to interpret Shakespeare by the aid of Shakespeare himself. The Method of Comparison has been constantly employ- ed ; and the language used by him in one place has been compared with the language used in other places in simi- lar circumstances, as well as with older English and with newer English. The text has been as carefully and as thoroughly annotated as the text of any Greek or Latin classic.

" The first purpose in this elaborate annotation is, of course the full working out of Shakespeare's meaning. The Editor has in all circumstances taken as much pains with this as if he had been making out the difficult and obscure terms of a will in which he himself was personally interested ; and he submits that this thorough excavation of the meaning of a really profound thinker is one of the very best kinds of training that a boy or girl can receive at school. This is to read the very mind of Shakespeare, and to weave his thoughts into the fibre of one's own mental constitution. And always new rewards come to the care- ful reader — in the shape of new meanings, recognition of 5

VI

thoughts he had before missed, of relations between the characters that had hitherto escaped him. For reading Shakespeare is just like examining Nature ; there are no hollownesses, there is no scamped work, for Shakespeare is as patiently exact and as first-hand as Nature herself.

" Besides this thorough working-out of Shakespeare's meaning, advantage has been taken of the opportunity to teach his English — to make each play an introduction to the English of Shakespeare. For this purpose copi- ous collections of similar phrases have been gathered from other plays ; his idioms have been dwelt upon ; his pecu- liar use of words ; his style and his rhythm. Some Teachers may consider that too many instances are given ; but, in teaching, as in everything else, the old French say- ing is true : Assez tfy a, s'il trop tfy a. The Teacher need not require each pupil to give him all the instances collected. If each gives one or two, it will probably be enough ; and, among them all, it is certain that one ortw> will stick in the memory. It is probable that, for those pu~ pils who do not study either Greek or Latin, this close ex- amination of every word and phrase in the text of Shake- speare will be the best substitute that can be found for the study of the ancient classics.

" It were much to be hoped that Shakespeare should become more and more of a study, and that every boy and girl should have a thorough knowledge of at least one play of Shakespeare before leaving school. It would be one of the best lessons in human life, without the chance of a polluting or degrading experience. It would also have the effect of bringing back into the too pale and for- mal English of modern times a large number of pithy and

vii

vigorous phrases which would help to develop as well as to reflect vigor in the characters of the readers. Shake- speare used the English language with more power than any other writer that ever lived — he made it do more and say more than it had ever done ; he made it speak in a more original way ; and his combinations of words are per- petual provocations and invitations to originality and to newness of insight." — J. M. D. Meiklejohn, M.A., Professor of the Theory \ History, and Practice of Educa- tion in the University of St. Andrews.

Shakespeare's Grammar.

Shakespeare lived at a time when the grammar and vocabulary of. the English language were in a state of transition. Various points were not yet settled ; and so Shakespeare's grammar is not only somewhat different from our own but is by no means uniform in itself. In the Elizabethan age, " Almost any part of speech can be used, as any other part of speech. An adverb can be used as a verb, ' They askance their eyes ; ' as a noun, ' the backward and abysm of time;' or as an adjective, 'a seldom pleasure.' Any noun, ad- jective, or neuter [intrans.] verb can be us<ed as an active [trans.] verb. You can ' happy ' your friend, ' malice ' or ' foot ' your en- emy, or ' fall ' an axe on his neck. An adjective can be used as an adverb; and you can speak and act 'easy,' 'free,' 'excel- lent;' or as a noun, and you can talk of 'fair' instead of 'beau- ty,' and ' a pale ' instead of ' a paleness.' Even the pronouns are not exempt from these metamorphoses. A ' he ' is used for a man, and a lady is described by a gentleman as ' the fairest she he has yet beheld.' In the second place, every variety of apparent grammati- cal inaccuracy meets us. He for him, him for he ; spoke and took for spoken and taken ; plural nominatives with singular verbs ; relatives omitted where they are now considered necessary ; unnecessary an- tecedents inserted ; shall for will, should for would, would for wish ; to omitted after '2 ought,' inserted after ' I durst;'' double nega- tives : double comparatives (' more better,' &c.) and superlatives ; such followed by which [or that], that by as, as used for as if; that ior so that ; and lastly some verbs apparently with two nominatives, and others without any nominative at all."— Dr. Abbott's Shakespe* rian Grammar.

Shakespeare's Versification.

Shakespeare's Plays are written mainly in what is known as un- limed, or blank-verse; but they contain a number of riming, and a considerable number of prose, lines. As a general rule, rime is much commoner in the earlier than in the later plays. Thus, Love's Labors Lost contains nearly 1,100 rimins lines, while (if we except the songs) Winter's Tale has none. The Merchant of Venice has 124.

In speaking we lay a stress on particular syllables : this stress is called accent. When the words of a composition are so arranged that the accent recurs at regular intervals, the composition is said to be metrical or rhythmical. Rhythm, or Metre, is an embellishment of language which, though it does not constitute poetry itself, yet provides it with a suitably elegant dress ; and hence most mode-n poets have written in metre. In blank verse the lines consist v —

fl-Ty of ten syllables, of which the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and Jenth are accented. The line consists, therefore, of Ave parts, each of which contains an unaccented followed by an accented syllable, as in the word attend. Each of these five parts forms what is called a. foot or measure ; and the five together form a pentameter. " Penta- meter "is a Greek word signifying "five measures." This is the usual form of a line of blank verse. But a long poem composed en- tirely of such lines would be monotonous, and for the sake of variety several important modifications have been introduced.

(a) After the tenth syllable, one or two unaccented syllables are sometimes added ; as—

" Me-thought \ you said \ you nei | ther lend \ nor bor I row.''''

(6) In any foot the accent may be shifted from the second to the first syllable, provided two accented syllables do not come together.

" Pluck' the | young suck' \ ing cubs' \from the' | she bear'. | "

(c) In snch words as "yesterday," "voluntary," "honesty," the syllables -day, -ta-, and ty falling in the place of the accent, are, for the purposes of the verse, regarded as truly accented.

" Bars' me I the right' \ of vol'- \ un-ta' I ry choos' \ ing.~"

(d) Sometimes we have a succession of accented syllables ; this occurs with monosyllabic feet only.

" Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark.''''

{e) Sometimes, but more rarely, two or even three unaccented syllables occupy the place of one ; as —

"He says | he does, | be-ing then \ most flat | ter-ed.'1

(f) Lines may have any number of feet from one to six.

Finally, Shakespeare adds much to the pleasing variety of hir Dlank verse by placing the pauses in different parts of the line (especially after the second or third foot), instead of placing them all at the ends of lines, as was the earlier custom.

N. B.— In some cases the rhythm requires that what we usually pronounce as one syllable shall be divided into two, asfl-er (fire), su-er (sure), mi-el /mile), &c. ; too-elve (twelve), jaw-ee (joy), &c. Similarly, she-on (tion or -sion).

It is very important to give the pupil plenty of ear-trainin/* by means of formal scansion. This will greatly assist him in *** reading. .

PLAN OF STUDY

PERFECT POSSESSION/

To attain to the standard of ' Perfect Pos- session,' the reader ought to have an inti- mate and ready knowledge of the subject. (See opposite page.)

The student ought, first of all, to read the play as a pleasure ; then to read it over again, with his mind upon the characters and the plot ; and lastly, to read it for the meanings, grammar, &c.

With the help of the scheme, he can easily draw up for himself short examination papers (i) on each scene, (2) on each act, (3) on the whole play.

1. The Plot and Story of the Play.

(a) The general plot ;

(b) The special incidents.

2. The Characters: Ability to give a connected account

of all that is done and most of what is said by each character in the play.

3. The Influence and Interplay of the Characters upon

each other.

(a) Relation of A to B and of B to A ;

(b) Relation of A to C and D.

4. Complete Possession of the Language.

(a) Meanings of words ;

(b) Use of old words, or of words in an old mean-

ing ;

(c) Grammar ;

(d) Ability to quote lines to illustrate a gram-

matical point.

5. Power to Reproduce, or Quote.

(a) What was said by A or B on a particular

occasion ;

(b) What was said by A in reply to B ;

(c) What argument was used by C at a particu-

lar juncture ;

(d) To quote a line in instance of an idiom or of

a peculiar meaning.

6. Power to Locate.

(a) To attribute a line or statement to a certain

person on a certain occasion ; (6) To cap a line ; (c) To fill in the right word or epithet.

INTRODUCTION

TO

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

There are four old editions of this play, and the re- ceived text is an eclectic text made up from the four, with the addition of several conjectural emendations of the earlier editors and commentators, some of which appear too probable and valuable to be rejected even by the most conservative adherents of the original texts. The first of these editions was in quarto form, and appears thus on the Register of the Stationers' Company : " 8 Oct. 1600 Tho. Fysher] A booke called a Mydsomer nights Dreame." The second was also a quarto, and appeared in the same year, " printed by lames Roberts, 1600." The second was merely a reprint of the first, and was probably a pirated edition printed for the use of the players. It was the edition however that was followed in the famous first folio of 1623 — the third of our editions — some of its obvious misprints being copied there in spite of its ed- itors' depreciatory remarks about sundry earlier " stolne and surreptitious" copies of the plays. The fourth edition of importance is of course the second folio of 1632, a reprint of the first, containing conjectural emendations, which are however more often wrong than right.

10

IN TROD UCTION. 1 1

The earliest known reference to the play occurs in the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres, published in 1598. Its composition is dated by Drake, 1593 ; by Chalmers, 1598; by Malone, 1594; by Delius, later than 1594; by Fleay, 1592 ; but the evidence points most strongly to 1593 or 1594. It is difficult to resist the belief that the passage in Act II. (sc. i. 88-114), in which Titania describes the recent bad seasons, owed its point to the similar weather in the years 1593 and 1594, which would still be fresh in people's memories. Again, the lines in Act V. (sc. i. 52, 53) alluding to the recent hapless fortune of a poet and a scholar, correspond well either to Spenser's poem, The Tears of the Muses, published in 1591, or to Robert Greene's miserable death in 1592. Metrical tests, more- over, prove that the play was an early work written about the same time as the Two Gentlemen of Verona. It con- tains a large proportion of rhyming lines — one of the safest marks of its being an early work, as rhymed lines become fewer and fewer in Shakespeare's later plays. But too much must not be made of this in comparing it with plays of the same period, as the character of our play naturally called for a more liberal use of rhyme than usual. Such a succession of rhymes repeating a single sound as occur in Act III. (sc. i. 102-109), and Act. IV. (sc. i. 82- 89), were of course introduced with a special purpose. Here also we find comparatively few lines where the pause or break occurs in any part of the line save at the end. This is a second test of the date of the composition of a

12 INTRODUCTION.

play, as Shakespeare in his earlier plays usually has his pauses and breaks at the end of the line, while gradually he came more and more to carry on the sense from one line to another without a pause at the end of the line, with an obvious gain to the flexibility and variety of his dra- matic dialogue. A third test of time from the meter is the use of weak and unemphatic monosyllabic endings. These scarcely appear at all in the earlier plays — the present play contains but one — while they are frequent in plays like Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. Again, double or feminine endings — that is, lines with an extra end- syllable are very rare in the earlier plays, becoming very numerous in such later plays as Cymbeline and the Tempest. *

Our play then may be fearlessly dated as having been written about 1593 or 1594. It has been conjectured that it was written to grace the wedding of some noble person — Southampton, who was married in 1598, or Essex, who was married in 1 590 ; but from what has been said above, it will be seen that the second date is too early, the other too late. It was probably acted before Elizabeth. The praise of " single blessedness" (Act I. sc. i. 74-78) would be

* Mr. Fleay, in his Shakespeare Manual (1878), p. 135, gives the following statistics about A Midsummer-Night's Dream l Total number of lines, 2251 ; of prose lines, 441 ; blank-verse lines, 878 ; rhymes, five measures, 731; rhymes, short lines, 138 ; songs, 63 ; double endings, 29 ; alternately rhyming lines, 158 ; two measures, 5 ; three measures, 3.

IN TR OD UC TION. i 3

pleasing to the ears of the maiden queen, and Oberon's vision (Act II. sc. i. 145-165), Warburton's ingenuity apart, beyond a doubt contains a splendid piece of poetic flattery to Elizabeth.

The action of the play is comprised within three days, concluding with the night of the new moon; though there is some confusion of time, as will be seen, the note of time at the beginning being inconsistent with the discourse of the clowns in Act III. (i. 45-)*

The plot of A Midsummer-Night ' s Dream is entirely Shakespeare's own, though, as usual, in working it out, he borrowed freely from other sources. He had read carefully the life of Theseus in North's Plutarch, and he may have read Chaucer's Knight's Tale. For the inter- lude of Pyramus and Thisbe he was doubtless indebted to Golding's translation of Ovid, and Chaucer's Thisbe of Babylon. Robin Goodfellow and his other fairies he owed to the rich folk-lore of his boyhood, but Oberon may have been suggested to him by Greene's James IV. of Scotland.

The play has not kept its place upon the stage, and it is unlikely ever to be successful there. As Hazlitt has said, " A Midsu7n?ner-Night 's Dream, when acted, is converted

* Mr. Daniel, in the Transactions of the New Shakespeare Society (1877-79), p. 149, gives the following " time-analysis11 of the play:

Day 1. Act I. " a. Acts II., III., and part of sc. i. Act IV. " 3, Part of sc. i. Act. IV., sc. ii. Act IV., and Apt V.

1 4 IN TR OD UC TIO N.

from a delightful fiction into a dull pantomime. . . . Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moons/iine. . . . The boards of a theatre and the region of fancy are not the same thing." The most amusing cir- cumstance in the history of the play is Pepys' record in his Diary, under date September 29, 1662 : "To the King's Theatre, where we saw Midsummer-Night's Dream, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my, life."

Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer-Night' 's Dream at a time of his life when fancy was strong, and a sense of the prose realities of life comparatively weak. The action of the play depends on circumstances hardly even hypothet- ically possible. It is quite without a parallel in dramatic literature. The only other play of Shakespeare resem- bling it in its preternatural machinery is the Tempest, which however is of quite another mood in feeling and thought, and, with perhaps higher attributes, wants its peculiar fascination. It is, as Coleridge described it, " one continued specimen of the dramatized lyrical," the whole a fabric of the most creative and visionary imagination. We move amid a delightful world of ideal forms, and at the touch of the magician these " airy nothings" assume for us " a local habitation and a name." The charm he has cast around the fairy world has changed permanently, for English-speaking people, their conceptions of its

INTRODUCTION. 15

inhabitants. Under the spell of his creation we have for- gotten all the ugliness and malignity of the old fairy world, and now we see only its abiding grace and beauty; and indeed it is hardly too much to say that it is to the master-hand of Shakespeare that our children mainly owe their heritage of an imaginative world of fascinating beauty, peopled by ideal forms full of sportive kindliness to be regarded with perpetual interest and love instead of repugnance and terror. In our play the unreal and shadowy world becomes real to us, while the real world with its actual life becomes less distinct and real looking, as is quite consistent in a dream. Consequently the human interest is of less importance than the supernatural — the two pairs of young lovers are graceful figures enough, but they do not touch us with the quick sympa- thies of fellow men and women, and we find ourselves wonderfully indifferent to their crossed loves and other perplexities. Duke Theseus and Hippolyta are heroic medieval figures, full of splendor and romantic quality, but they do not breathe with the same life as the kings and queens of later plays. Most of the persons are too idealized and distant from us to feel their brotherhood as English men and women. It is only bully Bottom and his honest fellows that bring us back to the village green and homely familiar English life. From their lips we hear the everyday speech of kindly Warwickshire, and with them we feel that we stand once more on the familiar earth. Their humor is all the more delightful after we

16 INTRODUCTION.

have breathed for a while the upper air, and already gives promise of the infinitely richer and fuller but hardly more genial and human humor that we ore to find in later plays.

DRAMATIS PERSONiE.

Theseus, Duke to Athens.

EGEUS, father to Hermia.

Lysander, ) . , . , TT

^ V in love wit n Hermit

Demetrius, )

Philostrate, master of the revels to Theseus,

Quince, a carpenter.

Snug, a joiner.

Bottom, a weaver.

Flute, a bellows-mender.

Snout, a tinker.

Starveling, a tailor.

Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus*

Hermia, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysando- ,

Helena, in love with Demetrius.

Oberon, king of the fairies.

TlTANlA, queen of the fairies.

Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, a fairy*

Peaseblossom,

Cobweb,

Moth,

Mustardseed,

yfairies.

IS

DRAMATIS PERSONS.

Pyramus,

Thisbe,

Wall,

Moonshine

Lion,

characters in the Interlude performed by the clowns.

Other fairies attending their King and Queen.

Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE.— Athens and a Wood near it.

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. A Room in the Palace of Theseus.

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, and Attendants.

The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial-hour Draws on apace ; four happy days bring in Another moon: but O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes ! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's revenue.

Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night ; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities.

The. Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth: Turn melancholy forth to funerals, —

i9

20 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT' S DREAM, [act i.

The pale companion is not for our pomp.

{Exit Philostrate. Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries ; But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander, «;^Demetrius.

20 Egc. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!

The. Thanks, good Egeus : what's the news with

thee? Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius. — My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand forth, Lysander: — and, my gracious duke, This hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child. Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchang'd love-tokens with my child :

30 Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung With feigning voice verses of feigning love ; And stol'n the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats — messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth. With cunning hast thou filch 'd my daughter's heart; Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, To stubborn harshness : and, my gracious duke, Be' t so she will not here before your grace

40 Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, — As she is mine, I may dispose of her:

Sc. I.] A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 21

Which shall be either to this gentleman Or to her death, according to our law Immediately provided in that case.

The. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid : To you your father should be as a god ; One that compos'd your beauties ; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax, By him imprinted, and within his power 5-

To leave the figure or disfigure it. Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

Her. So is Lysander.

The. In himself he is ;

But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, The other must be held the worthier.

Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.

The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.

Her. I do entreat your grace to pardon me. I know not by what power I am made bold, Nor how it may concern my modesty, 60

In such a presence here to plead my thoughts But I beseech your grace that I may know The worst that may befall me in this case, If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

The. Either to die the death, or to abjure For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun ; 7°

For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all vour life,

22 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT' S BREAM, [acc i.

Chanting faint hynwas to the cold fruitless moon.

Thrice blessed they that master so their blood

To undergo such maiden pilgrimage ;

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd

Than that which, withering on the virgin throne,

Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, 80 Ere I will yield my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

The. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon — The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, For everlasting bond of fellowship — Upon that day either prepare to die For disobedience to your father's will, Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would ; Or on Diana's altar to protest 93 For aye austerity and single life.

Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia: — and, Lysandcr, yield Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius ; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

Ege. Scornful Lysander ! true, he hath my love, And what is mine my love shall render him ; And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, 100 As well possess'd ; my love is more than his ; My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd, If not with vantage, as Demetrius's ; And, which is more than all these boasts can be,

SC. I.] A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT7 S DREAM. 23

I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia :

Why should not I then prosecute my right ?

Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,

Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,

And won her soul ; and she, sweet lady, dotes,

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

TJic. I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof ; But, being overfull of self-affairs, My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come ; And come, Egeus ; you shall go with me, I have some private schooling for you both. For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your father's will ; Or else the law of Athens holds you up — Which by no means we may extenuate — To death, or to a vow of single life. Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love? Demetrius and Egeus, go along : I must employ you in some business Against our nuptial ; and confer with you Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

Ege. With duty and desire we follow you.

{Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia.

Lys. How now, my love ! Why is your cheek so pale ? How chance the roses there to fade so fast ?

Her. Belike for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes.

Lys. Ay me ! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth :

24 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT' S DREAM, [act I,

But, either it was different in blood, — Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low ! Lys. Or else misgraffed in respect of years, — Her. O spite ! too old to be engag'd to young ! Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends ,— - 140 Her. O hell ! to choose love by another's eye ! Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream ; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, " Behold ! " The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion. 150 Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict in destiny : Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross ; As due to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers. Lys. A good persuasion : therefore, hear me, Her- mia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child : From Athens is her house remote seven leagues ; 160 And she respects me as her only son.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee ; And to that place the sharp Athenian law Cannot pursue us. If thou lov'st me then, Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night ; And in the wood, a league without the town, Where I did meet thee once with Helena

sc. i.] A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT' S DREAM. 25

To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee.

Her. My good Lysander !

I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, 170

By the simplicity of Venus' doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen When the false Trojan under sail was seen, By all the vows that ever men have broke, In number more than ever women spoke, — In that same place thou has appointed me, To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

Lys. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter Helena.

Her. God speed fair Helena ! Whither away ? 180 Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair : O happy fair ! Your eyes are lode-stars ; and your tongue's sweet

air More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn-buds appear. Sickness is catching : O, were favor so, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go ; My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet

melody. Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, 190

The rest I'd give to be to you translated. O teach me how you look ; and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart !

26 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT' S DREAM, [act. i.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

Hel. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill !

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

Hel. O that my prayers could such affection move !

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.

Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me. 200 Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

Hel. None, but your beauty : would that fault were mine !

Her. Take comfort : he no more shall see my face ; Lysander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lysander see, Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me: O then, what graces in my love do dwell That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell !

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold : To-morrow night, when Phcebe doth behold 210 Her silver visage in the watery glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, — A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal, — Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.

Her. And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, There my Lysander and myself shall meet ; And thence from Athens turn away our eyes To seek new friends and stranger companies. 220 Farewell, sweet playfellow : pray thou for us, And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius ! Keep word, Lysander : we must starve our sight From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.

sc. i.] A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 27

Lys. I will, my Hermia [Exit Hermia]. — Helena, adieu ; As you on him, Demetrius dote on you !

[Exit Lys and er.

Hel. How happy some o'er other some can be ! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so ; He will not know what all but he do know : And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, 230

So I, admiring of his qualities. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity : Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind ; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind: Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste ; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste : And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, 240

So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere : For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine ; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight : Then to the wood will he to-morrow night Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense : But herein mean I to enrich my pain, 250

To have his sight thither and back again. {Exit.

28 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT' S DREAM, [act i.

SCENE II. The same. A Room in Quince's House.

£nter Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, Quince, and Starveling.

Quin. Is all our company here ?

Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and duchess, on his wedding-day at night.

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on ; then read the names of the actors ; and lOso grow to a point.

Quin. Marry, our play is — The most lamentable Comedy and most cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.

Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. — Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread your- selves.

Quin. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. 20 Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and pro- ceed.

Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyra- mus.

Bot. What is Pyramus ? a lover, or a tyrant ?

Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.

Bot. That will ask some tears in the true per- forming of it: if I do it, let the audience look to

sc. ii.] A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT' S DREAM. 29

their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest : yet my chief humor 30 is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

The raging rocks And shivering shocks Shall break the locks

Of prison-gates ; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far, And make and mar

The foolish Fates. 4°

This was lofty ! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein ; a lover is more condoling.

Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

Flu. Here, Peter Quince.

Quiii. You must take Thisby on you.

Fht. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

Flu. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman ; I have a beard coming. 50

Quin. That's all one ; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too : I'll speak in a monstrous little voice ; — " Thisne, Thisne" — "Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!"

Quin. No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby.

Bot. Well, proceed.

Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor. 6o*

30 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT1 S DREAM, [act l

Star. Here, Peter Quince.

Quzn. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker.

Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

Qitin. You, Pyramus's father ; myself Thisby's father ; — Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part : — and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

Snug. Have you the lion's part written ? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. 70 Quzn. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bot. Let me play the lion too : I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, " Let him roar again, let him roar again."

Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek ; and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us, every mother's son. So Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us ; but 1 will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking-dove ; I will roar you an 't were any night- ingale.

Quzn. 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,

gentleman-like man ; therefore you must needs play