Page 2636 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

LY SANDER

Or else misgraffed in respect of years-

HERMIA

O spite! too old to be engag’d to young.

LY SANDER

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-

HERMIA

O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes. [140]

LY SANDER

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night, [145]
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 cross’d, [150]
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. [155]

LY SANDER

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. [160]
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lov’st me then,