Act 4, Scene 1

The Wood.

[Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED, and other FAIRIES attending; OBERON behind, unseen.]
Titania
1433 Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
1434 While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
1435 And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
1436 And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
Bottom
1437 Where's Peasblossom?
Peasblossom
1438 Ready.
Bottom
1439 Scratch my head, Peasblossom.—
1440 Where's Monsieur Cobweb?
Cobweb
1441 Ready.
Bottom
1442 Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get you your weapons in
1443 your hand and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a
1444 thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not
1445 fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good
1446 monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be
1447 loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior.—
1448 Where's Monsieur Mustardseed?
Mustardseed
1449 Ready.
Bottom
1450 Give me your neif, Monsieur Mustardseed.
1451 Pray you, leave your curtsy, good monsieur.
Mustardseed
1452 What's your will?
Bottom
1453 Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalero Cobweb to
1454 scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for methinks I am
1455 marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass,
1456 if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.
Titania
1457 What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
Bottom
1458 I have a reasonable good ear in music; let us have the
1459 tongs and the bones.
Titania
1460 Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
Bottom
1461 Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry
1462 oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good
1463 hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
Titania
1464 I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
1465 The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
Bottom
1466 I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But,
1467 I pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an
1468 exposition of sleep come upon me.
Titania
1469 Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
1470 Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.
1471 So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
1472 Gently entwist,—the female ivy so
1473 Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
1474 O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!
[They sleep.]
[OBERON advances. Enter PUCK.]
Oberon
1475 Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?
1476 Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
1477 For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
1478 Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
1479 I did upbraid her and fall out with her:
1480 For she his hairy temples then had rounded
1481 With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
1482 And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
1483 Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
1484 Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes,
1485 Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
1486 When I had, at my pleasure, taunted her,
1487 And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience,
1488 I then did ask of her her changeling child;
1489 Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
1490 To bear him to my bower in fairy-land.
1491 And now I have the boy, I will undo
1492 This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
1493 And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
1494 From off the head of this Athenian swain,
1495 That he awaking when the other do,
1496 May all to Athens back again repair,
1497 And think no more of this night's accidents
1498 But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
1499 But first I will release the fairy queen.
1500 Be as thou wast wont to be;
[Touching her eyes with an herb.]
Oberon
1501 See as thou was wont to see.
1502 Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
1503 Hath such force and blessed power.
1504 Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
Titania
1505 My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
1506 Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
Oberon
1507 There lies your love.
Titania
1508 How came these things to pass?
1509 O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
Oberon
1510 Silence awhile.—Robin, take off this head.
1511 Titania, music call; and strike more dead
1512 Than common sleep, of all these five, the sense.
Titania
1513 Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep.
Puck
1514 Now when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep.
Oberon
1515 Sound, music.
[Still music.]
Oberon
1516 Come, my queen, take hands with me,
1517 And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
1518 Now thou and I are new in amity,
1519 And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
1520 Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
1521 And bless it to all fair prosperity:
1522 There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
1523 Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
Puck
1524 Fairy king, attend and mark;
1525 I do hear the morning lark.
Oberon
1526 Then, my queen, in silence sad,
1527 Trip we after night's shade.
1528 We the globe can compass soon,
1529 Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
Titania
1530 Come, my lord; and in our flight,
1531 Tell me how it came this night
1532 That I sleeping here was found
1533 With these mortals on the ground.
[Exeunt. Horns sound within.]
[Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train.]
Theseus
1534 Go, one of you, find out the forester;—
1535 For now our observation is perform'd;
1536 And since we have the vaward of the day,
1537 My love shall hear the music of my hounds,—
1538 Uncouple in the western valley; go:—
1539 Despatch, I say, and find the forester.—
[Exit an ATTENDANT.]
Theseus
1540 We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
1541 And mark the musical confusion
1542 Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
Hippolyta
1543 I was with Hercules and Cadmus once
1544 When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
1545 With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
1546 Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
1547 The skies, the fountains, every region near
1548 Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
1549 So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Theseus
1550 My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
1551 So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
1552 With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
1553 Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls;
1554 Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
1555 Each under each. A cry more tuneable
1556 Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
1557 In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
1558 Judge when you hear.—But, soft, what nymphs are these?
Egeus
1559 My lord, this is my daughter here asleep;
1560 And this Lysander; this Demetrius is;
1561 This Helena, old Nedar's Helena:
1562 I wonder of their being here together.
Theseus
1563 No doubt they rose up early to observe
1564 The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
1565 Came here in grace of our solemnity.—
1566 But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
1567 That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
Egeus
1568 It is, my lord.
Theseus
1569 Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
[Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER,HERMIA, and HELENA awake and start up.]
Theseus
1570 Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
1571 Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
Lysander
1572 Pardon, my lord.
[He and the rest kneel to THESEUS.]
Theseus
1573 I pray you all, stand up.
1574 I know you two are rival enemies;
1575 How comes this gentle concord in the world,
1576 That hatred is so far from jealousy
1577 To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
Lysander
1578 My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
1579 Half 'sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
1580 I cannot truly say how I came here:
1581 But, as I think,—for truly would I speak—
1582 And now I do bethink me, so it is,—
1583 I came with Hermia hither: our intent
1584 Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be,
1585 Without the peril of the Athenian law.
Egeus
1586 Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough;
1587 I beg the law, the law upon his head.—
1588 They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,
1589 Thereby to have defeated you and me:
1590 You of your wife, and me of my consent,—
1591 Of my consent that she should be your wife.
Demetrius
1592 My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
1593 Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
1594 And I in fury hither follow'd them,
1595 Fair Helena in fancy following me.
1596 But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,—
1597 But by some power it is,—my love to Hermia,
1598 Melted as the snow—seems to me now
1599 As the remembrance of an idle gawd
1600 Which in my childhood I did dote upon:
1601 And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
1602 The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
1603 Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
1604 Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia:
1605 But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;
1606 But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
1607 Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
1608 And will for evermore be true to it.
Theseus
1609 Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:
1610 Of this discourse we more will hear anon.—
1611 Egeus, I will overbear your will;
1612 For in the temple, by and by with us,
1613 These couples shall eternally be knit.
1614 And, for the morning now is something worn,
1615 Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.—
1616 Away with us to Athens, three and three,
1617 We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.—
1618 Come, Hippolyta.
[Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train.]
Demetrius
1619 These things seem small and undistinguishable,
1620 Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
Hermia
1621 Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
1622 When every thing seems double.
Helena
1623 So methinks:
1624 And I have found Demetrius like a jewel.
1625 Mine own, and not mine own.
Demetrius
1626 It seems to me
1627 That yet we sleep, we dream.—Do not you think
1628 The duke was here, and bid us follow him?
Hermia
1629 Yea, and my father.
Helena
1630 And Hippolyta.
Lysander
1631 And he did bid us follow to the temple.
Demetrius
1632 Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him;
1633 And by the way let us recount our dreams.
[Exeunt.]
[As they go out, BOTTOM awakes.]
Bottom
1634 When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is 'Most
1635 fair Pyramus.'—Heigh-ho!—Peter Quince! Flute, the
1636 bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,
1637 stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
1638 vision. I have had a dream—past the wit of man to say
1639 what dream it was.—Man is but an ass if he go about
1640 to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell
1641 what. Methought I was, and methought I had,—but man is but a
1642 patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The
1643 eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's
1644 hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart
1645 to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a
1646 ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because
1647 it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a
1648 play, before the duke: peradventure, to make it the more
1649 gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 1434archaic vocab
“do coy”
'Coy' here is a verb meaning to caress or stroke gently, not the modern adjective 'reluctant' or 'modest.' Titania is saying she will stroke Bottom's cheeks tenderly.
TLN 1450archaic vocab
“neif,”
'Neif' (also 'nief') means the fist or clenched hand. Bottom is asking Mustardseed to give him his fist to shake — a comic gesture of fellowship between a weaver and a fairy.
TLN 1451archaic vocab
“curtsy,”
'Curtsy' here means bow or formal obeisance — the same word used for a woman's curtsy, but in this period it applied to any deferential bodily salute. Bottom is telling the tiny fairy not to bother with formalities.
TLN 1459cultural context
“tongs and the bones.”
The tongs (fire-tongs struck together) and bones (two bones clapped between the fingers like castanets) were the noisiest, most unrefined instruments in Elizabethan low comedy — associated with country fairs and street musicians. Titania has just offered him sophisticated fairy music; Bottom asks instead for the equivalent of a pub band.
TLN 1462archaic vocab
“bottle of hay”
A 'bottle of hay' is a bundle (a 'bottle' = a bundle tied together, from Old French 'botel') of hay — not a glass vessel. Bottom's ass-nature is surfacing: he desires the fodder of a working beast, not the delicacies Titania offers.
TLN 1468wordplay
“exposition of sleep”
Bottom means 'disposition to sleep' (a malapropism: he reaches for 'disposition' or 'imposition' and lands on 'exposition'). The accidental word is funny because 'exposition' in the theater means an explanatory speech — Bottom is always accidentally theatrical.
TLN 1502classical allusion
“Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower”
Diana (Greek Artemis) was the goddess of chastity and the hunt; her 'bud' is the antidote to the love-juice, restoring clear sight. Cupid's flower is the love-in-idleness pansy that caused the enchantment. The couplet stages the play's central opposition: chastity versus erotic compulsion, reason versus desire.
TLN 1536archaic vocab
“vaward”
'Vaward' (also 'vanguard') means the forepart or earliest portion — here, the early morning hours. Theseus is saying they have the best part of the day ahead of them. The military metaphor (vanguard = the leading troops) was commonly extended to time.
TLN 1543classical allusion
“Hercules and Cadmus once”
Hippolyta claims to have hunted in Crete with Hercules and Cadmus — two of the greatest heroes of Greek myth. Cadmus founded Thebes; Hercules performed his twelve labors. Both are associated with Crete (Hercules captured the Cretan bull; Cadmus's lineage connects to the island). Plutarch's Life of Theseus links Theseus with Hercules as a companion and role-model, making the pairing natural for Hippolyta's memory.
classical Hercules and his labours
TLN 1549rhetorical device
“musical a discord, such sweet thunder.”
Oxymoron doubled: 'musical discord' and 'sweet thunder' fuse opposites — harmony with jarring noise, sweetness with violence. The device captures how the massed Spartan hounds sounded: each voice in tune with the others, yet the combined effect was thunderous. Shakespeare uses the oxymoron as a compliment: the contradiction is the beauty.
TLN 1550classical allusion
“Spartan kind,”
Spartan hounds were the most prized hunting dogs of antiquity — praised by Xenophon for their stamina and voice (the musical 'cry' of the pack). The vocabulary that follows ('flew'd' = with large hanging lips; 'sanded' = sandy-colored; 'dew-lapp'd' = with loose skin under the jaw) are technical terms from hunting manuals. Theseus is showing off his knowledge of classical dog-breeding.
TLN 1570cultural context
“Saint Valentine is past;”
The folk belief that birds choose their mates on St Valentine's Day (14 February) was the most popular piece of natural lore in Elizabethan culture. Theseus is making a wry joke: the lovers are only pairing up now, long after Valentine's Day. Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (c. 1382) is the earliest literary source for the belief.
TLN 1599archaic vocab
“idle gawd”
'Gawd' (also 'gaud') is a trinket, bauble, or cheap ornament — something a child might treasure but an adult finds worthless. Demetrius is comparing his enchanted love for Hermia to a toy he has outgrown: it felt important then, but now seems foolish.
TLN 1642cultural context
“patched fool,”
A 'patched fool' is a professional jester or court fool wearing his distinctive multi-colored patchwork (motley) coat. Bottom is saying any man who tries to explain his dream is a fool — and the word 'patched' may also glance at Bottom's trade: patching cloth as a weaver.
TLN 1643biblical allusion
“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.”
Bottom scrambles the senses in a parody of 1 Corinthians 2:9 (Geneva Bible 1599): 'the eye hath not seen, neither the ear hath heard, neither came it into man's heart, that which God hath prepared for them that love him.' The Geneva text lists eye, ear, and heart receiving spiritual truth; Bottom lists the same faculties but swaps them — the eye hears, the ear sees, the hand tastes — turning Paul's vision of divine mystery into comic nonsense. The joke works because an Elizabethan congregation would recognize the verse immediately.
TLN 1646wordplay
“Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom;”
A pun on Bottom's name: the dream is bottomless (too deep to fathom), and it belongs to a man called Bottom. In Elizabethan English 'bottom' could also mean the skein-holder used in weaving — the core around which thread is wound — so a dream with 'no bottom' has no central thread to unwind. The joke is layered: the deepest vision in the play belongs to the lowest character.
TLN 1647stage direction note
“sing it in the latter end of a play,”
Elizabethan public theater performances conventionally ended with a jig — a comic song-and-dance performed after the main play, often bawdy and unrelated to the drama. Bottom plans to have his dream-ballad sung as this closing entertainment. The practice was so standard that playwrights (including Shakespeare) could satirize it.