Her. What can you do me greater harm than hate? Hate me! wherefore? O me! what means my love? Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander? I am as fair now as I was erewhile. Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left And never did desire to see thee more. Therefore, be out of hope, of question, doubt ; That I do hate thee, and love Helena. Her. O me som! 20 You thief of love! what, have you come by night, And stol'n my love's heart from him? Hel. Fine, i'faith' Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, No touch of bashfulness? What! will you tear Impatient answers from my gentle tongue ? Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you! Her. Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the game. Now I perceive that she hath made compare 20 The canker is a worm that preys on the leaves or buds of flowers, always beginning in the middle. So before, in this play Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds." How low am I? I am not yet so low, But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. Hel. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me: I was never curst; 21 I have no gift at all in shrewishness; I am a right maid for my cowardice: Let her not strike me: You, perhaps, may think, Her. Lower! hark, again. Hel. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. I evermore did love you, Hermia, Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you; I told him of your stealth unto this wood: Her. Why, get you gone: Who is't that hin ders you? Hel. A foolish heart that I leave here behind. Hel. With Demetrius. Lys. Be not afraid she shall not harm thee. Helena. Dem. No, sir; she shall not, though you take her part. Hel. O! when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd : That is, froward, cross, ill-conditioned, or ill-spoken. She was a vixen, when she went to school; Her. Little again! nothing but low and little!Why will you suffer her to flout me thus ? Let me come to her. Lys. 22 Get you gone, you dwarf' You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made; You bead, you acorn! Dem. You are too officious In her behalf that scorns your services : Take not her part: for if thou dost intend Thou shalt aby it.23 Lys. Now she holds me not; Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right, Dem. Follow? nay, I'll go with thee cheek by jowl. [Exeunt Lys. and DEM. Her. You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you : Nay, go not back. I will not trust you, I; 25 Hel. 24 [Exit. Her. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say. [Exit, pursuing HELENA. Knot-grass, it seems, was anciently supposed to stop the growth of those to whom it was applied. Thus, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, Act ii. sc. 2: The child's a fatherless child, and say they should put him into a strait pair of gaskins, 'twere worse than knot-grass; he would never grow after it." "O, who can tell the hidden power of herbs, and might of magic spell!" Knot-grass is a low, creeping herb. H. 23 That is, pay dearly for it, rue it. See note 14. 24 Is owing to you, is caused by you. 25 Curst is shrewish, sviteful, not cursed, as readers are apt to suppose. Obe. This is thy negligence: still thou mis tak'st, Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully. Puck. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook. Did not you tell me I should know the man By the Athenian garments he had on? And so far blameless proves my enterprise, That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes: And so far am I glad it so did sort, As this their jangling I esteem a sport. Obe. Thou seest, these lovers seek a place to fight: Hie, therefore, Robin, overcast the night; The starry welkin cover thou anon With drooping fog, as black as Acheron ; And back to Athens shall the lovers wend, With league whose date till death shall never end. I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy; From monster's view, and all things shall be peace. Puck. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste; For night's swift dragons 26 cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, 27 Troop home to church-yards: damned spirits all, For fear lest day should look their shames upon, I with the Morning's love 28 have oft made sport; 28 The chariot of Madam Night was anciently drawn by a team of dragons, that is, serpents, who were thought to be always awake, because they slept with their eyes open; and therefore were selected for this purpose. So, in Cymbeline, Act ii. sc. 2: "Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night." And in Milton's Il Peuseroso: "Smoothing the rugged brow of night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke." H. 27 The ghosts of self-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads; and of those who being drowned were condemned (according to the opinion of the ancients) to wander for a hundred years, as the rites of sepulture had never been regularly bestowed on their bodies. See the fine passage in Hamlet, Act i. se. 1: "I'ave heard, the cock, that is the trumpet of the morn," &c. Cephalus, the mighty hunter, and paramour of Aurort was here probably meant. 29 This, it is thought, may have been suggested by the follow ing from Chaucer's Knight's Tale : "The besy larke, the messager of day, H. |