Page 2639 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

HERMIA

And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, [215]
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends, and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us, [220]
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight
From lovers’ food, till morrow deep midnight.

Exit Hermia.

LY SANDER

I will, my Hermia. Helena, adieu;
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [225]

Exit Lysander.

HELENA

How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know;
And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes, [230]
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind; [235]
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgement taste:
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil’d.
As waggish boys, in game, themselves forswear, [240]
So the boy Love is perjur’d everywhere;
For, ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv’d and show’rs of oaths did melt. [245]
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he, tomorrow night,