Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/176

154 Lysander and Hermia first reclined to rest. There each lay down to sleep, unconscious that the others were so near. Whilst they slept, Puck bedewed the eyes of Lysander with a new charm that Oberon had given him, which should heal his sick fancy, and turn him again to Hermia.

So, at early morning, when Duke Theseus and Hippolyta sallied out with their hounds and horns to hunt in this forest, they came upon the four, sleeping thus upon the ground. So steeped in slumber were they, that a full blast of horns could scarcely rouse them. But in waking, Lysander’s eyes seek Hermia first, and all the memory of this sudden gust of fancy for Helena is as a troubled and uncertain dream. While Demetrius, professing penitence for his inconstancy to Helena, claimed her as his first and dearest love, and begged Theseus that their nuptials might be celebrated at the same time with his.

The old Egeus consenting, Lysander takes Hermia, and Demetrius his gentle Helena, and all the lovers return to the palace.

’Twas now the day of the nuptial festivities, and Oberon began to repent himself of his cruelty to Titania. In the shadiest nook of the dewy forest, the tiny queen had had a bower woven for Bottom, and sat there beside him