Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (19 page)

THESEUS

Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

LYSANDER

Pardon, my lord.

THESEUS

I pray you all, stand up.

I know you two are rival enemies:

How comes this gentle concord in the world,

That hatred is so far from jealousy,

To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?

LYSANDER

My lord, I shall reply amazedly,

Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,

I cannot truly say how I came here;

But, as I think,—for truly would I speak,

And now do I bethink me, so it is,—

I came with Hermia hither: our intent

Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,

Without the peril of the Athenian law.

EGEUS

Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:

I beg the law, the law, upon his head.

They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,

Thereby to have defeated you and me,

You of your wife and me of my consent,

Of my consent that she should be your wife.

DEMETRIUS

My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,

Of this their purpose hither to this wood;

And I in fury hither follow’d them,

Fair Helena in fancy following me.

But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,—

But by some power it is,—my love to Hermia,

Melted as the snow, seems to me now

As the remembrance of an idle gaud

Which in my childhood I did dote upon;

And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,

The object and the pleasure of mine eye,

Is only Helena. To her, my lord,

Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia:

But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;

But, as in health, come to my natural taste,

Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,

And will for evermore be true to it.

THESEUS

Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:

Of this discourse we more will hear anon.

Egeus, I will overbear your will;

For in the temple by and by with us

These couples shall eternally be knit:

And, for the morning now is something worn,

Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.

THESEUS (cont.)

Away with us to Athens; three and three,

We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.

Come, Hippolyta.

DEMETRIUS

These things seem small and undistinguishable,

Like far-off mountains turn’d into clouds.

HERMIA

Methinks I see these things with parted eye,

When every thing seems double.

HELENA

So methinks:

And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,

Mine own, and not mine own.

DEMETRIUS

Are you sure

That we are awake? It seems to me

That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think

The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

HERMIA

Yea; and my father.

HELENA

And Hippolyta.