A Midsummer Nights Dream | Page 8

from our dissension: We are their parents and original.
OBERON Do you amend it, then: it lies in you: Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy To be my henchman.
TITANIA Set your heart at rest; The fairy-land buys not the child of me. His mother was a vot'ress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side; And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood; When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive, And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,-- Would imitate; and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. 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 us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
TITANIA Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away: We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
[Exit TITANIA with her Train.]
OBERON Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury.-- My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st 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.
OBERON That very time I saw,--but thou couldst not,-- Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid, all arm'd: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon; And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd 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 here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.
[Exit PUCK.]
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,-- As I can take it with another herb, I'll make her render up her page to me. But who comes here? I am invisible; And I will overhear their conference.
[Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him.]
DEMETRIUS I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. Thou told'st me they were stol'n into this wood, And here am I, and wode within this wood, Because I cannot meet with Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
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 cannot love you?
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, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love, And yet a place of high respect with me,-- Than to be used as you use your dog?
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