Her spell thus spoke, she stept aside, And in a chink herself doth hide, To see thereof what would betide, For she doth only mind him: When presently she Puck espies, And well she markt his gloating eyes, How under every leaf he pries, In seeking still to find them. But once the circle got within, The charms to work do straight begin, And he was caught as in a gin: For as he thus was busy, A pain he in his headpiece feels, Against a stubbed tree he reels, And up went poor Hobgoblin’s heels; Alas! his brain was dizzy. At length upon his feet he gets, Hobgoblin fumes, Hobgoblin frets, And as again he forward sets, And through the bushes scrambles, A stump doth trip him in his pace, Down comes poor Hob upon his face, And lamentably tore his case Amongst the briars and brambles. “Plague upon Queen Mab (quoth he), And all her maids, where’er they be; I think the devil guided me, To seek her, so provoked.” When stumbling at a piece of wood, He fell into a ditch of mud, Where to the very chin he stood, In danger to be choaked. Now worse than e’er he was before, Poor Puck doth yell, poor Puck doth roar, That waked Queen Mab, who doubted sore Some treason had been wrought her: Until Nymphidia told the Queen What she had done, what she had seen, Who then had well-near crack’d her spleen With very extreme laughter. But leave we Hob to clamber out, Queen Mab and all her Fairy rout, And come again to have a bout With Oberon yet madding: And with Pigwiggen now distrought, Who much was troubled in his thought, That he so long the Queen had sought, And through the fields was gadding. And as he runs, he still doth cry, “King Oberon, I thee defy, And dare thee here in arms to try, For my dear lady’s honour: In that she is a queen right good, In whose defence I’ll shed my blood, And that thou in this jealous mood Hast laid this slander on her.” And quickly arms him for the field, A little cockle-shell his shield, Which he could very bravely wield, Yet could it not be pierced: His spear a bent both stiff and strong, And well near of two inches long; The pile was of a horse-fly’s tongue, Whose sharpness nought reversed. And puts him on a coat of mail, Which was of a fishe’s scale, That when his foe should him assail, No point should be prevailing. His rapier was a hornet’s sting, It was a very dangerous thing, For if he chanc’d to hurt the king, It would be long in healing. His helmet was a beetle’s head, Most horrible and full of dread, That able was to strike one dead, Yet it did well become him: And for a plume, a horse’s hair, Which being tossèd by the air, Had force to strike his foe with fear, And turn his weapon from him.