Scene, a Wood
Enter a Fairy at one Door, and Puck, or Robin-good-fellow, at another.
Puck. How now, Spirit! whither wander you?
1st Fai. Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Through flood, through fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
AIR.
Kingcup, daffodil and rose,
Shall the fairy wreath compose;
Beauty, sweetness, and delight,
Crown our revels of the night:
Lightly trip it o’er the green
Where the Fairy ring is seen;
So no step of earthly tread,
Shall of end our Lady’s head.
Virtue sometimes droops her wing,
Beauties bee, may lose her sting;
Fairy land can both combine,
Roses with the eglantine:
Lightly be your measures seen,
Deftly footed o’er the green;
Nor a spectre’s baleful head
Peep at our nocturnal tread.
Farewel thou lob of spirits, I’ll be gone;
Our Queen and all her Elves come here anon.
Puck. The King doth keep his revels here to-night,
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
For they do square, that all their Elves for fear
Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there.
1st Fai. But why is Oberon so fell and wrath?
Puck. Because that she, as her attendant hath
A lovely boy stol’n from an Indian King;
And she perforce with-holds the changling,
Tho’ jealous Oberon wou’d have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild.
1st Fai. Or I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish Sprite Call’d Robin-good-fellow.
Puck. Thou speak’st aright;
I am that merry wand’rer of the night:
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
Oft lurk in gossip’s bowl, and her beguile
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And 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 rails or cries, and falls into a cough,
And then the whole choir hold their hips and loffe.