That they have overborne their continents.

The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain,

The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn

Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard.

The fold stands empty in the drowned field,

And crows are fatted with the murrain flock.

The nine men’s morris is filled up with mud,

And the quaint mazes in the wanton green

For lack of tread are undistinguishable.

The human mortals want their winter cheer.

No night is now with hymn or carol blessed.

Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,

Pale in her anger washes all the air,

That rheumatic diseases do abound;

And thorough this distemperature we see

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,

And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mock’ry, set. The spring, the summer,

The childing autumn, angry winter change

Their wonted liveries, and the mazèd world

By their increase now knows not which is which;

And this same progeny of evils comes

From our debate, 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 fairyland 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 gossiped by my side,

And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,

Marking th’embarkèd traders on the flood,

When we have laughed 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.

Exeunt Titania and 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 rememb’rest

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?

ROBIN I remember.

OBERON

That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,

Flying between the cold moon and the earth

Cupid, all armed. A certain aim he took

At a fair vestal thronèd by the west,

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.

But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat‘ry moon,

And the imperial vot’ress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell. 165

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.

ROBIN

I’ll put a girdle round about the earth

In forty minutes. Exit

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 unto this wood,