Page 2694 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

T HESEUS

I pray you all, stand up.
I know you two are rival enemies:
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy
To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity? [145]

LY SANDER

My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
I cannot truly say how I came here.
But as I think-for truly would I speak-
And now I do bethink me, so it is: [150]
I came with Hermia hither; our intent
Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
Without the peril of the Athenian law-

EGEUS

Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough!
I beg the law, the law upon his head! [155]
They would have stol’n away, they would, Demetrius,
Thereby to have defeated you and me:
You of your wife, and me of my consent,
Of my consent that she should be your wife.

DEMET RIUS

My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, [160]
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither follow’d them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.
But my good lord, I wot not by what power-
But by some power it is-my love to Hermia, [165]
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye, [170]
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia;
But like a sickness did I loathe this food:
But as in health, come to my natural taste,