Ob.
Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania.

Queen.
What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence,
I have forsworn his bed and company.

Ob.
Tarry, rash Wanton; am not I thy lord?

Queen.
Then I must be thy lady; but I know,
When thou hast stoll'n away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sate all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To am'rous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the further steep of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Ob.
How can'st thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolita;
Knowing, I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night^{6 note}

From Periguné, whom he ravished;^{7 note}
And make him with fair Ægle break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

Queen.
These are the forgeries of jealousie:
And never since the middle summer's spring^{8 note}

As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every * ^notepelting river^{2 note} made so proud,
That they have over-born their continents.^{3 note}


The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard.
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine-mens morris is fill'd up with mud,^{4 note}
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
The human mortals want their winter here,^{5 note}

No night is now with hymn or carol blest;
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air;

That rheumatick 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 Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
An od'rous chaplet of sweet summer-buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which;^{6 note}
And this same progeny of evil comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.

Ob.
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.^{7 note}

Queen.
Set your heart at rest,
The fairy-land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votress of my order,
And, in the spiced Indian air by night,
Full often she hath gossipt by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking th' embarked traders on the flood,

When we have laught to see the sails conceive,
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind:
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gate,
Following (her womb then rich with my young squire)^{8 note}

Ob.
How long within this wood intend you stay?

Queen.
Perchance, 'till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moon-light revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

Ob.
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.

Queen.
Not for thy fairy kingdom. * ^noteElves, away:
We shall chide down-right, if I longer stay. [Exeunt Queen and her train.

Ob.
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^{9 note}

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 musick.

Puck.
I remember.

Ob.
That very time I saw, but thou could'st not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all-arm'd: a certain aim he took^{1 note}

At a fair Vestal, throned by the west,
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon,
And the Imperial Votress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell,
It fell upon a little western flower;
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound;
And maidens call it Love in idleness.^{2 note}
Fetch me that flow'r; the herb I shew'd thee once;
The juice of it, on sleeping eye-lids laid,
Will make or man, or woman, madly doat
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again,
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league.

Puck.
I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes. [Exit.

Ob.
Having once this juice,
I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes:
The next thing which she waking looks upon,
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On medling monkey, or on busie ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
And ere I take this charm off from 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,^{3 note}
And I will over-hear their conference.

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