do hear the morning lark.
Obe.
Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after night’s shade.
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand’ring moon.
Tita.
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.
Exeunt. Wind horn [within].
Enter Theseus, [Hippolyta, Egeus,] and all his Train.
The.
Go, one of you, find out the forester,
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.
Hip.
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear
With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
The.
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 dewlapp’d like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit; but match’d in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never hollow’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
Judge when you hear. But soft! What nymphs are these?
Ege.
My lord, this’ my daughter here asleep,
And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,
This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena.
I wonder of their being here together.
The.
No doubt they rose up early to observe
The rite of May; and hearing our intent,
Came here in grace of our solemnity.
But speak, Egeus, is not this the day
That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
Ege.
It is, my lord.
The.
Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
[Exit an Attendant] Shout within. Wind horns. They all start up.
Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
Lys.
Pardon, my lord.
[They kneel.]
The.
I pray you all, stand up.
I know you two are rival enemies.
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy
To sleep by hate and fear no enmity?
Lys.
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 I do 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—
Ege.
Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough.
I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
They would have stol’n 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.
Dem.
My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood,
And I in fury hither followed them,
Fair
