Blake, Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, 1786
SCENE I. A wood near Athens.
Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck
Puck
How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fairy
Over hill, over dale,Thorough bush, thorough brier,Over park, over pale,Thorough flood, thorough fire,I do wander everywhere,Swifter than the moon's sphere;And I serve the fairy queen,To dew her orbs upon the green.The cowslips tall her pensioners be:In their gold coats spots you see;Those be rubies, fairy favours,In those freckles live their savours:I must go seek some dewdrops hereAnd hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:Our queen and all our elves come here anon.
Puck
The king doth keep his revels here to-night:Take heed the queen come not within his sight;For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,Because that she as her attendant hathA lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;She never had so sweet a changeling;And jealous Oberon would have the childKnight of his train, to trace the forests wild;But she perforce withholds the loved boy,Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:And now they never meet in grove or green,By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,But, they do square, that all their elves for fearCreep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
Fairy
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,Or else you are that shrewd and knavish spriteCall'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you heThat frights the maidens of the villagery;Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quernAnd bootless make the breathless housewife churn;And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,You do their work, and they shall have good luck:Are not you he?
Puck
Thou speak'st aright;I am that merry wanderer of the night.I jest to Oberon and make him smileWhen I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,In very likeness of a roasted crab,And when she drinks, against her lips I bobAnd on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swearA merrier hour was never wasted there.But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
Fairy
And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter, from one side, Oberon ...
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