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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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DEMETRIUS I would I had your bond; for I perceive A weak bond holds you; I’ll not trust your word. LYSANDER What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead? Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so. HERMIA What! Can you do me greater harm than hate? Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love? Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander? I am as fair now as I was erewhile. Since night you lov’d me; yet since night you left me. Why then, you left me-O, the gods forbid!In earnest, shall I say? LYSANDER Ay, by my life! And never did desire to see thee more. Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt; Be certain, nothing truer; ‘tis no jest That I do hate thee and love Helena. HERMIA O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom! You thief of love! What! Have you come by night, And stol’n my love’s heart from him? HELENA Fine, i’ faith! Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear Impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you! HERMIA ‘Puppet!’ why so? Ay, that way goes the game. Now I perceive that she hath made compare Between our statures; she hath urg’d her height; And with her personage, her tall personage, Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail’d with him. And are you grown so high in his esteem Because I am so dwarfish and so low? How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak. How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. HELENA I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me. I was never curst; I have no gift at all in shrewishness; I am a right maid for my cowardice; Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, Because she is something lower than myself, That I can match her. HERMIA ‘Lower’ hark, again. HELENA Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. I evermore did love you, Hermia, Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong’d you; Save that, in love unto Demetrius, I told him of your stealth unto this wood. He followed you; for love I followed him; But he hath chid me hence, and threat’ned me To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too; And now, so you will let me quiet go, To Athens will I bear my folly back, And follow you no further. Let me go. You see how simple and how fond I am. HERMIA Why, get you gone! Who is’t that hinders you? HELENA A foolish heart that I leave here behind. HERMIA What! with Lysander? HELENA With Demetrius. LYSANDER Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena. DEMETRIUS No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part. HELENA O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd; She was a vixen when she went to school; And, though she be but little, she is fierce. |
