HERMIA
O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
LYSANDER
Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--
HERMIA
O spite! too old to be engaged to young.
LYSANDER
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--
HERMIA
O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
LYSANDER
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
LYSANDER
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
LYSANDER
Making it momentany as a sound,
LYSANDER
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
LYSANDER
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
LYSANDER
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
LYSANDER
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
LYSANDER
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
LYSANDER
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA
If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
HERMIA
It stands as an edict in destiny:
HERMIA
Then let us teach our trial patience,
HERMIA
Because it is a customary cross,
HERMIA
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
HERMIA
Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.
LYSANDER
A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.
LYSANDER
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
LYSANDER
Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
LYSANDER
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
LYSANDER
And she respects me as her only son.
LYSANDER
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
LYSANDER
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
LYSANDER
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
LYSANDER
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
LYSANDER
And in the wood, a league without the town,
LYSANDER
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
LYSANDER
To do observance to a morn of May,
LYSANDER
There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA
I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,
HERMIA
By his best arrow with the golden head,
HERMIA
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
HERMIA
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
HERMIA
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
HERMIA
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
HERMIA
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
HERMIA
In number more than ever women spoke,
HERMIA
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
HERMIA
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER
Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
HERMIA
God speed fair Helena! whither away?
HELENA
Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
HELENA
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
HELENA
Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
HELENA
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
HELENA
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
HELENA
Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
HELENA
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
HELENA
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
HELENA
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
HELENA
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
HELENA
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
HELENA
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
HELENA
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.
HERMIA
I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA
O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA
I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA
O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA
The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA
The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA
None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!
HERMIA
Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
HERMIA
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
HERMIA
Before the time I did Lysander see,
HERMIA
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
HERMIA
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
HERMIA
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
LYSANDER
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
LYSANDER
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
LYSANDER
Her silver visage in the watery glass,
LYSANDER
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
LYSANDER
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
LYSANDER
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.
HERMIA
And in the wood, where often you and I
HERMIA
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,
HERMIA
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
HERMIA
There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
HERMIA
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
HERMIA
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
HERMIA
Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;
HERMIA
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
HERMIA
Keep word, [Person 6]: we must starve our sight
LYSANDER
[PERSON 4]: Keep word, we must starve our sight
HERMIA
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER
I will, my Hermia.
LYSANDER
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
HELENA
How happy some o'er other some can be!
HELENA
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
HELENA
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
HELENA
He will not know what all but he do know:
HELENA
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
HELENA
So I, admiring of his qualities:
HELENA
Things base and vile, folding no quantity,
HELENA
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
HELENA
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
HELENA
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:
HELENA
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;
HELENA
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
HELENA
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
HELENA
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
HELENA
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
HELENA
So the boy Love is perjured every where:
HELENA
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
HELENA
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
HELENA
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
HELENA
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
HELENA
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
HELENA
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
HELENA
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
HELENA
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
HELENA
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
HELENA
To have his sight thither and back again.
