Act 4

Scene 1／running scene 5 continues

Enter Queen of Fairies [ Titania ] and Clown [ Bottom, with ass head, wearing a coronet of flowers ] and Fairies [ Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed ] and the King [ Oberon ] behind them

TITANIA Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coy ,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,

And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

↓ She fondles him ↓

BOTTOM Where's Peaseblossom?

PEASEBLOSSOM Ready.

BOTTOM Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where's Monsieur Cobweb?

COBWEB Ready.

BOTTOM Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not. I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Monsieur Mustardseed?

Cobweb may exit

MUSTARDSEED Ready.

BOTTOM Give me your neaf , Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you leave your courtesy , good monsieur.

MUSTARDSEED What's your will?

BOTTOM Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face. And I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.

TITANIA What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

BOTTOM I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let us have the tongs and the bones.

Music: tongs, rural music

TITANIA Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

BOTTOM Truly, a peck of provender ; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow .

TITANIA I have a vent'rous fairy that shall seek

The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

BOTTOM I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you let none of your people stir me. I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

TITANIA Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, begone, and be all ways away .

[ Exeunt fairies ]

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist; the female ivy so

Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.

O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!

They sleep

Enter Robin Goodfellow and Oberon [ who comes forward ]

OBERON Welcome, good Robin.

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.

And that same dew, which sometime on the buds

Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,

Stood now within the pretty flowerets ' eyes

Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.

When I had at my pleasure taunted her,

And she in mild terms begged my patience,

I then did ask of her her changeling child,

Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent

To bear him to my bower in fairy land.

And now I have the boy, I will undo

This hateful imperfection of her eyes.

And, gentle Puck, take this transformèd scalp

From off the head of this Athenian swain ;

That, he awaking when the other do,

May all to Athens back again repair ,

And think no more of this night's accidents

But as the fierce vexation of a dream.

But first I will release the fairy queen.

Be thou as thou wast wont to be;

Squeezes the herb on her eyes

See as thou wast wont to see.

Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower

Hath such force and blessèd power.

Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.

TITANIA My Oberon! What visions have I seen!

Methought I was enamoured of an ass.

OBERON There lies your love.

TITANIA How came these things to pass?

O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

OBERON Silence awhile.— Robin, take off this head.—

Titania, music call, and strike more dead

Than common sleep of all these five the sense.

TITANIA Music, ho! Music, such as charmeth sleep!

Music, still

ROBIN Now, when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep.

OBERON Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,

And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

Now thou and I are new in amity,

And will tomorrow 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.

OBERON Then, my queen, in silence sad ,

Trip we after the night's shade;

We the globe can compass soon,

Swifter than the wand'ring moon.

TITANIA Come, my lord, and in our flight

Tell me how it came this night

That I sleeping here was found

With these mortals on the ground.

Exeunt. Sleepers lie still

Wind horns. Enter Theseus, Egeus, Hippolyta, and all his train

THESEUS Go, one of you, find out the forester,

For now our observation is performed;

And since we have the vaward of the day,

My love shall hear the music of my hounds.

Uncouple in the western valley, let them go;

Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.

[ Exit an Attendant ]

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top

And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIPPOLYTA I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,

When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear

With hounds of Sparta ; never did I hear

Such gallant chiding , for besides the groves,

The skies, the fountains, every region near

Seemed all one mutual cry. I never heard

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

THESEUS My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind ,

So flewed , so sanded , and their heads are hung

With ears that sweep away the morning dew,

Crook-kneed and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls,

Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,

Each under each. A cry more tuneable

Was never hallowed to , nor cheered with horn,

In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly;

Judge when you hear. But, soft ! What nymphs are these?

EGEUS My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,

And this, Lysander, this Demetrius is,

This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.

I wonder of their being here together.

THESEUS No doubt they rose up early to observe

The rite of May, and hearing our intent,

Came here in grace of our solemnity .

But speak, Egeus; is not this the day

That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

EGEUS It is, my lord.

THESEUS Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

Horns and they wake. Shout within, they all start up.

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.

Begin these woodbirds but to couple now?

LYSANDER Pardon, my lord.

They kneel

THESEUS I pray you all stand up.

They stand

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?

LYSANDER 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

Without the peril of the Athenian law.

EGEUS Enough, enough, my lord. You have enough;

I beg the law, the law, upon his head.—

They would have stolen away, they would, Demetrius,

Thereby to have defeated you and me:

You of your wife and me of my consent,

Of my consent that she should be your wife.

DEMETRIUS My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,

Of this their purpose hither to this wood,

And I in fury hither followed them;

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 the snow, seems to me now

As the remembrance of an idle gaud

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 betrothed 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.

THESEUS Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:

Of this discourse we shall hear more 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 purposed hunting shall be set aside.

Away with us to Athens; three and three,

We'll hold a feast in great solemnity .—

Come, Hippolyta.

Exeunt Duke and lords [ and Hippolyta ]

DEMETRIUS These things seem small and undistinguishable ,

Like far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.

HERMIA Methinks I see these things with parted eye,

When everything seems double.

HELENA So methinks:

And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,

Mine own and not mine own.

DEMETRIUS It seems to me

That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think

The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

HERMIA Yea, and my father.

HELENA And Hippolyta.

LYSANDER And he bid us follow to the temple.

DEMETRIUS Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him

And by the way let us recount our dreams.

Exeunt lovers

Bottom wakes

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

Exit

Scene 2 ／running scene 6

Enter Quince, Flute, Snout and Starveling

QUINCE Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?

STARVELING He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported .

FLUTE If he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not forward , doth it?

QUINCE It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.

FLUTE No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.

QUINCE Yea, and the best person too, and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

FLUTE You must say 'paragon'. A paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught .

Enter Snug the joiner

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 .

FLUTE O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An 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.

Enter Bottom

BOTTOM Where are these lads? Where are these hearts ?

QUINCE Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

BOTTOM Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what, for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you everything as it fell out .

QUINCE Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

BOTTOM Not a word of me. All that I will tell you 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 Thisbe 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!

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