Page:Midsummer Night's Dream (1918) Yale.djvu/49

Night's Dream, III. ii  

Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit! What night-rule now about this haunted grove?

Puck. My mistress with a monster is in love. Near to her close and consecrated bower, While she was in her dull and sleeping hour, A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, Were met together to rehearse a play Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day. The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort, Who Pyramus presented in their sport, Forsook his scene, and enter'd in a brake: When I did him at this advantage take, An ass's nowl I fixed on his head: Anon his Thisbe must be answered, And forth my mimick comes. When they him spy, As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, Rising and cawing at the gun's report, Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky; So, at his sight, away his fellows fly, And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls; He murder cries, and help from Athens calls. Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong, Made senseless things begin to do them wrong; For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;  5 night-rule: diversion of the night haunted: much frequented 7 close: secret 9 patches: clowns, fools mechanicals: workingmen 13 barren sort: dull company 17 nowl: noddle, pate 21 russet-pated: grey-headed choughs: jackdaws 25 our stamp; cf. n. 