A Midsummer Night’s Dream - страница 2

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Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

HERMIA

So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his Lordship whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

THESEUS

Take time to pause, and by the next new moon

(The sealing day betwixt my love and me

For everlasting bond of fellowship),

Upon that day either prepare to die

For disobedience to your father’s will,

Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,

Or on Diana’s altar to protest

For aye austerity and single life.

DEMETRIUS

Relent, sweet Hermia, and, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

LYSANDER

You have her father’s love, Demetrius.

Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.

EGEUS

Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;

And what is mine my love shall render him.

And she is mine, and all my right of her

I do estate unto Demetrius.

LYSANDER, to Theseus

I am, my lord, as well derived as he,

As well possessed. My love is more than his;

My fortunes every way as fairly ranked

(If not with vantage) as Demetrius’;

And (which is more than all these boasts can be)

I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.

Why should not I then prosecute my right?

Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,

Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,

And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THESEUS

I must confess that I have heard so much,

And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;

But, being overfull of self-affairs,

My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come,

And come, Egeus; you shall go with me.

I have some private schooling for you both.—

For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself

To fit your fancies to your father’s will,

Or else the law of Athens yields you up

(Which by no means we may extenuate)

To death or to a vow of single life.—

Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?—

Demetrius and Egeus, go along.

I must employ you in some business

Against our nuptial and confer with you

Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

EGEUS

With duty and desire we follow you.

All but Hermia and Lysander exit.

LYSANDER

How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIA

Belike for want of rain, which I could well

Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

LYSANDER

Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth.

But either it was different in blood—

HERMIA

O cross! Too high to be enthralled to low.

LYSANDER

Or else misgraffed in respect of years—

HERMIA

O spite! Too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDER

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—

HERMIA

O hell, to choose love by another’s eyes!

LYSANDER

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,

Making it momentary as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth,

And, ere a man hath power to say “Behold!”

The jaws of darkness do devour it up.

So quick bright things come to confusion.

HERMIA

If then true lovers have been ever crossed,

It stands as an edict in destiny.

Then let us teach our trial patience

Because it is a customary cross,

As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,

Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.

LYSANDER

A good persuasion. Therefore, hear me, Hermia:

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child.

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,

And she respects me as her only son.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;

And to that place the sharp Athenian law

Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me, then

Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night,

And in the wood a league without the town

(Where I did meet thee once with Helena

To do observance to a morn of May),

There will I stay for thee.

HERMIA My good Lysander,

I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,

By his best arrow with the golden head,

By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,

By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,

And by that fire which burned the Carthage queen

When the false Trojan under sail was seen,