Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (18 page)

PUCK

On the ground

Sleep sound:

I’ll apply

To your eye,

Gentle lover, remedy.

PUCK (cont.)

When thou wakest,

Thou takest

True delight

In the sight

Of thy former lady’s eye:

PUCK (cont.)

And the country proverb known,

That every man should take his own,

In your waking shall be shown:

Jack shall have Jill;

Nought shall go ill;

The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.

ACT IV. Scene I (75–101).

O
beron finds Titania sleeping in her bower with the monstrous Bottom. He squeezes another flower into her eyes, and she wakes, free from the spell.

TITANIA

My Oberon! what visions have I seen!

Methought I was enamour’d of an ass.

OBERON

There lies your love.

TITANIA

How came these things to pass?

O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

OBERON

Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.

Titania, music call; and strike more dead

Than common sleep of all these five the sense.

TITANIA

Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!

PUCK

Now, when thou wakest, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.

OBERON

Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,

And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

Now thou and I are new in amity,

And will to-morrow midnight solemnly

Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,

And bless it to all fair prosperity:

There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be

Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

PUCK

Fairy king, attend, and mark:

I do hear the morning lark.

OBERON

Then, my queen, in silence sad,

Trip we after the night’s shade:

We the globe can compass soon,

Swifter than the wandering moon.

TITANIA

Come, my lord, and in our flight

Tell me how it came this night

That I sleeping here was found

With these mortals on the ground.

ACT IV. Scene I (137–198).

A
s Oberon and Titania depart, Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus arrive near the edge of the forest, intending to enjoy a hunt before Hippolyta and Theseus’s wedding later that day. Instead, they find the young lovers sleeping together in a clearing.