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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 valor flies.

Demetrius

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.

Titania

Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge have sucked up from the sea
Contagious fogs, which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard.
The fold stands empty in the drownèd field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock.
The nine men's morris is filled up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable.
The human mortals want their winter cheer;
No night is now with hymn or carol blessed.
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
Fall 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 mock’ry, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazèd world,
By their increase now knows not which is which.

Oberon

How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigouna, whom he ravished,
And make him, with fair Aegles, break his faith
With Ariadne and Antiopa?

Robin 

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.

Helena

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

Helena

Sickness is catching. O, were favor so!
Your words I catch, fair Hermia. Ere I go,
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Hermia

I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head,
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burned the Carthage queen
When the false Trojan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke –
(In number more than ever women spoke) –
In that same place thou hast appointed me
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.

Hermia

I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head,
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burned the Carthage queen
When the false Trojan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke –
(In number more than ever women spoke) –
In that same place thou hast appointed me
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.

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