Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
The fairy king, who was always friendly to true lovers, felt
great compassion for Helena; and perhaps, as Lysander said they
used to walk by moonlight in this pleasant wood, Oberon might
have seen Helena in those happy times when she was beloved by
Demetrius. However that might be, when Puck returned with the
little purple flower, Oberon said to his favorite: “Take a part
of this flower; there has been a sweet Athenian lady here, who is
in love with a disdainful youth; if you find him sleeping, drop
some of the love-juice in his eyes, but contrive to do it when
she is near him, that the first thing he sees when he awakes may
be this despised lady. You will know the man ]by the Athenian
garments which be wears.”
Puck promised to manage this matter very dexterously: and then
Oberon went, unperceived by Titania, to her bower, where she was
preparing to go to rest. Her fairy bower was a bank, where grew
wild thyme, cowslips, and sweet violets, under a canopy of
woodbine, musk-roses, and eglantine. There Titania always slept
some part of the night; her coverlet the enameled skin of a
snake, which, though a small mantle, was wide enough to wrap a
fairy in.
He found Titania giving orders to her fairies, how they were to
employ themselves while she slept. “Some of you,” said her
Majesty, “must kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, and some wage
war with the bats for their leathern wings, to make my small
elves coats; and some of you keep watch that the clamorous owl,
that nightly boots, come not near me: but first sing me to
sleep.” Then they began to sing this song:
“You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen:
“Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby;
Never harm, nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.”
When the fairies had sung their queen asleep with this pretty
lullaby, they left her to perform the important services she had
enjoined them. Oberon then softly drew near his Titania and
dropped some of the love-juice on her eyelids, saying:
“What thou seest when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true-love take.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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