A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Уильям Шекспир

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ And, in the spicèd Indian air, by night,

       Full often hath she gossip’d by my side;

       And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,

       Marking the embarkèd traders on the flood;

       When we have laugh’d 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 that boy did die;

       And for her sake do I rear up her boy:

       And for her sake I will not part with him.

       OBERON

       How long within this wood intend you stay?

       TITANIA

       Perchance till after Theseus’ 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.

       OBERON

       Give me that boy and I will go with thee.

       TITANIA

       Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away:

       We shall chide downright if I longer stay.

       [Exit TITANIA with her Train.]

       OBERON

       Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove

       Till I torment thee for this injury.—

       My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember’st

       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 sea-maid’s music.

       PUCK

       I remember.

       OBERON

       That very time I saw,—but thou couldst not,—

       Flying between the cold moon and the earth,

       Cupid, all arm’d: a certain aim he took

       At a fair vestal, thronèd by the west;

       And loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

       As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;

       But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

       Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon;

       And the imperial votaress passed on,

       In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

       Yet mark’d 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-in-idleness.

       Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once:

       The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid

       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.

       PUCK

       I’ll put a girdle round about the earth

       In forty minutes.

       [Exit PUCK.]

       OBERON

       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 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.

       [Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him.]

       DEMETRIUS

       I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.

       Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?

       The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.

       Thou told’st me they were stol’n into this wood,

       And here am I, and wode within this wood,

       Because I cannot meet with Hermia.

       Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

       HELENA

       You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;

       But yet you draw not iron, for my heart

       Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,

       And I shall have no power to follow you.

       DEMETRIUS

       Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?

       Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth

       Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?

       СКАЧАТЬ