Page:A Midsummer-Nights Dream (Rackham).djvu/21

Rh Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,

You can endure the livery of a nun,

For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d,

To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,

To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d,

Than that which withering on the virgin thorn

Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

Take time to pause; and, by the next new moon—

The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,

For everlasting bond of fellowship—

Upon that day either prepare to die

For disobedience to your father’s will,

Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;

Or on Diana’s altar to protest

For aye austerity and single life.

Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.