SCENE I. A wood near Athens. A Midsummer Night's Dream  Shakespeare homepage  |  Midsummer Night's Dream  | Act 2, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. A wood near Athens. 

 Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK  PUCK  How now, spirit! whither wander you? 

 Fairy  Over hill, over dale, 

 Thorough bush, thorough brier, 

 Over park, over pale, 

 Thorough flood, thorough fire, 

 I do wander everywhere, 

 Swifter than the moon's sphere; 

 And I serve the fairy queen, 

 To dew her orbs upon the green. 

 The cowslips tall her pensioners be: 

 In their gold coats spots you see; 

 Those be rubies, fairy favours, 

 In those freckles live their savours: 

 I must go seek some dewdrops here 

 And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. 

 Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone: 

 Our queen and all our elves come here anon. 

 PUCK  The king doth keep his revels here to-night: 

 Take heed the queen come not within his sight; 

 For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, 

 Because that she as her attendant hath 

 A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; 

 She never had so sweet a changeling; 

 And jealous Oberon would have the child 

 Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; 

 But she 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 starlight sheen, 

 But, they do square, that all their elves for fear 

 Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there. 

 Fairy  Either I mistake your shape and making quite, 

 Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite 

 Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he 

 That frights the maidens of the villagery; 

 Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern 

 And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; 

 And sometime 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 shall have good luck: 

 Are not you he? 

 PUCK  Thou speak'st aright; 

 I am that merry wanderer of the night. 

 I jest to Oberon and make him smile 

 When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, 

 Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: 

 And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, 

 In very likeness of a roasted crab, 

 And when she drinks, against her lips I bob 

 And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. 

 The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, 

 Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; 

 Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, 

 And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; 

 And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, 

 And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear 

 A merrier hour was never wasted there. 

 But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon. 

 Fairy  And here my mistress. Would that he were gone! 



 Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers  OBERON  Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. 

 TITANIA  What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence: 

 I have forsworn his bed and company. 

 OBERON  Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord? 

 TITANIA  Then I must be thy lady: but I know 

 When thou hast stolen away from fairy land, 

 And in the shape of Corin sat all day, 

 Playing on pipes of corn and versing love 

 To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, 

 Come from the farthest Steppe 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. 

 OBERON  How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, 

 Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, 

 Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? 

 Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night 

 From Perigenia, whom he ravished? 

 And make him with fair AEgle break his faith, 

 With Ariadne and Antiopa? 

 TITANIA  These are the forgeries of jealousy: 

 And never, since the middle summer's spring, 

 Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, 

 By paved fountain or by rushy brook, 

 Or in the beached margent of the sea, 

 To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, 

 But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. 

 Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, 

 As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea 

 Contagious fogs; which falling in the land 

 Have every pelting river made so proud 

 That they have overborne their continents: 

 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 murrion 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 blest: 

 Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, 

 Pale in her anger, washes all the air, 

 That rheumatic diseases do abound: 

 And thorough this distemperature we see 

 The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts 

 Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, 

 And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown 

 An odorous 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: 

 And this same progeny of evils comes 

 From our debate, from our dissension; 

 We are their parents and original. 

 OBERON  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. 

 TITANIA  Set your heart at rest: 

 The fairy land buys not the child of me. 

 His mother was a votaress of my order: 

 And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, 

 Full often hath she gossip'd by my side, 

 And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, 

 Marking the embarked traders on the flood, 

 When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive 

 And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; 

 Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait 

 Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,-- 

 Would imitate, and sail upon the land, 

 To fetch me trifles, and return again, 

 As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. 

 But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; 

 And for her sake do I rear up her boy, 

 And for her sake I will not part with him. 

 OBERON  How long within this wood intend you stay? 

 TITANIA  Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. 

 If you will patiently dance in our round 

 And see our moonlight revels, go with us; 

 If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. 

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

 TITANIA  Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away! 

 We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. 



 Exit TITANIA with her train  OBERON  Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove 

 Till I torment thee for this injury. 

 My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest 

 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 music. 

 PUCK  I remember. 

 OBERON  That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, 

 Flying between the cold moon and the earth, 

 Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took 

 At a fair vestal throned by the west, 

 And loosed 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 watery moon, 

 And the imperial votaress 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. 

 Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: 

 The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid 

 Will make or man or woman madly dote 

 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  OBERON  Having once this juice, 

 I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, 

 And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. 

 The next thing then she waking looks upon, 

 Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, 

 On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, 

 She shall pursue it with the soul of love: 

 And ere I take this charm from off 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; 

 And I will overhear their conference. 



 Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him  DEMETRIUS  I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. 

 Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? 

 The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. 

 Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood; 

 And here am I, and wode within this wood, 

 Because I cannot meet my Hermia. 

 Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. 

 HELENA  You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; 

 But yet you draw not iron, for my heart 

 Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, 

 And I shall have no power to follow you. 

 DEMETRIUS  Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? 

 Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth 

 Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you? 

 HELENA  And even for that do I love you the more. 

 I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, 

 The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: 

 Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, 

 Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, 

 Unworthy as I am, to follow you. 

 What worser place can I beg in your love,-- 

 And yet a place of high respect with me,-- 

 Than to be used as you use your dog? 

 DEMETRIUS  Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; 

 For I am sick when I do look on thee. 

 HELENA  And I am sick when I look not on you. 

 DEMETRIUS  You do impeach your modesty too much, 

 To leave the city and commit yourself 

 Into the hands of one that loves you not; 

 To trust the opportunity of night 

 And the ill counsel of a desert place 

 With the rich worth of your virginity. 

 HELENA  Your virtue is my privilege: for that 

 It is not night when I do see your face, 

 Therefore I think I am not in the night; 

 Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, 

 For you in my respect are all the world: 

 Then how can it be said I am alone, 

 When all the world is here to look on me? 

 DEMETRIUS  I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, 

 And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts. 

 HELENA  The wildest hath not such a heart as you. 

 Run when you will, the story shall be changed: 

 Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase; 

 The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind 

 Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed, 

 When cowardice pursues and valour flies. 

 DEMETRIUS  I will not stay thy questions; let me go: 

 Or, if thou follow me, do not believe 

 But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. 

 HELENA  Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, 

 You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! 

 Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: 

 We cannot fight for love, as men may do; 

 We should be wood and were not made to woo. 



 Exit DEMETRIUS  I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, 

 To die upon the hand I love so well. 



 Exit  OBERON  Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove, 

 Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love. 



 Re-enter PUCK  Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. 

 PUCK  Ay, there it is. 

 OBERON  I pray thee, give it me. 

 I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, 

 Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, 

 Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 

 With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: 

 There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, 

 Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight; 

 And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, 

 Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: 

 And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, 

 And make her full of hateful fantasies. 

 Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: 

 A sweet Athenian lady is in love 

 With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; 

 But do it when the next thing he espies 

 May be the lady: thou shalt know the man 

 By the Athenian garments he hath on. 

 Effect it with some care, that he may prove 

 More fond on her than she upon her love: 

 And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow. 

 PUCK  Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so. 



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