A Midsummer Night’s Dream | Act IV, Scene I - Page 2
- LYSANDER:
-
Pardon, my lord.
- THESEUS:
-
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(145)
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,(150)
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,
Without the peril of the Athenian law.
- EGEUS:
-
Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;(155)
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.(160)
- 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 following me.
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,—(165)
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,(170)
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,(175)
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 more will hear anon.
Egeus, I will overbear your will;(180)
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;(185)
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.
Exeunt [Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and train]
- DEMETRIUS:
-
These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
- HERMIA:
-
Methinks I see these things with parted eye,(190)
When every thing seems double.
- HELENA:
-
So methinks;
And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
Mine own, and not mine own.
- DEMETRIUS:
-
Are you sure(195)
That we are awake? 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.(200)
- LYSANDER:
-
And he did 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
- BOTTOM:
-
(Wakes) When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer.
My next is ‘Most fair Pyramus.’ Heigh-ho! Peter(205)
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 have 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(210)
Methought I was—there is no man can tell what dream.
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(215)
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 call'd ‘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(220)
shall sing it at her death.
Exit
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