The Shakespeare Story-Book. Уильям Шекспир

will play the lion’s part, Snug,” he said; “and now, I hope, there is the play fitted.”

      “Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study,” said Snug modestly, for he was a very meek and mild little man.

      “You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring,” said Quince.

      “Let me play the lion, too,” burst in Bottom. “I will roar that it will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say: ‘Let him roar again.’”

      “If you should do it too terribly, you would frighten the Duchess and the ladies out of their wits, so that they would shriek, and that were enough to hang us all,” said Quince.

      “That would hang us, every mother’s son,” agreed the rest of the little band, quaking with terror.

      “I grant you, friends, that if you should frighten the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us,” said Bottom. “But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar as if it were any nightingale.”

      “You can play no part but Pyramus,” said Quince firmly. So Bottom had reluctantly to give in, and to devote his energies to deciding what coloured beard it would be best to play the important part of Pyramus in. It was really quite a difficult matter, there were so many to choose from, – straw-colour, orange tawny, purple-in-grain, or French-crown, which was perfect yellow. But Quince said any colour would do, or he might play it without a beard.

      “Masters, here are your parts,” he concluded, “and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to know them by to-morrow night, and meet me in the palace wood, a mile outside the town, by moonlight. There we will rehearse, for if we meet in the city we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. I pray you, do not fail me.”

      The Magic Flower

      Now, the wood which Hermia and Lysander had appointed as their trysting-place, and where Bottom and his fellow-actors were also to meet to rehearse their play, was the favourite haunt of fairies, and on this Midsummer Night Oberon, King of the Fairies, was to hold his revels there. Sad to say, for some time past there had been great dissension between Oberon and his Queen, Titania, and because of their quarrels nothing went well in the surrounding country. The cause of their disagreement was a lovely Indian boy, the sweetest little changeling imaginable. Queen Titania had him as her attendant, and jealous Oberon wanted the boy for his own page. Titania refused to give him up; he was the child of a dear friend, now dead, and for her sake she had reared up the boy, and for her sake she would not part with him.

      Oberon and Titania never met now, in grove or green, by the clear fountain, or in the spangled starlight, without quarrelling so fiercely that their elves crept for fear into acorn-cups, and hid themselves there. They generally tried to keep out of each other’s way, but on this night it happened that as King Oberon, with his little sprite Puck and his train, approached from one direction, Queen Titania and her attendant fairies came near from the other. Titania reproached Oberon with all the ill-luck that was happening because of their dissension, and Oberon replied that it only lay with her to amend it.

      “Why should Titania cross her Oberon?” he asked. “I do but beg a little changeling boy to be my henchman.”

      “Set your heart at rest,” replied Titania; “the whole of Fairyland will not buy the child of me.”

      “How long do you intend to stay in this wood?” asked Oberon.

      “Perhaps till after Theseus’s wedding-day,” said Titania. “If you will join patiently in our dance, and see our moonlight revels, go with us. If not, shun me, and I will take care to avoid your haunts.”

      “Give me that boy, and I will go with you,” said Oberon.

      “Not for your fairy kingdom!” was the decided answer. “Fairies, away! We shall quarrel in earnest if I stay any longer.”

      As he could not win the boy by entreaty, Oberon resolved to try another plan to gain his desire. Calling his little sprite Puck to him, he bade him go and fetch a certain magic flower, which maidens call “love-in-idleness.” The juice of this flower had a wonderful charm. When laid on the eyelids of a sleeping man or woman it had the power of making that person doat madly on the next living creature that was seen. Oberon determined to squeeze some of the juice of this flower on Titania’s eyes while she slept, so that when she woke up she should immediately fall in love with the first creature she saw, whether it were lion, bear, wolf, or bull, meddling monkey or busy ape. He determined also that he would not take off the charm (which he could do with another herb) until she had rendered up the little Indian boy as page to him.

      “Fetch me this herb,” he said to Puck, “and be thou here again before the leviathan can swim a league.”

      “I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes,” cried the prompt little messenger, and away he flew.

      While King Oberon was awaiting Puck’s return, he saw the unhappy lady Helena approaching with her faithless lover Demetrius. Oberon was invisible, and thus he overheard what they said. Demetrius had come to the wood in search of Hermia and Lysander, for Helena had told him of their proposed flight. Oberon heard Helena confess how deeply she loved Demetrius, and he heard Demetrius spurn her roughly, and declare he loved no one but Hermia.

      Oberon was sorry for Helena, and he determined to punish Demetrius. He resolved to put some of the magic juice on the eyes of Demetrius, so that when he woke and saw Helena he should fall in love with her again, and then it would be Helena’s turn to repulse Demetrius and refuse to listen to him.

      Demetrius and Helena had scarcely gone on their way when Puck returned.

      “Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer,” said Oberon.

      “Ay, there it is,” said Puck.

      “I pray thee, give it me,” said Oberon, and his voice glided into a sweet chant:

      “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

      Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

      Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

      With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

      There sleeps Titania some time of the night,

      Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;

      And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,

      Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:

      And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,

      And make her full of hateful fantasies.”

      Oberon found Titania, as he had expected, and, stealing up quietly while she slept, he squeezed some of the magic juice on her eyelids, repeating this charm as he did so:

      “What thou seest when thou dost wake,

      Do it for thy true-love take,

      Love and languish for his sake;

      Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,

      Pard, or boar with bristled hair,

      When thou wakest, it is thy dear.

      Wake when some vile thing is near.”

      And, laughing to himself at the strange experience which was likely to befall Titania, off went Oberon.

      The next wanderers to pass through that part of the wood were Hermia and Lysander in their flight from Athens. Being weary, they lay down to rest, and speedily fell asleep.

      King Oberon had told Puck to go in search of a sweet Athenian lady who was in love with a disdainful youth. When Puck found them, he was to drop some of the juice on the eyes of the man, but to take care to do this when the next thing he espied would be the lady. Puck would know the man by his Athenian garments, added Oberon. Of course, by this, Oberon meant Demetrius; but Puck came across Lysander and Hermia instead, and, thinking they must be the couple referred to, he squeezed the magic juice