A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 4, Scene 1

William Shakespeare

The story so far

Earlier in the play

Hermia and Lysander flee Athens to escape her enforced marriage to Demetrius; Helena follows him into the wood. Oberon enchants Titania over her refusal to surrender an Indian boy. Puck gives Bottom an ass’s head, and Titania falls in love with him; Puck mistakenly enchants Lysander to love Helena.

In the last scene: Act 3, Scene 2

Oberon enchants Demetrius, who wakes loving Helena. Both men court her; she accuses them and Hermia of mockery. The women quarrel, and the men leave to fight. Puck imitates their voices to keep them apart until all four sleep, then applies the remedy to Lysander’s eyes. Oberon leaves to seek Titania’s boy and release her from the spell.

SCENE I. The Wood

Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia still asleep.

Enter Titania and Bottom; Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed and other Fairies attending; Oberon behind, unseen.

TITANIA

Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

BOTTOM

Where’s Peaseblossom?

PEASEBLOSSOM

Ready.

BOTTOM

Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s Monsieur Cobweb?

COBWEB

Ready.

BOTTOM

Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where’s Monsieur Mustardseed?

MUSTARDSEED

Ready.

BOTTOM

Give me your neaf, Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur.

MUSTARDSEED

What’s your will?

BOTTOM

Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber’s, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.

TITANIA

What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

BOTTOM

I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let us have the tongs and the bones.

TITANIA

Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

BOTTOM

Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

TITANIA

I have a venturous fairy that shall seekThe squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

BOTTOM

I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

TITANIA

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckleGently entwist, the female ivy soEnrings the barky fingers of the elm.O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!

They sleep.

Oberon advances. Enter Puck.

OBERON

Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?Her dotage now I do begin to pity.For, meeting her of late behind the wood,Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,I did upbraid her and fall out with her:For she his hairy temples then had roundedWith coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;And that same dew, which sometime on the budsWas wont to swell like round and orient pearls,Stood now within the pretty flouriets’ eyes,Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.When I had at my pleasure taunted her,And she in mild terms begg’d my patience,I then did ask of her her changeling child;Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sentTo bear him to my bower in fairyland.And now I have the boy, I will undoThis hateful imperfection of her eyes.And, gentle Puck, take this transformèd scalpFrom off the head of this Athenian swain,That he awaking when the other do,May all to Athens back again repair,And think no more of this night’s accidentsBut as the fierce vexation of a dream.But first I will release the Fairy Queen.

Touching her eyes with an herb.

OBERON

Be as thou wast wont to be;See as thou was wont to see.Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flowerHath such force and blessed power.Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.

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 deadThan common sleep, of all these five the sense.

TITANIA

Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep.

PUCK

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

OBERON

Sound, music.

Still music.

OBERON

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 tomorrow midnight solemnlyDance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,And bless it to all fair prosperity:There shall the pairs of faithful lovers beWedded, 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 night’s shade.We the globe can compass soon,Swifter than the wand’ring moon.

TITANIA

Come, my lord, and in our flight,Tell me how it came this nightThat I sleeping here was foundWith these mortals on the ground.

Exeunt. Horns sound within.

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train.

THESEUS

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.

THESEUS

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top,And mark the musical confusionOf hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIPPOLYTA

I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bearWith hounds of Sparta. Never did I hearSuch gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,The skies, the fountains, every region nearSeem’d all one mutual cry. I never heardSo musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

THESEUS

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hungWith ears that sweep away the morning dew;Crook-knee’d and dewlap’d like Thessalian bulls;Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells,Each under each. A cry more tuneableWas never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.Judge when you hear.—But, soft, what nymphs are these?

EGEUS

My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,And this Lysander; this Demetrius is;This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena:I wonder of their being here together.

THESEUS

No doubt they rose up early to observeThe rite of May; and, hearing our intent,Came here in grace of our solemnity.But speak, Egeus; is not this the dayThat Hermia should give answer of her choice?

EGEUS

It is, my lord.

THESEUS

Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

Horns, and shout within. Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena wake and start up.

THESEUS

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

LYSANDER

Pardon, my lord.

He and the rest kneel to Theseus.

THESEUS

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 jealousyTo sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?

LYSANDER

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 intentWas to be gone from Athens, where we might beWithout the peril of the Athenian law.

EGEUS

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.

DEMETRIUS

My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,Of this their purpose hither to this wood;And I in fury hither follow’d them,Fair Helena in fancy following me.But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,(But by some power it is) my love to Hermia,Melted as the snow, seems to me nowAs the remembrance of an idle gaudWhich in my childhood I did dote upon;And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,The object and the pleasure of mine eye,Is only Helena. To her, my lord,Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia.But like a sickness did I loathe this food.But, as in health, come to my natural taste,Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,And will for evermore be true to it.

THESEUS

Fair lovers, you are fortunately met.Of this discourse we more will hear anon.Egeus, I will overbear your will;For in the temple, by and by with us,These couples shall eternally be knit.And, for the morning now is something worn,Our purpos’d hunting shall be set aside.Away with us to Athens. Three and three,We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.Come, Hippolyta.

Exeunt Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train.

DEMETRIUS

These things seem small and undistinguishable,Like far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.

HERMIA

Methinks I see these things with parted eye,When everything seems double.

HELENA

So methinks.And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,Mine own, and not mine own.

DEMETRIUS

Are you sureThat we are awake? It seems to meThat yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you thinkThe Duke was here, and bid us follow him?

HERMIA

Yea, and my father.

HELENA

And Hippolyta.

LYSANDER

And he did bid us follow to the temple.

DEMETRIUS

Why, then, we are awake: let’s follow him,And by the way let us recount our dreams.

Exeunt.

BOTTOM

When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is ‘Most fair Pyramus.’ Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God’s my life! Stol’n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.

Exit.

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Themes

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Questions on this scene

Reading
Whom does Titania embrace as Bottom falls asleep?
Reading
Reading

Locations

The wood outside Athens?Scene
The lovers flee into this wood, the craftsmen rehearse, and the fairies' interventions produce the central confusions. Theseus's hunting party discovers the sleeping lovers here. The wood has no securely identifiable geographical site.
Set here · 17 quotes in this scene

Also mentioned

Athens4 quotes in this scene · characters travel here or from here
Crete4 quotes in this scene
Sparta3 quotes in this scene
Theseus's palace?2 quotes in this scene · characters travel here or from here
Thessaly2 quotes in this scene
Titania's bower?1 quote in this scene · characters travel here or from here