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Demetrius

O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

Hermia

Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,
For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep
And kill me too.
The sun was not so true unto the day
As he to me. Would he have stolen away
From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
This whole earth may be bored, and that the moon
May through the center creep, and so displease
Her brother's noon-tide with th' Antipodes.
It cannot be but thou hast murdered him.
So should a murderer look: so dead, so grim.

Helena

Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.

Lysander

Content with Hermia? No, I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love.
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
The will of man is by his reason swayed,
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season;
So I, being young, till now not ripe to reason.
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
Love's stories written in love's richest book.

Lysander

Transparent Helena, nature shows art,
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

Helena

Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.

Lysander

Content with Hermia? No, I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love.
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
The will of man is by his reason swayed,
And reason says you are the worthier maid.

Helena

O, I am out of breath in this fond chase.
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
Happy is Hermia wheresoe'er she lies,
For she hath blessèd and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears —
If so, my eyes are oftener washed than hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
For beasts that meet me run away for fear.
Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
Do as a monster fly my presence thus.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
[Helena sees Lysander asleep, but not Hermia]
But who is here? Lysander, on the ground?
Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.
[Enter Titania, Queen of the fairies, with her attendants]

Titania

Come, now a roundel and a fairy song,
Then for the third part of a minute hence:
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
Some war with reremice for their leathern wings
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep.
Then to your offices and let me rest.
[She lies down. Fairies sing and dance]

First Fairy

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
    Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong,
    Come not near our Fairy Queen.

Quince

and then you will play barefaced. – But masters, here are
your parts, and I am to entreat you, request you, and
desire you to con them by tomorrow night, and meet me
in the palace wood a mile without the town. By moonlight
There will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city
we shall be dogged with company and our devices
known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties
such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not.

Bottom

We will meet, and there we may rehearse most
obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect.
Adieu.

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