Enter a Fairy at one door, and Puck at another.
Puck. How now, fpirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bufh, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones fphere;
And I ferve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowflips tall her penfioners be;
In their gold coats spots you fee;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their favours:
feek fome dew-drops here,
go
And hang a pearl in every cowflip's ear.
Farewel, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone;
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night;
Take heed, the queen come not within his fight.
For Oberon is paffing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, ftol'n from an Indian king;
She never had fo fweet a changeling:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:
But fhe, perforce, withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy:
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled ftar-light sheen,
But they do fquare; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.
Fai. Either I mistake your thape and making quite,
Or else you are that fhrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Good-fellow: are you not he,
That fright the maidens of the villag'ry;
Skim milk; and fometimes labour in the quern,
And bootlefs make the breathlefs housewife churn;
And fometimes make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they fhall have good luck :
Are not you he?
Thou speak ft aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jeft to Oberon, and make him fmile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horfe beguile,
Neighing in likenefs of a filly foal:
And fometime lurk I in a goffip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roafted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wifeft aunt, telling the faddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot ftool mistaketh me;
Then flip I from her bum, down topples fhe,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wafted there.
But room, Faery, here comes Oberon.
Fai. And here my mistress :-'Would that he were gone!
Enter OBERON, at one door, with his train, and TITANIA, at another, with hers.
Obe. Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania.
Tita. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, fkip hence;
I have forfworn his bed and company.
Obe. Tarry, rash wanton; Am not I thy lord ?
Tita. Then I must be thy lady: But I know
When thou haft ftol'n away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin fat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the fartheft fteep of India?
But that, forfooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd miftrefs, and your warrior love,
To Thefeus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.
Obe. How canft thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Thefeus?
Didit thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished ?
And make him with fair Æglé break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?
Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy :
And never, fince the middle fummer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, foreft, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou haft disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have fuck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made fo proud,
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman loft his fweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard:
The fold ftands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine-men's morris is fill'd up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable:
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol bleft:-
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic difeafes do abound:
And, thorough this diftemperature, we see
The seasons alter: hoary headed frofts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of fweet fummer buds
Is, as in mockery, fet: The spring, the fummer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this fame progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our diffenfion;
We are their parents and original.
Obe. Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
Why fhould Titania cross her Oberon ?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my henchman.
Tita.
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot'refs of my order:
And, in the fpiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath fhe goffip'd by my fide;
And fat with me on Neptune's yellow fands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood;
When we have laugh'd to see the fails conceive,
And grow big-bellied, with the wanton wind:
Which fhe, with pretty and with swimming gait,
(Following her womb, then rich with my young 'fquire,)
Would imitate; and fail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandize.
But the, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And, for her fake, I do rear up her boy:
And, for her fake, I will not part with him.
Obe. How long within this wood intend you ftay? Tita. Perchance, till after Thefeus' wedding-day. you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moon-light revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will fpare your haunts.
Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
Tita. Not for thy kingdom.-Fairies, away:
We shall chide down-right, if I longer stay.
[Exeunt TITANIA, and her train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove, Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither: Thou remember'st
Since once I fat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
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