1    Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
2    While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
3    And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
4    And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

5    Where's Peaseblossom?

6    Ready.

7    Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?

8    Ready.

9    Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your
10   weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped
11   humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
12   mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret
13   yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,
14   good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not;
15   I would be loath to have you overflown with a
16   honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?

17   Ready.

18   Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,
19   leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.

20   What's your Will?

21   Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb
22   to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for
23   methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I
24   am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,
25   I must scratch.

26   What, wilt thou hear some music,
27   my sweet love?

28   I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have
29   the tongs and the bones.

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

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

34   I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
35   The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

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

39   Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
40   Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.
Exeunt fairies
41   So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
42   Gently entwist; the female ivy so
43   Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
44   O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

Advancing
45    Welcome, good Robin.
46   See'st thou this sweet sight?
47   Her dotage now I do begin to pity:
48   For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
49   Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool,
50   I did upbraid her and fall out with her;
51   For she his hairy temples then had rounded
52   With a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
53   And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
54   Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
55   Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes
56   Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
57   When I had at my pleasure taunted her
58   And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,
59   I then did ask of her her changeling child;
60   Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
61   To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
62   And now I have the boy, I will undo
63   This hateful imperfection of her eyes:
64   And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
65   From off the head of this Athenian swain;
66   That, he awaking when the other do,
67   May all to Athens back again repair
68   And think no more of this night's accidents
69   But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
70   But first I will release the fairy queen.
71   Be as thou wast wont to be;
72   See as thou wast wont to see:
73   Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
74   Hath such force and blessed power.
75   Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.

76   My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
77   Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.

78   There lies your love.

79   How came these things to pass?
80   O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

81   Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
82   Titania, music call; and strike more dead
83   Than common sleep of all these five the sense.

84   Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!

85   Now, when thou wakest, with thine
86   own fool's eyes peep.

87   Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,
88   And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
89   Now thou and I are new in amity,
90   And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
91   Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
92   And bless it to all fair prosperity:
93   There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
94   Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

95   Fairy king, attend, and mark:
96   I do hear the morning lark.

97   Then, my queen, in silence sad,
98   Trip we after the night's shade:
99   We the globe can compass soon,
100  Swifter than the wandering moon.

101  Come, my lord, and in our flight
102  Tell me how it came this night
103  That I sleeping here was found
104  With these mortals on the ground.
Exeunt

105  Go, one of you, find out the forester;
106  For now our observation is perform'd;
107  And since we have the vaward of the day,
108  My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
109  Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:
110  Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
Exit an Attendant
111  We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
112  And mark the musical confusion
113  Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

114  I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
115  When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
116  With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
117  Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
118  The skies, the fountains, every region near
119  Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
120  So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

121  My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
122  So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung
123  With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
124  Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
125  Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
126  Each under each. A cry more tuneable
127  Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
128  In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
129  Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?

130  My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;
131  And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;
132  This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:
133  I wonder of their being here together.

134  No doubt they rose up early to observe
135  The rite of May, and hearing our intent,
136  Came here in grace our solemnity.
137  But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
138  That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

139  It is, my lord.

140  Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
141  Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:
142  Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

143  Pardon, my lord.

144  I pray you all, stand up.
145  I know you two are rival enemies:
146  How comes this gentle concord in the world,
147  That hatred is so far from jealousy,
148  To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?

149  My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
150  Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,
151  I cannot truly say how I came here;
152  But, as I think,--for truly would I speak,
153  And now do I bethink me, so it is,--
154  I came with Hermia hither: our intent
155  Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
156  Without the peril of the Athenian law.

157  Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:
158  I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
159  They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,
160  Thereby to have defeated you and me,
161  You of your wife and me of my consent,
162  Of my consent that she should be your wife.

163  My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
164  Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
165  And I in fury hither follow'd them,
166  Fair Helena in fancy following me.
167  But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,--
168  But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia,
169  Melted as the snow, seems to me now
170  As the remembrance of an idle gaud
171  Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
172  And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
173  The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
174  Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
175  Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:
176  But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;
177  But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
178  Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
179  And will for evermore be true to it.

180  Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
181  Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
182  Egeus, I will overbear your will;
183  For in the temple by and by with us
184  These couples shall eternally be knit:
185  And, for the morning now is something worn,
186  Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.
187  Away with us to Athens; three and three,
188  We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
189  Come, Hippolyta.

190  These things seem small and undistinguishable,

191  Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
192  When every thing seems double.

193  So methinks:
194  And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
195  Mine own, and not mine own.

196  Are you sure
197  That we are awake? It seems to me
198  That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
199  The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

200  Yea; and my father.

201  And Hippolyta.

202  And he did bid us follow to the temple.

203  Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him
204  And by the way let us recount our dreams.

Awaking
205   When my cue comes, call me, and I will
206  answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
207  Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
208  the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
209  hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
210  vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
211  say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
212  about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there
213  is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and
214  methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if
215  he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
216  of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
217  seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
218  to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
219  was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
220  this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
221  because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
222  latter end of a play, before the duke:
223  peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
224  sing it at her death.