OBERON	I wonder if Titania be awaked;
	Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
	Which she must dote on in extremity.
	Enter PUCK
	Here comes my messenger.
	How now, mad spirit!
	What night–rule now about this haunted grove?
PUCK	My mistress with a monster is in love.
	Near to her close and consecrated bower,
	While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
	A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
	That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,	10
	Were met together to rehearse a play
	Intended for great Theseus' nuptial–day.
	The shallowest thick–skin of that barren sort,
	Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
	Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake
	When I did him at this advantage take,
	An ass's nole I fixed on his head:
	Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
	And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
	As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,	20
	Or russet–pated choughs, many in sort,
	Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
	Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
	So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;
	And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;
	He murder cries and help from Athens calls.
	Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears
	thus strong,
	Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
	For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
	Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all
	things catch.	30
	I led them on in this distracted fear,
	And left sweet Pyramus translated there:
	When in that moment, so it came to pass,
	Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.
OBERON	This falls out better than I could devise.
	But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes

OBERON	Stand close: this is the same Athenian.
PUCK	This is the woman, but not this the man.
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	50
	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 centre creep and so displease
	Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.
	It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;
	So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.
DEMETRIUS	So should the murder'd look, and so should I,
	Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:
	Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,	60
	As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
HERMIA	What's this to my Lysander? where is he?
	Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
DEMETRIUS	I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
HERMIA	Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds
	Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
	Henceforth be never number'd among men!
	O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!
	Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,
	And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!	70
	Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
	An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
	Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
DEMETRIUS	You spend your passion on a misprised mood:
	I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
	Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
HERMIA	I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
DEMETRIUS	An if I could, what should I get therefore?
HERMIA	A privilege never to see me more.
	And from thy hated presence part I so:	80