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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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ACT II. SCENE I. A wood near Athens Enter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another 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 every where, 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 her 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 speakest 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 withered 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 OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA, at another, with hers OBERON Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. TITANIA What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company. |
