# The Complete Works of William Shakespeare ## Part 132 Book page: https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare-100/index.md FALSTAFF. Divide me like a bribed buck, each a haunch. I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! [_A noise of horns within._] MISTRESS PAGE. Alas, what noise? MISTRESS FORD. Heaven forgive our sins! FALSTAFF. What should this be? MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE. Away, away! [_They run off._] FALSTAFF. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. Enter Mistress Quickly as the Queen of Fairies, Sir Hugh Evans as a Satyr, Pistol as Hobgoblin, Anne Page and children as Fairies, carrying tapers. MISTRESS QUICKLY. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. PISTOL. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys! Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap, Where fires thou find’st unraked and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry. Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. FALSTAFF. They are fairies, he that speaks to them shall die. I’ll wink and couch. No man their works must eye. [_Lies down upon his face._] EVANS Where’s Bead? Go you, and where you find a maid That ere she sleep has thrice her prayers said, Rein up the organs of her fantasy; Sleep she as sound as careless infancy. But those as sleep and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins. MISTRESS QUICKLY. About, about! Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out. Strew good luck, oafs, on every sacred room, That it may stand till the perpetual doom In state as wholesome as in state ’tis fit, Worthy the owner and the owner it. The several chairs of order look you scour With juice of balm and every precious flower. Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest, With loyal blazon, evermore be blest! And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring. Th’ expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And _Honi soit qui mal y pense_ write In em’rald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white, Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee. Fairies use flowers for their charactery. Away, disperse! But till ’tis one o’clock, Our dance of custom round about the oak Of Herne the hunter let us not forget. EVANS. Pray you, lock hand in hand, yourselves in order set; And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, To guide our measure round about the tree. But stay, I smell a man of middle earth. FALSTAFF. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! PISTOL. Vile worm, thou wast o’erlooked even in thy birth. MISTRESS QUICKLY. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end. If he be chaste, the flame will back descend And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. PISTOL. A trial, come. EVANS. Come, will this wood take fire? [_They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts._] FALSTAFF. O, o, o! MISTRESS QUICKLY. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme, And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. SONG. Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie on lust and luxury! Lust is but a bloody fire, Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart, whose flames aspire, As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villainy. Pinch him and burn him and turn him about, Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out. [_During the song they pinch him, and Doctor Caius comes one way and steals away a boy in green; and Slender another way takes a boy in white; Fenton comes in and steals away Anne Page. A noise of hunting is heard within and all the fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck’s head, and rises up._] Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford. PAGE. Nay, do not fly. I think we have watched you now. Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? MISTRESS PAGE. I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.— Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives? See you these, husband? [_She points to the horns._] Do not these fair yokes Become the forest better than the town? FORD. Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave. Here are his horns, Master Brook. And, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook. His horses are arrested for it, Master Brook. MISTRESS FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck, we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer. FALSTAFF. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. FORD. Ay, and an ox too. Both the proofs are extant. FALSTAFF. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent when ’tis upon ill employment! EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh. EVANS. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you. FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her in good English. FALSTAFF. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o’erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb of frieze? ’Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter. Your belly is all putter. FALSTAFF. “Seese” and “putter”? Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm. MISTRESS PAGE. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? FORD. What, a hodge-pudding? A bag of flax? MISTRESS PAGE. A puffed man? PAGE. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails? FORD. And one that is as slanderous as Satan? PAGE. And as poor as Job? FORD. And as wicked as his wife? EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles? FALSTAFF. Well, I am your theme. You have the start of me. I am dejected, I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. Ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me. Use me as you will. FORD. Marry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander. Over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction. PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight. Thou shalt eat a posset tonight at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter. MISTRESS PAGE. [_Aside_.] Doctors doubt that. If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife. Enter Slender. SLENDER Whoa, ho, ho, father Page! PAGE. Son, how now! How now, son, have you dispatched? SLENDER. Dispatched? I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t. Would I were hanged, la, else! PAGE. Of what, son? SLENDER. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i’ the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! And ’tis a postmaster’s boy. PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. SLENDER. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman’s apparel, I would not have had him. PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? SLENDER. I went to her in white and cried “mum”, and she cried “budget”, as Anne and I had appointed, and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy. MISTRESS PAGE. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your purpose, turned my daughter into green, and indeed she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married. Enter Doctor Caius. CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened, I ha’ married _un garçon_, a boy; _un paysan_, by gar, a boy. It is not Anne Page. By gar, I am cozened. MISTRESS PAGE. Why, did you take her in green? CAIUS. Ay, by gar, and ’tis a boy. By gar, I’ll raise all Windsor. FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne? Enter Fenton and Anne Page. PAGE. My heart misgives me. Here comes Master Fenton.—How now, Master Fenton! ANNE. Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon. PAGE. Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender? MISTRESS PAGE. Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid? FENTON. You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it. You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us. Th’ offence is holy that she hath committed, And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or unduteous title, Since therein she doth evitate and shun A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. FORD. Stand not amazed, here is no remedy. In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state. Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! What cannot be eschewed must be embraced. FALSTAFF. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased. MISTRESS PAGE. Well, I will muse no further.—Master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days! Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire, Sir John and all. FORD. Let it be so, Sir John, To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word, For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford. [_Exeunt._] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Contents ACT I Scene I. Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus Scene II. The Same. A Room in a Cottage ACT II Scene I. A wood near Athens Scene II. Another part of the wood ACT III Scene I. The Wood. Scene II. Another part of the wood ACT IV Scene I. The Wood Scene II. Athens. A Room in Quince’s House ACT V Scene I. Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus Dramatis Personæ THESEUS, Duke of Athens HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus EGEUS, Father to Hermia HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander HELENA, in love with Demetrius LYSANDER, in love with Hermia DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus QUINCE, the Carpenter SNUG, the Joiner BOTTOM, the Weaver FLUTE, the Bellows-mender SNOUT, the Tinker STARVELING, the Tailor OBERON, King of the Fairies TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW, a Fairy PEASEBLOSSOM, Fairy COBWEB, Fairy MOTH, Fairy MUSTARDSEED, Fairy 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 not far from it ACT I SCENE I. Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate and Attendants. THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but oh, 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. HIPPOLYTA. 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. THESEUS. Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals; 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 and Demetrius. EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renownèd Duke! THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee? EGEUS. 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 man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child. Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchang’d love-tokens with my child. 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, gauds, 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 it so she will not here before your grace Consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens: As she is mine I may dispose of her; Which shall be either to this gentleman Or to her death, according to our law Immediately provided in that case. THESEUS. 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 To leave the figure, or disfigure it. Demetrius is a worthy gentleman. HERMIA. So is Lysander. THESEUS. In himself he is. But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice, The other must be held the worthier. HERMIA. I would my father look’d but with my eyes. THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look. HERMIA. 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 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. THESEUS. 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, For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-blessèd 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 thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness. HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Ere I will yield my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwishèd yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty. THESEUS. 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 For aye austerity and single life. DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield Thy crazèd title to my certain right. LYSANDER. You have her father’s love, Demetrius. Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him. EGEUS. 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. LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv’d as he, As well possess’d; my love is more than his; My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d, If not with vantage, as Demetrius’; And, which is more than all these boasts can be, 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. THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; But, being over-full 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 yields 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. EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you. [_Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia._] LYSANDER. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast? HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. LYSANDER. Ay me! For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. But either it was different in blood— HERMIA. O cross! Too high to be enthrall’d to low. LYSANDER. Or else misgraffèd in respect of years— HERMIA. O spite! Too old to be engag’d to young. LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends— HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes! LYSANDER. 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. HERMIA. If then true lovers have 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. LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child. From Athens is her house remote seven leagues, 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 lovest me then, Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night; And in the wood, a league without the town (Where I did meet thee once with Helena To do observance to a morn of May), There will I stay for thee. HERMIA. My good Lysander! I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, 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 hast appointed me, Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee. LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena. Enter Helena. HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away? HELENA. 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 tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching. O were favour 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, 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! HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move! HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me. HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me. HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. HELENA. None but your beauty; would that fault were mine! HERMIA. 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 into hell! LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold 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. HERMIA. 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. 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. LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [_Exit Hermia._] Helena, adieu. As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [_Exit Lysander._] HELENA. 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, 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, 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 tomorrow night Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense. But herein mean I to enrich my pain, To have his sight thither and back again. [_Exit Helena._] SCENE II. The Same. A Room in a Cottage Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout and Starveling. QUINCE. Is all our company here? BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. QUINCE. 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. BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point. QUINCE. Marry, our play is _The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe_. BOTTOM. 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 yourselves. QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. BOTTOM. What is Pyramus—a lover, or a tyrant? QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love.