_Tita._ Set your heart at rest: The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a votaress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip’d by my side; 125 And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood; When we have laugh’d to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait 130 Following,—her womb then rich with my young squire,— Would imitate, and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; 135 And for her sake do I rear up her boy; And for her sake I will not part with him. _Obe._ How long within this wood intend you stay? _Tita._ Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day. If you will patiently dance in our round, 140 And see our moonlight revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. _Obe._ Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. _Tita._ Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away! We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. 145 [_Exit Titania with her train._ _Obe._ Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury. My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back, 150 Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid’s music. _Puck._ I remember. _Obe._ That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, 155 Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: 160 But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell: 165 It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid 170 Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league. _Puck._ I’ll put a girdle round about the earth 175 In forty minutes. [_Exit._