TITANIA	Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
	While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
	And stick musk–roses in thy sleek smooth head,
	And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
BOTTOM	Where's Peaseblossom?
PEASEBLOSSOM	Ready.
BOTTOM	Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?
COBWEB	Ready.	10
BOTTOM	Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your
	weapons in your hand, and kill me a red–hipped
	humble–bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
	mounsieur, bring me the honey–bag. Do not fret
	yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and,
	good mounsieur, have a care the honey–bag break not;
	I would be loath to have you overflown with a
	honey–bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?
MUSTARDSEED	Ready.
BOTTOM	Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,
	leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.
MUSTARDSEED	What's your Will?	20
BOTTOM	Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb
	to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for
	methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I
	am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,
	I must scratch.
TITANIA	What, wilt thou hear some music,
	my sweet love?
BOTTOM	I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have
	the tongs and the bones.
TITANIA	Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
BOTTOM	Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good
	dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle
	of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.	31
TITANIA	I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
	The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
BOTTOM	I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.
	But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I
	have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
TITANIA	Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
	Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.

THESEUS	Go, one of you, find out the forester;	100
	For now our observation is perform'd;
	And since we have the vaward of the day,
	My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
	Uncouple in the western valley; let them go:
	Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
	Exit an Attendant
	We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
	And mark the musical confusion
	Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
HIPPOLYTA	I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
	When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear	110
	With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
	Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
	The skies, the fountains, every region near
	Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
	So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
THESEUS	My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
	So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung
	With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
	Crook–knee'd, and dew–lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
	Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,	120
	Each under each. A cry more tuneable
	Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
	In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
	Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these?
EGEUS	My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;
	And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is;
	This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:
	I wonder of their being here together.
THESEUS	No doubt they rose up early to observe
	The rite of May, and hearing our intent,	130
	Came here in grace our solemnity.
	But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
	That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS	It is, my lord.
THESEUS	Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

	Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:
	Begin these wood–birds but to couple now?
LYSANDER	Pardon, my lord.
THESEUS	I pray you all, stand up.
	I know you two are rival enemies:
	How comes this gentle concord in the world,	140
	That hatred is so far from jealousy,
	To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
LYSANDER	My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
	Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear,
	I cannot truly say how I came here;
	But, as I think,––for truly would I speak,
	And now do I bethink me, so it is,––
	I came with Hermia hither: our intent
	Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
	Without the peril of the Athenian law.	150
EGEUS	Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:
	I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
	They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,
	Thereby to have defeated you and me,
	You of your wife and me of my consent,
	Of my consent that she should be your wife.
DEMETRIUS	My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
	Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
	And I in fury hither follow'd them,
	Fair Helena in fancy following me.	160
	But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,––
	But by some power it is,––my love to Hermia,
	Melted as the snow, seems to me now
	As the remembrance of an idle gaud
	Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
	And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
	The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
	Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
	Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:
	But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;	170
	But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
	Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
	And will for evermore be true to it.
THESEUS	Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:

DEMETRIUS	These things seem small and undistinguishable,
HERMIA	Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
	When every thing seems double.
HELENA	So methinks:
	And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
	Mine own, and not mine own.
DEMETRIUS	Are you sure
	That we are awake? It seems to me	190
	That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
	The duke was here, and bid us follow him?
HERMIA	Yea; and my father.
HELENA	And Hippolyta.
LYSANDER	And he did bid us follow to the temple.
DEMETRIUS	Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him
	And by the way let us recount our dreams.
	Exeunt
BOTTOM	Awaking
	When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh–ho!
	Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows–mender! Snout,
	the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen
	hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
	vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
	say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
	about to expound this dream. Methought I was––there
	is no man can tell what. Methought I was,––and
	methought I had,––but man is but a patched fool, if
	he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye	206
	of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
	seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
	to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
	was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
	this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
	because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
	latter end of a play, before the duke:
	peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
	sing it at her death.
	Exit