The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
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The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
While Puck was gone, Demetrius passed through the glade followed
by poor Helena, and still she told him how she loved him and
reminded him of all his promises, and still he told her that he
did not and could not love her, and that his promises were
nothing. Oberon was sorry for poor Helena, and when Puck returned
with the flower, he bade him follow Demetrius and put some of the
juice on his eyes, so that he might love Helena when he woke and
looked on her, as much as she loved him. So Puck set off, and
wandering through the wood found, not Demetrius, but Lysander, on
whose eyes he put the juice; but when Lysander woke, he saw not
his own Hermia, but Helena, who was walking through the wood
looking for the cruel Demetrius; and directly he saw her he loved
her and left his own lady, under the spell of the purple flower.
When Hermia woke she found Lysander gone, and wandered about the
wood trying to find him. Puck went back and told Oberon what he
had done, and Oberon soon found that he had made a mistake, and
set about looking for Demetrius, and having found him, put some of
the juice on his eyes. And the first thing Demetrius saw when he
woke was also Helena. So now Demetrius and Lysander were both
following her through the wood, and it was Hermia's turn to follow
her lover as Helena had done before. The end of it was that Helena
and Hermia began to quarrel, and Demetrius and Lysander went off
to fight.
Oberon was very sorry to see his kind scheme to help these lovers
turn out so badly. So he said to Puck--
"These two young men are going to fight. You must overhang the
night with drooping fog, and lead them so astray, that one will
never find the other. When they are tired out, they will fall
asleep. Then drop this other herb on Lysander's eyes. That will
give him his old sight and his old love. Then each man will have
the lady who loves him, and they will all think that this has been
only a Midsummer-Night's Dream. Then when this is done, all will
be well with them."
So Puck went and did as he was told, and when the two had fallen
asleep without meeting each other, Puck poured the juice on
Lysander's eyes, and said:--
"When thou wakest, Thou takest True delight In the sight Of thy
former lady's eye: Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill."
Meanwhile Oberon found Titania asleep on a bank where grew wild
thyme, oxlips, and violets, and woodbine, musk-roses and
eglantine. There Titania always slept a part of the night, wrapped
in the enameled skin of a snake. Oberon stopped over her and laid
the juice on her eyes, saying:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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