Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew Read Online Free PDF

whereto tends all this?

    LYSANDER
    Away, you Ethiope!
    DEMETRIUS
    No, no; he will
    Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,
    But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!

    LYSANDER
    Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,
    Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!
    HERMIA
    Why are you grown so rude? what change is this?
    Sweet love,—

    LYSANDER
    Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out!
    Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence!
    HERMIA
    Do you not jest?

    HELENA
    Yes, sooth; and so do you.

    LYSANDER
    Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
    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 loved 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 canker-blossom!
    You thief of love! what, have you come by night
    And stolen 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 urged 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 follow’d you; for love I follow’d him;
    But he hath chid me hence and threaten’d 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’s angry, she is keen and shrewd!
    She was a vixen when she went to school;
    And though she be but little, she is fierce.
    HERMIA
    “Little” again! nothing but “low” and “little”!
    Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
    Let me come to her.
    LYSANDER
    Get you gone, you dwarf;
    You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
    You bead, you acorn.

    DEMETRIUS
    You are too officious
    In her behalf that scorns your services.
    Let her alone: speak not of Helena;
    Take not her part; for, if thou dost intend
    Never so little show of love to her,
    Thou shalt aby it.

    LYSANDER
    Now she holds me not;
    Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right,
    Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
    DEMETRIUS
    Follow! nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jole.

    HERMIA
    You, mistress, all