Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

That this great king may kindly say,

Our duties did his welcome pay.

(Music. The Witches dance, and vanish.)

Mac. Where are they? Gone?-Let this pernicious hour,
Stand aye accursed in the calendar!—

Come in, without there!

Len.

Enter LENOX.

What's your grace's will?

Mac. Saw you the weird sisters?

Len.

No, indeed, my lord.

Mac. Infected be the air whereon they ride;

And damn'd all those that trust them!—I did hear

The galloping of horse; who was 't came by?

Len. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word,
Macduff is fled to England.

[blocks in formation]

Mac. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,

Unless the deed go with it: From this moment,

The very firstlings of my heart shall be

The firstlings of my hand. And even now

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:

This castle of Macduff I will surprise;

Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword

His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls

That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
This deed I'll do before this purpose cool;

But no more sights !4—Where are these gentlemen ?
Come, bring me where they are.

(Exeunt.)

3 "Apparition of a bloody child."—The idea of a "bloody child," and of his being more potent than the armed head, and one of the masters of the witches, is very dreadful. So is that of the child crowned, with a tree in his hand. They impersonate, it is true, certain results of the war, the destruction of Macduff's children, and the succession of Banquo's; but the imagination does not make these reflections at first; and the dreadfulness still remains, of potent demons speaking in the shapes of children.

4" But no more sights."—What a world of horrors is in this little

familiar phrase!

THE QUARREL OF OBERON AND TITANIA.

A FAIRY DRAMA.

I have ventured to give the extract this title, because it not only contains the whole story of the fairy part of the Midsummer Night's Dream, but by the omission of a few lines, and the transposition of one small passage (for which I beg the reader's indulgence), it actually forms a separate little play. It is nearly such in the greater play; and its isolation was easily, and not at all injuriously effected, by the separation of the Weaver from his brother mechanicals.

Enter OBERON at one door with his train; and TITANIA at another with hers.

Ober. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Tit. What! jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence;

I have forsworn his bed and company.

Ober. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
Tit. Then I must be thy lady; but I know
When thou hast stol'n away from fairy-land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here.
Come from the furthest steep of India,5
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress, and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come

To give their bed joy and prosperity?

Ober. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,

Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,

Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night

From Perigenia, whom he ravished?

And make him with fair Æglé break his faith,

[ocr errors]

With Ariadne, and Antiope?

Tit. These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushing brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,

To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But in thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling on the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents;
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain’d a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine men's morris* is filled up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable;
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The chilling autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,

By their increase, now knows not which is which
And this same progeny of evils comes

From our debate, from our dissension:

We are their parents and original.

Ober. Do you amend it then: it lies in you:

Why should Titian cross her Oberon ?

I do but beg a little changeling boy,

To be my henchman,t

Nine men's morris.-A "ustic game, played with stones upon lines cut

in the ground.

t Henchman-Page.

[blocks in formation]

The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot'ress of my order;
And, in the spicèd Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarking traders on the flood;
When we have laughed to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind:
Which she with pretty and with swimming gait
(Following her womb, then rich with my young squire)
Would imitate; and sail upon the land,

To fetch me trifles and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandize.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy :
And, for her sake, I will not part with him.

Ober. How long within this wood intend you stay?
Tit. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.

If you will patiently dance in our round,

And see our moonlight revels, go with us;

If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

Ober. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
Tit. Not for thy fairy kingdom.-Fairies,
We shall chide down-right, if I longer stay.

away:

[Exeunt TITANIA and her train.

Ober. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove,

Till I torment thee for this injury.

My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st

Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,

That the rude sea grew civil at her song;

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

[blocks in formation]

Ober. That very night I saw (but thou couldst not),

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,

Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal, throned by the west;*

And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

* At a fair vestal, throned by the west.-An allusion to Queen Elizabeth. See in the Rev. Mr. Halpin's remarks on this passage, published by the Shakspeare Society, a most ingenious speculation on the hidden mean. ing of it, as a bit of secret court history.

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might seen young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watry moon:
And the imperial votaress pass'd on,

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell;

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white; now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.*

Fetch me that flower: the herb I showed thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,

Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.

Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again,
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth,
In forty minutes

[blocks in formation]

Some, war with rear mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves' coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders
At our quaint spirits: Sing me now asleep;

Then to your offices, and let me rest.

*Love-in-idleness.-The heart's-ease

« VorigeDoorgaan »