A Midsummer Night's Dream - Act 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Act two of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is a
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A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Act two, Scene one,

(00:27):
a wood near Athens. Enter from opposite sides a fairy
and park.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
How now spirit wi a wonder you over hill, over dale,
through bush, through brier, over park, over pale, through flood,
through fire. I do wander everywhere swifter than the moonosphere.
And I serve the fairy queen to dew her orbs
upon the green. The cowslips tall, her pensions be in
their gold coats spots you see, those be Ruby's fairy favors.

(00:59):
In those freckles live their savors. I must go seek
some dewdrops here and hang a pearl in every cowslips here. Farewell,
thou lob of spirits, all be gone, our queen and
all our elves come here.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Anon.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
The king doth keepers rebels here to night take heed.
The queen come not within his sight, for Oberon is
passing fell and wroth, because 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 forest's wild.
But she perforce withholds the loved boy, crowns him with flowers,

(01:34):
and makes him all her joy. And now they never
meet in grove or green by a fountain clear or
spangled starlight sheen, but they do square that all their
elves for fear creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Either I mistake your shape and making quite or else
you are that shrewd and knavish sprite, cold Robin goodfellow,
Are you not he that frightens the maids of the
villagery skim milk and sometimes labor in the kern and bootless,
make the breathless housewife churn, and sometimes make the drink
to ben Obam misleep night wanderers laughing at their harm.

(02:10):
Does that hobgoblin call you and sweet puck? You do
their work and they shall have good luck?

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Are not you he thou.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
Speak'st all right? I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile when I
a fat and bean fed horse, beguile neighing in likeness
of a filly fole, and sometime lurkeye in a gossip's bowl,
in very likeness of a roasted crab. And when she
drinks against her lip side bob and on her with

(02:39):
a dewlap, pour the ale, the wisest aunt, telling the
saddest tale. Sometime for three foot stool mistaketh me then
slip by from her bum down topple. She and tailor
cries and falls into a cough. And then the whole
choir hold their hips and laugh and waxen in their mirth,
and knees and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.

(03:02):
But RUMFERI here comes Oberon, And here my mistress.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Would that he were gone.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Enter from one side Oberon with his train from the other, Titania,
with hers.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Ill met by moonlight. Proud Titania, What jealous Oberon?

Speaker 5 (03:23):
Fairies skip? Hence I have forsworn his bed and company.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Terry rash wanton Am not I thy lord?

Speaker 5 (03:32):
Then I must be thy lady. But I know when
thou hast stolen away from fairyland, and in the shape
of corn sat all day playing on pipes of corn
and versing love to amorous Philida. Why art thou here
come from the farthest step of India, but that forsooth
the bouncing Amazon, your buskined mistress, and your warrior love

(03:57):
to theseus must be wedded, And ye you come to
give their bed joy and prosperity.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
How canst thou thus for shame Titania glance at my
credit with Hippolyta, knowing I know thy love to theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night from Peruginia,
whom he ravished, and make him with fair egle break
his faith with Ariadne and Antiopa.

Speaker 5 (04:23):
These are the forgeries of jealousy. And never since the
middle summer spring met we on hill in dale forest,
or mead by pavid fountain, or by rushy brook, or
in the beeched margin of the sea, to dance our
ringlets to the whistling wind. But with thy brawls thou
hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the winds piping to us

(04:48):
in vain as in revenge, have sucked up from the sea.
Contagious fogs, which falling in the land have every pelting
river made so proud that they have over their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain. The
plowman lost his sweat, and the green corn hath rotted,

(05:09):
ere his youth attained a beard. The fold stands empty
in the drowned field. The crows are fatted with the
murray and 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 here. No night is now with him or

(05:32):
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 season's
altar hoary headed frosts far in the fresh lap of
the crimson rose, and on old Higham's thin and icy crown,

(05:56):
an odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds is as in
mockery set the spring the summer, the child in autumn
angry winter change their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
by their increase, now knows not which is which, And
this same progeny of evils comes from our debate, from

(06:18):
our dissension. We are their parents and original.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Do you amend it, then it lies in you. Why
should Titania cross her Oberon, I do but beg a
little changeling boy to be my henchman.

Speaker 5 (06:32):
Set your heart at rest. The fairyland buys not the
child of me. His mother was a voteress of my order,
and in the spiced Indian air by night full often
hath she gossiped by my side, and sat with me
on Neptune's yellow sands, marking the embarked traders on the flood,

(06:53):
when we have laughed to see the sails conceive and
grow big bellied with the wanton wind, which she with
pretty and with swimming gait following her womb. Then rich
with my young squire, would imitate and sail upon the
land to fetch me trifles, and return again as from
a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal of

(07:17):
that boy, did die. And for her sake do I
rear up her boy? And for her sake I will
not part with him.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
How long within this wood intend you stay.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
Perchance till after theseus's wedding day. If you will patiently
dance in our round and see our moonlight revels, go
with us. If not, shun me, and I will spare
your haunts.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.

Speaker 5 (07:47):
Not for thy fairy kingdom fair is away. We shall
chide downright. If I longer.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Stay, exit Titania with her train, Well go thy way.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Thou shalt not from this grove till I torment thee
for this injury, my gentle puck. Come hither, Thou rememberest.
Since once I sat upon a promontory and heard a
mermaid on a dolphin's back, uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
that the rude sea grew civil at her song, and
certain stars shot madly from their spheres to hear the

(08:23):
sea maid's music. I remember that very time I saw,
but thou couldst not flying between the cold moon and
the earth, Cupid, all armed a certain aim, he took
at a fair vestal throned by the west, and loosed
his love shaft smartly from his bow, as it should
pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But I might see young

(08:46):
Cupid's fiery shaft quenched in the chaste beams of the
watery moon, and the imperial voterests pass on in maiden meditation,
fancy free yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little western flower before milk white,
now purple with love's wound, and maidens call it love

(09:08):
in idleness. Fetch me that flower the herb I showed
thee once the juice of it on sleeping eyelids. Lad
will make or man or woman madly dote upon the
next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb,
and be thou here again. Ere the Leviathan can swim
a league.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
I'll put a girdle round the earth in forty.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
Minutes exit having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when
she is asleep, and drop the liquor of it in
her eyes. The next thing. Then she waking looks upon,
be it on lion, bear or wolf, or bull, on
meddling monkey, or on busy ape, she shall pursue it

(09:50):
with the soul of love. And ere I take this
charm from off her sight, as I can take it
with another herb. I'll make her render up her page
to me. But who comes here, I am invisible, and
I will overhear their conference.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
And heer Demetrius Helena following him.

Speaker 6 (10:11):
I love thee not, therefore pursue me.

Speaker 7 (10:14):
Not.

Speaker 6 (10:15):
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia, the one i'll slay
and the other slayeth me? Thou toldest me they were
stolen unto this wood, And here am I and mowe
within this wood? Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence
get thee gone and follow me no more.

Speaker 8 (10:33):
You draw me, you hard hearted adamant, But yet you
draw not iron, for my heart as true as steel.

Speaker 9 (10:39):
Leave you your.

Speaker 8 (10:40):
Power to draw, and I shall have no power to
follow you.

Speaker 10 (10:43):
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?

Speaker 6 (10:47):
Or rather, do I not?

Speaker 10 (10:48):
In plainest truth tell you I do not, nor I
cannot love you?

Speaker 8 (10:53):
And even for that do I love you. The more
I am your spaniel, and Demetrius, the more you beat me,
I will fall on you. Use me. But as your spaniel,
spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me, only give
me leave, Unworthy as I am to follow you. What
worser place can I beg in your love? And yet
a place of high respect with me than to be

(11:14):
used as you use your.

Speaker 10 (11:15):
Dog tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,
For I am sick when I do.

Speaker 8 (11:20):
Look on thee, and I am sick when I look
not on you.

Speaker 10 (11:23):
You do impeach your modesty too much to leave the
city and commit yourself into the hands of one that
loves you. Not to trust the opportunity of night and
the ill counsel of a desert place with the rich
worth of your virginity.

Speaker 8 (11:41):
Your virtue is my privilege. For that it is not
night when I do see your face. Therefore I think
I am not in the night. Nor doth this wood
lack worlds of company? For you, in my respect, are
all the world. Then how can it be said I
am alone when all the world is here to look
on me.

Speaker 10 (11:58):
I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
and leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

Speaker 8 (12:04):
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.

Speaker 10 (12:21):
I will not say thy questions, let me go, or
if thou follow me, do not believe, but I shall
do THEE mischief in the wood.

Speaker 8 (12:30):
Aye, in the temple, in the town, the field, You
do me mischief. Fi, Demetrius, your wrongs do set a
scandal on my sex. We cannot fight for love as
men may do. We should be wooed, and we're not made.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
To woo Exit, Demetrius.

Speaker 8 (12:46):
I'll follow THEE and make a heaven of hell to
die upon the hand I love so well.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Exit.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Fairly well, nymph ere, he do leave this grove. Thou
shalt fly him, and he shall seek THEE. I love
re Enter puck, hast thou the flower there, welcome wanderer,
Ay there it is, I pray THEE give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where

(13:13):
ox lips and the nodding violet grows quite over, canopied
with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk roses, and with elegantine.
There sleeps Titania some time of the night, lulled in
these flowers with dances and delight. And there the snake
throws her enameled skin weed wide enough to wrap a
fairy in, and with the juice of this, I'll streak

(13:36):
her eyes and make her full of hateful fantasies. Take
thou some of it, and seek through this grove a
sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth.
Annoint his eyes, but do it when the next thing
he espies may be the lady. Thou shalt know the
man by the Athenian garments he hath on. Affect it
with some care, that he may prove more fond of

(13:59):
her than she upon her love. And look, thou meet
me ere the first cock crowl.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Eggsiant scene too, another part of the wood. Enter Titania
with her train.

Speaker 5 (14:20):
Come now a roundle in a fairy song. Then for
the third part of a minute, hence some to kill
cankers in the musk rose buds, some wore with rare
mice for their leathern wings to make my small elves coats.
And some keep back the clamorousal that knightly hoots and
wonders at our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep, then

(14:44):
to your offices, and let me rest.

Speaker 11 (14:56):
You start to say smith doublet us forty birch bars
be not seen, boots by bostrong.

Speaker 7 (15:10):
Connot be a fairy green can a man with valoity
sing baslee Lallaby, the.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Bye, the.

Speaker 7 (15:30):
Bye Never Brissachard habably ladyby sodod night with lollaby green
inside sonty that's long legs the sells beat side love

(15:56):
a choky.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Word, said.

Speaker 7 (16:03):
Yellow man with madody s see lollaby never so much,

(16:25):
Come lovely lady, Southern night with lob.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Night with loble, hence away. Now all is well When
Aloof stands sentinel.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Eggyant fairies. Titania sleeps, enter Oberon and squeezes the flower
on Titania's eyelids.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
What thou seest when thou dost weak, do it for
thy true love? Take love and languish for his sake.
Be it ounce or cat, or bear part or boar
with bristled hair in thy eye, that shall appear when
thou wakest. It is thy dear wake when some vile
thing is near.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Exit, Enter Lysander and Hermia.

Speaker 9 (17:22):
Fair love. You faint with wandering in the wood, and
to speak troth, I have forgot our way. We'll rest
as Hermia. If you think it good and tarry for
the comfort of the day.

Speaker 12 (17:34):
Be it so, Lysander, find you out of bed, for
I upon this bank will rest my head.

Speaker 9 (17:41):
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both one heart,
one bed, two bosoms and one troth.

Speaker 12 (17:50):
Nay, good, Lysander, for my sake, my dear, lie further off. Yet,
do not lie so near.

Speaker 9 (17:56):
Oh, take the sense sweet of my innocence. Love takes
the meaning in love's conference. I mean that my heart
unto yours, is knit, so that but one heart we
can make of it, two bosoms interchained.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
With an oath.

Speaker 9 (18:13):
So then two bosoms and a single troth. Then by
your side, no bedroom, meet deny for lying, So Hermia,
I do not lie.

Speaker 12 (18:23):
Lysander riddles very prettily. Now much beshrew my manners and
my pride. If Hermia meant to say, Lysander lied, but
gentle friend, for love and courtesy, lie further off. In
human modesty, such separation, as may well be said, becomes
a virtuous bachelor and a maid. So far be distant,
and good night, sweet friend, thy love, ne'er altar till

(18:46):
thy sweet life end.

Speaker 9 (18:48):
Amen, Amen to that fair prayer, say I, and then
end life. When I end loyalty, Here is my bed sleep,
Give thee all his rest.

Speaker 12 (19:01):
With half that wish. The wisher's eyes be pressed.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
They sleep, enter puck.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Through the forest. Have I gone, but Athenian found I
none on whose eyes I might approve this flower's force
in stirring love, night and silence. Who is here weeds
of Athens he doth wear? This is he, my master said,
despised the Athenian maid. And here the maiden sleeping sound
on the dank and dirty ground, Pretty soul, she durst

(19:33):
not lie near this lat love, this kill courtesy churl
upon thy eyes. I throw all the power, this charm
doth o. When thou wakest, let love forbid sleep his
seat on thy eyelid so awake when I am gone,
for I must now to Oberon.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Exit entered Demetrius and Helena running.

Speaker 8 (19:55):
Stay though thou kill me, Sweet Demetrius.

Speaker 10 (19:58):
I charge thee hence and do not haunt me.

Speaker 8 (20:02):
Thus, Oh wilt thou darkling leave me?

Speaker 10 (20:04):
Do not so stay on thy peril.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I alone will go exit.

Speaker 8 (20:11):
Oh, 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 blessed 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

(20:32):
meet me run away for fear. Therefore no marvel, though
Demetrius do as a monster fly my presents. Thus what
wicked and dissembling glass of mine made me compare with
Hermia's sphery iron? But who is here, Lysander? On the ground,
dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound, Lysander,

(20:53):
If you live, good, sir.

Speaker 9 (20:54):
Awake and run through fire? I will, for thy sweet sake,
a transparent Helena. Nature shows art that through thy bosom
makes me see thy heart. Where is Demetrius? Oh, how
fit a word is that vile name to perish on
my sword?

Speaker 8 (21:16):
Do not say so, Lysander?

Speaker 10 (21:17):
Say not so?

Speaker 8 (21:19):
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though yet
Hermia still loves you? Then be content.

Speaker 9 (21:25):
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 swade, and reason
says you are the worthier maid. Things growing are not

(21:48):
ripe until there season, So I, being young till now ripe,
not to reason and touching now the point of human skill.
Reason becomes the marsih to my will and leads me
to your eyes, where I er look Love's stories written
in Love's richest book.

Speaker 8 (22:09):
Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at
your hands did I deserve this scorn? Is not enough.
It's not enough, young man, that I did never know,
nor never can deserve a sweet look from Demetrius's eye.
But you must flout my insufficiency. Good troth you do
me wrong? Good sooth you do in such a disdainful
manner meto woo, But fare you well? Perforce I must

(22:31):
confess I thought you lord of more true gentleness. Oh
that a lady of one man refused should of another
therefore be abused.

Speaker 9 (22:39):
Exit she sees not hermia, hermia, sleep thou there, and
never mayst thou come lysander near, For as a surfeit
of the sweetest things, the deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
or as Thai heresies that men do leave are hated
most of those they did deceive. So thou my surfeit

(23:02):
and my heresy of all be hated, But the most
of me and all my powers. Address your love and
might to honor Helen and to be her knight.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Exit.

Speaker 12 (23:17):
Help me, Lysander, help me did thy best to plug
this crawling serpent from my breast?

Speaker 9 (23:23):
I me for pity?

Speaker 12 (23:25):
What a dream was here, Lysander? Look how I did
quake with fear methought a serpent eat my heart away?
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey. Lysander, what removed? Lysander?

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Lord?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
What out of hearing?

Speaker 9 (23:46):
Gone?

Speaker 12 (23:47):
No sound, no word?

Speaker 7 (23:49):
Alack?

Speaker 12 (23:50):
Where are you speak? And if you hear speak of
all loves? I swoon almost with fear. No, then I
well perceive you are not nigh Either death or you
I'll find immediately.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Exit. End of Acts two of A Midsummer Night's Dream