A Midsummer Night’s Dream - William Shakespeare (best classic novels txt) 📗

the hasty-footed time
For parting us⁠—O, is all forgot?
All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one and crowned with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury. Hermia

I am amazed at your passionate words.
I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.

Helena

Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
And made your other love, Demetrius,
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
And tender me, forsooth, affection,
But by your setting on, by your consent?
What though I be not so in grace as you,
So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
But miserable most, to love unloved?
This you should pity rather than despise.

Hermia I understand not what you mean by this. Helena

Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up:
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.
But fare ye well: ’tis partly my own fault;
Which death or absence soon shall remedy.

Lysander

Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse:
My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!

Helena O excellent! Hermia Sweet, do not scorn her so. Demetrius If she cannot entreat, I can compel. Lysander

Thou canst compel no more than she entreat:
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.
Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do:
I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
To prove him false that says I love thee not.

Demetrius I say I love thee more than he can do. Lysander If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too. Demetrius Quick, come! Hermia Lysander, whereto tends all this? Lysander Away, you Ethiope! Demetrius

No, no; he’ll
Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,
But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!

Lysander

Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!

Hermia

Why are you grown so rude? what change is this,
Sweet love⁠—

Lysander

Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!
Out, loathèd medicine! hated potion, hence!

Hermia Do you not jest? Helena Yes, sooth; and so do you. Lysander Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee. Demetrius

I would I had your bond, for I perceive
A weak bond holds you: I’ll not trust your word.

Lysander

What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.

Hermia

What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love!
Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me:
Why, then you left me⁠—O, the gods forbid!⁠—
In earnest, shall I say?

Lysander

Ay, by my life;
And never did desire to see thee more.
Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;
Be certain, nothing truer; ’tis no jest
That I do hate thee and love Helena.

Hermia

O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!
You thief of love! what, have you come by night
And stolen my love’s heart from him?

Helena

Fine, i’ faith!
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you!

Hermia

Puppet! why so? ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urged her height;
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail’d with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem,
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

Helena

I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
I am a right maid for my cowardice:
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.

Hermia Lower! hark, again. Helena

Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,
Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong’d you;
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
He follow’d you; for love I follow’d him;
But he hath chid me hence and threaten’d me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back
And follow you no further: let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.

Hermia Why, get you gone: who is’t that hinders you? Helena A foolish heart, that I leave here behind. Hermia What, with Lysander? Helena With Demetrius. Lysander Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena. Demetrius No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part. Helena

O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd!
She was a vixen when she went to school;
And though she be but little, she is fierce.

Hermia

“Little” again! nothing but “low” and “little”!
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.

Lysander

Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn.

Demetrius

You are too officious
In her behalf that scorns your services.
Let her alone: speak not of