A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 4 Scene 1

Come, sit down on this bed of flowers

while I stroke your lovely cheeks

and stick musk-roses in your sleek smooth head

and kiss your fine big ears, my gentle darling.

Where's Peaseblossom?

Here.

Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where's Monsieur Cobweb?

Here.

Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, take your

weapons in hand and kill me a red-hipped

bumblebee on top of a thistle. And, good

monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Don't exhaust

yourself too much in the process, monsieur. And,

good monsieur, take care the honey-bag doesn't burst —

I'd hate to have you drowned in a

honey-bag, signor. (He is unfailingly polite to creatures the size of insects. It is the most endearing thing in the play.)

Where's Monsieur Mustardseed?

Here.

Give me your fist, Monsieur Mustardseed. Please,

stop bowing, good monsieur.

What do you want?

Nothing, good monsieur, except to help Cavalier Cobweb

with the scratching. I must go to the barber's, monsieur —

I seem to be marvellously hairy about the face. And I'm

such a sensitive donkey that if my hair so much as tickles me,

I have to scratch. (He calls himself a tender ass without hearing it. He has been one for two acts.)

Would you like to hear some music, my sweet love?

I've got a reasonably good ear for music. Let's have

the kitchen tongs and the bones. (She offers a fairy orchestra. He asks for two pieces of scrap metal and some animal bones.)

Or tell me, sweet love, what you'd like to eat.

Honestly — a bucket of animal feed. I could chew on some good

dry oats. I think I've got a great craving for a bundle

of hay. Good hay, sweet hay — nothing like it.

I have a daring fairy who'll go raiding

the squirrel's store and fetch you fresh nuts.

I'd rather have a handful or two of dried peas.

But please, don't let any of your people disturb me —

I've got an exposition of sleep coming over me. ('Disposition.' Even half asleep, he gets the word wrong.)

Sleep, and I'll wrap you in my arms.

Fairies, go — scatter in all directions.

Just as the climbing vine gently twines

around the sweet honeysuckle, and the ivy

rings the rough fingers of the elm.

Oh, how I love you! How I dote on you!

Welcome, good Robin. Do you see this charming sight?

I'm beginning to pity her infatuation.

Meeting her recently behind the wood,

gathering sweet gifts for this loathsome fool,

I scolded her and quarrelled with her.

She had circled his hairy temples

with a crown of fresh, fragrant flowers,

and the same dew that used to sit on the buds

swelling like round eastern pearls

now stood in the little flowers' eyes

like tears weeping over their own humiliation.

When I'd taunted her as much as I liked

and she'd gently begged me to be patient,

I asked her for the changeling boy,

and she handed him over at once and sent a fairy

to carry him to my bower in fairyland.

And now I have the boy, I'll undo

this hateful defect in her eyes. (He humiliated his wife, waited until she was too crushed to argue, and took what he wanted. Then he pities her.)

And, gentle Puck, take this transformed head

off this Athenian workman,

so that when he wakes with the others

they can all go back to Athens

and think no more of tonight's events

than as the wild disturbance of a dream.

But first I'll release the fairy queen.

Be as you used to be;

see as you used to see.

Diana's bud over Cupid's flower

has such strength and blessed power.

Now, my Titania — wake, my sweet queen.

My Oberon! What visions I've had!

I dreamed I was in love with a donkey.

There lies your love.

How did all this happen?

Oh, how my eyes loathe his face now! (She wakes cured, and her first feeling is disgust at a man who did nothing to her.)

Quiet a moment. Robin, take off this head.

Titania, call for music — and put these five

into a sleep deeper than ordinary sleep.

Music! Music that enchants people to sleep!

Now, when you wake, look out with your own foolish eyes.

Play, music! Come, my queen, take my hands,

and let's rock the ground these sleepers lie on.

Now you and I are freshly reconciled,

and tomorrow at midnight we'll formally

dance in Duke Theseus's house in triumph

and bless it with every prosperity.

There the pairs of faithful lovers will be

married alongside Theseus, in high spirits.

Fairy king, listen and take note —

I can hear the morning lark.

Then, my queen, quietly and solemnly,

let's follow after night's shadow.

We can circle the globe soon enough,

faster than the wandering moon.

Come, my lord — and as we fly,

tell me how it happened that tonight

I was found sleeping here

on the ground with these mortals.

One of you, go and find the huntsman.

Our May Day observance is finished,

and since we have the early part of the day ahead,

my love shall hear the music of my hounds.

Unleash them in the western valley — let them run.

Hurry, I say, and find the huntsman.

Fair queen, we'll go up to the mountaintop

and listen to the musical confusion

of hounds and echoes together.

I was once out with Hercules and Cadmus

when they hunted the bear in a Cretan wood

with Spartan hounds. I never heard

such splendid baying. Besides the woods,

the skies, the springs, every place nearby

seemed to join in one single cry. I never heard

such musical discord, such sweet thunder. (She has hunted with Hercules. She is not the decorative bride Theseus thinks he won.)

My hounds are bred from Spartan stock:

the same heavy lips, the same sandy colour, their ears

hanging long enough to sweep the morning dew;

bandy-legged, with folds at the throat like Thessalian bulls;

slow in the chase, but their voices matched like bells,

each pitched below the last. A more tuneful pack

was never shouted to or urged on by a horn

in Crete, in Sparta or in Thessaly.

Judge for yourself when you hear them. — But wait: who are these young women?

My lord, this is my daughter here, asleep,

and this is Lysander; this is Demetrius;

this is Helena, old Nedar's Helena.

I can't imagine why they're all here together.

No doubt they got up early to observe

the May Day rites, and hearing of our plans

came here to honour our ceremony.

But tell me, Egeus — isn't this the day

Hermia was to give her answer?

It is, my lord.

Go, tell the huntsmen to wake them with their horns.

Good morning, friends. Saint Valentine's Day is over —

are these woodland birds only pairing up now?

Forgive us, my lord.

Please, all of you — get up.

I know you two are bitter rivals.

How has this peaceful harmony come about,

with hatred so far from suspicion

that you sleep beside your enemy without fearing him?

My lord, I'll answer in bewilderment,

half asleep and half awake. As yet, I swear,

I honestly can't say how I got here.

But I think — and I want to speak truthfully,

and now it's coming back to me, this is it —

I came here with Hermia. Our plan

was to leave Athens, so we could be

beyond the reach of Athenian law—

Enough, my lord — that's all you need.

I demand the law, the law, on his head.

They meant to run away — they did, Demetrius —

and so cheat you and me:

you of your wife, and me of my authority,

my authority to give her to you as your wife.

My lord, fair Helena told me they were slipping away,

and of their plan to come to this wood.

I followed them here in a rage,

and Helena followed me out of infatuation.

But, my lord, I don't know by what power —

though it's certainly some power — my love for Hermia

has melted like snow. It seems to me now

like the memory of some worthless trinket

I was obsessed with as a child.

And all the devotion, all the strength of my heart,

the focus and delight of my eye,

is Helena alone. I was engaged to her,

my lord, before I ever saw Hermia.

But like a sick man I loathed this food.

Now, back in health and with my normal appetite,

I want it, love it, long for it,

and I'll be true to it forever. (He alone is still drugged. The play ends with one marriage founded on a chemical.)

Fair lovers, this is a lucky meeting.

We'll hear more about all this shortly.

Egeus, I'm overruling you.

In the temple shortly, along with us,

these couples will be permanently joined.

And since the morning is somewhat spent,

we'll set aside the hunt we planned.

Come with us to Athens. Three couples,

and we'll hold a feast with full ceremony.

Come, Hippolyta. (Four acts of law and death threats, undone in one line, because the man's preference changed.)

All this seems small and blurred,

like distant mountains turning into clouds.

I seem to be seeing things with unfocused eyes,

when everything looks doubled.

So do I.

And I've found Demetrius like a jewel:

mine, and not mine.

Are you certain

that we're awake? It seems to me

we're still asleep and dreaming. Don't you think

the Duke was here and told us to follow him?

Yes — and my father.

And Hippolyta.

And he did tell us to follow him to the temple.

Then we must be awake. Let's follow him,

and tell each other our dreams on the way.

When my cue comes, call me and I'll answer. My

next line is 'Most fair Pyramus.' — Hey-ho! Peter

Quince! Flute the bellows-mender! Snout the tinker!

Starveling! — God save me, they've sneaked off and left me

asleep. — I've had the most extraordinary vision. I've had a

dream, and it's beyond human wit to say what it was.

A man is only a donkey if he tries to explain this

dream. I thought I was — no one can say what.

I thought I was, and I thought I had — but a man is only

a motley fool if he tries to say what I thought

I had. The eye of man hasn't heard, the ear of man

hasn't seen, man's hand can't taste, his

tongue can't conceive, nor his heart report, what my

dream was. (He is mangling St Paul, who wrote that no eye has seen what God has prepared. Bottom scrambles every sense — and it comes out truer than the original.)

I'll get Peter Quince to write a ballad about this

dream. It'll be called Bottom's Dream, because it

has no bottom to it. And I'll sing it at the end

of the play in front of the Duke. Perhaps, to make it

go down better, I'll sing it at Thisbe's death.