Lys. Keep promise, love: Look, here comes

Helena.

Enter HELENA,

Her. God speed, fair Helena! Whither away? Hel. 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; 0, were favour so!

Your's would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
My ear should catch your voice,

eye,

my eye your

My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'll give to be to you translated,
O, teach me how you look; and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius heart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move!

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me. Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me. Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. Hel. None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were mine!

Her. 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 unto a hell!

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
Tomorrow night when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry 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.
Her. And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose - beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their council sweet;
There my Lysander and myself shall meet :
And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies,
Farewel, sweet play fellow; 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.
[Exit HERM.
Lys. I will, my Hermia. Helena, adieu:
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

[Exit Lrs. Hel. 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 Hermias'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 every where:
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths, that he was only mine;
And when this bail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's Aight:
Then to the wood will he, to-morrow night,
Pursue her; and for this intelligence

If I have thanks, it is a dear expence:

But herein mean I do enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither, and back again. [Exit.

The same.

SCENE II.

A Room in a Cottage.

Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING.

Quin. Is all our company here?

Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

Quin. 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.

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.

Quin. Marry, our play is

The most lamen

table comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby..

and a merry.

Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll: Masters, spread yourselves.

Quin. Answer, as I call you,

the weaver.

Nick Bottom,

Bot. Ready : Name what part I am for, and proceed.

Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.

Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love.

Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move ftorms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest: Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

,,The raging rocks,

,,With shivering shocks,

,,Shall break the locks

,,Of prison gates!

,,And Phibbus car
,,Shall shine from far,

,,And make and mar

,,The foolish fates.""

This was lofty!

players.

Now name the rest of the

This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein;

a lover is more condoling.

Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
Flu. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. You must take Thisby on you.
Flu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Flu. Nay, faith, let me not play, a woman; I have a beard coming.

Quin. That's all one; you shall play it, in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice; Thisne, Thisne. Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!

Quin. No, no; you must play Pyramus, Flute, you Thisby.

Bot. Well proceed.

Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor.

Star. Here, Peter Quince.

and

Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's Tom Snout, the tinker.

mother.

Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:

and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bot. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the Duke say, Let him roar again, let him roar again.

Quin. An you should do it soo terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies, that they should shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us every mother's son.

Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I