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chapter 2|chapter 3 | Craft a concise overview of chapter 2 using the context provided. | cliffnotes |
----------CHAPTER 2---------
When Sara entered the schoolroom the next morning everybody looked at
her with wide, interested eyes. By that time every pupil--from Lavinia
Herbert, who was nearly thirteen and felt quite grown up, to Lottie
Legh, who was only just four and the baby of the school--had heard a
great deal about her. They knew very certainly that she was Miss
Minchin's show pupil and was considered a credit to the establishment.
One or two of them had even caught a glimpse of her French maid,
Mariette, who had arrived the evening before. Lavinia had managed to
pass Sara's room when the door was open, and had seen Mariette opening
a box which had arrived late from some shop.
"It was full of petticoats with lace frills on them--frills and
frills," she whispered to her friend Jessie as she bent over her
geography. "I saw her shaking them out. I heard Miss Minchin say to
Miss Amelia that her clothes were so grand that they were ridiculous
for a child. My mamma says that children should be dressed simply. She
has got one of those petticoats on now. I saw it when she sat down."
"She has silk stockings on!" whispered Jessie, bending over her
geography also. "And what little feet! I never saw such little feet."
"Oh," sniffed Lavinia, spitefully, "that is the way her slippers are
made. My mamma says that even big feet can be made to look small if
you have a clever shoemaker. I don't think she is pretty at all. Her
eyes are such a queer color."
"She isn't pretty as other pretty people are," said Jessie, stealing a
glance across the room; "but she makes you want to look at her again.
She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her eyes are almost green."
Sara was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do.
She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk. She was not abashed at
all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was interested and
looked back quietly at the children who looked at her. She wondered
what they were thinking of, and if they liked Miss Minchin, and if they
cared for their lessons, and if any of them had a papa at all like her
own. She had had a long talk with Emily about her papa that morning.
"He is on the sea now, Emily," she had said. "We must be very great
friends to each other and tell each other things. Emily, look at me.
You have the nicest eyes I ever saw--but I wish you could speak."
She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and one of
her fancies was that there would be a great deal of comfort in even
pretending that Emily was alive and really heard and understood. After
Mariette had dressed her in her dark-blue schoolroom frock and tied her
hair with a dark-blue ribbon, she went to Emily, who sat in a chair of
her own, and gave her a book.
"You can read that while I am downstairs," she said; and, seeing
Mariette looking at her curiously, she spoke to her with a serious
little face.
"What I believe about dolls," she said, "is that they can do things
they will not let us know about. Perhaps, really, Emily can read and
talk and walk, but she will only do it when people are out of the room.
That is her secret. You see, if people knew that dolls could do
things, they would make them work. So, perhaps, they have promised
each other to keep it a secret. If you stay in the room, Emily will
just sit there and stare; but if you go out, she will begin to read,
perhaps, or go and look out of the window. Then if she heard either of
us coming, she would just run back and jump into her chair and pretend
she had been there all the time."
"Comme elle est drole!" Mariette said to herself, and when she went
downstairs she told the head housemaid about it. But she had already
begun to like this odd little girl who had such an intelligent small
face and such perfect manners. She had taken care of children before
who were not so polite. Sara was a very fine little person, and had a
gentle, appreciative way of saying, "If you please, Mariette," "Thank
you, Mariette," which was very charming. Mariette told the head
housemaid that she thanked her as if she was thanking a lady.
"Elle a l'air d'une princesse, cette petite," she said. Indeed, she was
very much pleased with her new little mistress and liked her place
greatly.
After Sara had sat in her seat in the schoolroom for a few minutes,
being looked at by the pupils, Miss Minchin rapped in a dignified
manner upon her desk.
"Young ladies," she said, "I wish to introduce you to your new
companion." All the little girls rose in their places, and Sara rose
also. "I shall expect you all to be very agreeable to Miss Crewe; she
has just come to us from a great distance--in fact, from India. As soon
as lessons are over you must make each other's acquaintance."
The pupils bowed ceremoniously, and Sara made a little curtsy, and then
they sat down and looked at each other again.
"Sara," said Miss Minchin in her schoolroom manner, "come here to me."
She had taken a book from the desk and was turning over its leaves.
Sara went to her politely.
"As your papa has engaged a French maid for you," she began, "I
conclude that he wishes you to make a special study of the French
language."
Sara felt a little awkward.
"I think he engaged her," she said, "because he--he thought I would
like her, Miss Minchin."
"I am afraid," said Miss Minchin, with a slightly sour smile, "that you
have been a very spoiled little girl and always imagine that things are
done because you like them. My impression is that your papa wished you
to learn French."
If Sara had been older or less punctilious about being quite polite to
people, she could have explained herself in a very few words. But, as
it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks. Miss Minchin was a very
severe and imposing person, and she seemed so absolutely sure that Sara
knew nothing whatever of French that she felt as if it would be almost
rude to correct her. The truth was that Sara could not remember the
time when she had not seemed to know French. Her father had often
spoken it to her when she had been a baby. Her mother had been a French
woman, and Captain Crewe had loved her language, so it happened that
Sara had always heard and been familiar with it.
"I--I have never really learned French, but--but--" she began, trying
shyly to make herself clear.
One of Miss Minchin's chief secret annoyances was that she did not
speak French herself, and was desirous of concealing the irritating
fact. She, therefore, had no intention of discussing the matter and
laying herself open to innocent questioning by a new little pupil.
"That is enough," she said with polite tartness. "If you have not
learned, you must begin at once. The French master, Monsieur Dufarge,
will be here in a few minutes. Take this book and look at it until he
arrives."
Sara's cheeks felt warm. She went back to her seat and opened the
book. She looked at the first page with a grave face. She knew it
would be rude to smile, and she was very determined not to be rude. But
it was very odd to find herself expected to study a page which told her
that "le pere" meant "the father," and "la mere" meant "the mother."
Miss Minchin glanced toward her scrutinizingly.
"You look rather cross, Sara," she said. "I am sorry you do not like
the idea of learning French."
"I am very fond of it," answered Sara, thinking she would try again;
"but--"
"You must not say 'but' when you are told to do things," said Miss
Minchin. "Look at your book again."
And Sara did so, and did not smile, even when she found that "le fils"
meant "the son," and "le frere" meant "the brother."
"When Monsieur Dufarge comes," she thought, "I can make him understand."
Monsieur Dufarge arrived very shortly afterward. He was a very nice,
intelligent, middle-aged Frenchman, and he looked interested when his
eyes fell upon Sara trying politely to seem absorbed in her little book
of phrases.
"Is this a new pupil for me, madame?" he said to Miss Minchin. "I hope
that is my good fortune."
"Her papa--Captain Crewe--is very anxious that she should begin the
language. But I am afraid she has a childish prejudice against it. She
does not seem to wish to learn," said Miss Minchin.
"I am sorry of that, mademoiselle," he said kindly to Sara. "Perhaps,
when we begin to study together, I may show you that it is a charming
tongue."
Little Sara rose in her seat. She was beginning to feel rather
desperate, as if she were almost in disgrace. She looked up into
Monsieur Dufarge's face with her big, green-gray eyes, and they were
quite innocently appealing. She knew that he would understand as soon
as she spoke. She began to explain quite simply in pretty and fluent
French. Madame had not understood. She had not learned French
exactly--not out of books--but her papa and other people had always
spoken it to her, and she had read it and written it as she had read
and written English. Her papa loved it, and she loved it because he
did. Her dear mamma, who had died when she was born, had been French.
She would be glad to learn anything monsieur would teach her, but what
she had tried to explain to madame was that she already knew the words
in this book--and she held out the little book of phrases.
When she began to speak Miss Minchin started quite violently and sat
staring at her over her eyeglasses, almost indignantly, until she had
finished. Monsieur Dufarge began to smile, and his smile was one of
great pleasure. To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own
language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in
his native land--which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed
worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase book from her,
with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Minchin.
"Ah, madame," he said, "there is not much I can teach her. She has not
LEARNED French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite."
"You ought to have told me," exclaimed Miss Minchin, much mortified,
turning to Sara.
"I--I tried," said Sara. "I--I suppose I did not begin right."
Miss Minchin knew she had tried, and that it had not been her fault
that she was not allowed to explain. And when she saw that the pupils
had been listening and that Lavinia and Jessie were giggling behind
their French grammars, she felt infuriated.
"Silence, young ladies!" she said severely, rapping upon the desk.
"Silence at once!"
And she began from that minute to feel rather a grudge against her show
pupil.
----------CHAPTER 3---------
On that first morning, when Sara sat at Miss Minchin's side, aware that
the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her, she had
noticed very soon one little girl, about her own age, who looked at her
very hard with a pair of light, rather dull, blue eyes. She was a fat
child who did not look as if she were in the least clever, but she had
a good-naturedly pouting mouth. Her flaxen hair was braided in a tight
pigtail, tied with a ribbon, and she had pulled this pigtail around her
neck, and was biting the end of the ribbon, resting her elbows on the
desk, as she stared wonderingly at the new pupil. When Monsieur
Dufarge began to speak to Sara, she looked a little frightened; and
when Sara stepped forward and, looking at him with the innocent,
appealing eyes, answered him, without any warning, in French, the fat
little girl gave a startled jump, and grew quite red in her awed
amazement. Having wept hopeless tears for weeks in her efforts to
remember that "la mere" meant "the mother," and "le pere," "the
father,"--when one spoke sensible English--it was almost too much for
her suddenly to find herself listening to a child her own age who
seemed not only quite familiar with these words, but apparently knew
any number of others, and could mix them up with verbs as if they were
mere trifles.
She stared so hard and bit the ribbon on her pigtail so fast that she
attracted the attention of Miss Minchin, who, feeling extremely cross
at the moment, immediately pounced upon her.
"Miss St. John!" she exclaimed severely. "What do you mean by such
conduct? Remove your elbows! Take your ribbon out of your mouth! Sit
up at once!"
Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump, and when Lavinia and Jessie
tittered she became redder than ever--so red, indeed, that she almost
looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull, childish eyes; and
Sara saw her and was so sorry for her that she began rather to like her
and want to be her friend. It was a way of hers always to want to
spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy.
"If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago," her father used
to say, "she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn,
rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight
when she sees people in trouble."
So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow, little Miss St. John, and kept
glancing toward her through the morning. She saw that lessons were no
easy matter to her, and that there was no danger of her ever being
spoiled by being treated as a show pupil. Her French lesson was a
pathetic thing. Her pronunciation made even Monsieur Dufarge smile in
spite of himself, and Lavinia and Jessie and the more fortunate girls
either giggled or looked at her in wondering disdain. But Sara did not
laugh. She tried to look as if she did not hear when Miss St. John
called "le bon pain," "lee bong pang." She had a fine, hot little
temper of her own, and it made her feel rather savage when she heard
the titters and saw the poor, stupid, distressed child's face.
"It isn't funny, really," she said between her teeth, as she bent over
her book. "They ought not to laugh."
When lessons were over and the pupils gathered together in groups to
talk, Sara looked for Miss St. John, and finding her bundled rather
disconsolately in a window-seat, she walked over to her and spoke. She
only said the kind of thing little girls always say to each other by
way of beginning an acquaintance, but there was something friendly
about Sara, and people always felt it.
"What is your name?" she said.
To explain Miss St. John's amazement one must recall that a new pupil
is, for a short time, a somewhat uncertain thing; and of this new pupil
the entire school had talked the night before until it fell asleep
quite exhausted by excitement and contradictory stories. A new pupil
with a carriage and a pony and a maid, and a voyage from India to
discuss, was not an ordinary acquaintance.
"My name's Ermengarde St. John," she answered.
"Mine is Sara Crewe," said Sara. "Yours is very pretty. It sounds
like a story book."
"Do you like it?" fluttered Ermengarde. "I--I like yours."
Miss St. John's chief trouble in life was that she had a clever father.
Sometimes this seemed to her a dreadful calamity. If you have a father
who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight languages, and has
thousands of volumes which he has apparently learned by heart, he
frequently expects you to be familiar with the contents of your lesson
books at least; and it is not improbable that he will feel you ought to
be able to remember a few incidents of history and to write a French
exercise. Ermengarde was a severe trial to Mr. St. John. He could not
understand how a child of his could be a notably and unmistakably dull
creature who never shone in anything.
"Good heavens!" he had said more than once, as he stared at her, "there
are times when I think she is as stupid as her Aunt Eliza!"
If her Aunt Eliza had been slow to learn and quick to forget a thing
entirely when she had learned it, Ermengarde was strikingly like her.
She was the monumental dunce of the school, and it could not be denied.
"She must be MADE to learn," her father said to Miss Minchin.
Consequently Ermengarde spent the greater part of her life in disgrace
or in tears. She learned things and forgot them; or, if she remembered
them, she did not understand them. So it was natural that, having made
Sara's acquaintance, she should sit and stare at her with profound
admiration.
"You can speak French, can't you?" she said respectfully.
Sara got on to the window-seat, which was a big, deep one, and, tucking
up her feet, sat with her hands clasped round her knees.
"I can speak it because I have heard it all my life," she answered.
"You could speak it if you had always heard it."
"Oh, no, I couldn't," said Ermengarde. "I NEVER could speak it!"
"Why?" inquired Sara, curiously.
Ermengarde shook her head so that the pigtail wobbled.
"You heard me just now," she said. "I'm always like that. I can't SAY
the words. They're so queer."
She paused a moment, and then added with a touch of awe in her voice,
"You are CLEVER, aren't you?"
Sara looked out of the window into the dingy square, where the sparrows
were hopping and twittering on the wet, iron railings and the sooty
branches of the trees. She reflected a few moments. She had heard it
said very often that she was "clever," and she wondered if she was--and
IF she was, how it had happened.
"I don't know," she said. "I can't tell." Then, seeing a mournful
look on the round, chubby face, she gave a little laugh and changed the
subject.
"Would you like to see Emily?" she inquired.
"Who is Emily?" Ermengarde asked, just as Miss Minchin had done.
"Come up to my room and see," said Sara, holding out her hand.
They jumped down from the window-seat together, and went upstairs.
"Is it true," Ermengarde whispered, as they went through the hall--"is
it true that you have a playroom all to yourself?"
"Yes," Sara answered. "Papa asked Miss Minchin to let me have one,
because--well, it was because when I play I make up stories and tell
them to myself, and I don't like people to hear me. It spoils it if I
think people listen."
They had reached the passage leading to Sara's room by this time, and
Ermengarde stopped short, staring, and quite losing her breath.
"You MAKE up stories!" she gasped. "Can you do that--as well as speak
French? CAN you?"
Sara looked at her in simple surprise.
"Why, anyone can make up things," she said. "Have you never tried?"
She put her hand warningly on Ermengarde's.
"Let us go very quietly to the door," she whispered, "and then I will
open it quite suddenly; perhaps we may catch her."
She was half laughing, but there was a touch of mysterious hope in her
eyes which fascinated Ermengarde, though she had not the remotest idea
what it meant, or whom it was she wanted to "catch," or why she wanted
to catch her. Whatsoever she meant, Ermengarde was sure it was
something delightfully exciting. So, quite thrilled with expectation,
she followed her on tiptoe along the passage. They made not the least
noise until they reached the door. Then Sara suddenly turned the
handle, and threw it wide open. Its opening revealed the room quite
neat and quiet, a fire gently burning in the grate, and a wonderful
doll sitting in a chair by it, apparently reading a book.
"Oh, she got back to her seat before we could see her!" Sara
explained. "Of course they always do. They are as quick as lightning."
Ermengarde looked from her to the doll and back again.
"Can she--walk?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes," answered Sara. "At least I believe she can. At least I PRETEND
I believe she can. And that makes it seem as if it were true. Have you
never pretended things?"
"No," said Ermengarde. "Never. I--tell me about it."
She was so bewitched by this odd, new companion that she actually
stared at Sara instead of at Emily--notwithstanding that Emily was the
most attractive doll person she had ever seen.
"Let us sit down," said Sara, "and I will tell you. It's so easy that
when you begin you can't stop. You just go on and on doing it always.
And it's beautiful. Emily, you must listen. This is Ermengarde St.
John, Emily. Ermengarde, this is Emily. Would you like to hold her?"
"Oh, may I?" said Ermengarde. "May I, really? She is beautiful!" And
Emily was put into her arms.
Never in her dull, short life had Miss St. John dreamed of such an hour
as the one she spent with the queer new pupil before they heard the
lunch-bell ring and were obliged to go downstairs.
Sara sat upon the hearth-rug and told her strange things. She sat
rather huddled up, and her green eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. She
told stories of the voyage, and stories of India; but what fascinated
Ermengarde the most was her fancy about the dolls who walked and
talked, and who could do anything they chose when the human beings were
out of the room, but who must keep their powers a secret and so flew
back to their places "like lightning" when people returned to the room.
"WE couldn't do it," said Sara, seriously. "You see, it's a kind of
magic."
Once, when she was relating the story of the search for Emily,
Ermengarde saw her face suddenly change. A cloud seemed to pass over
it and put out the light in her shining eyes. She drew her breath in
so sharply that it made a funny, sad little sound, and then she shut
her lips and held them tightly closed, as if she was determined either
to do or NOT to do something. Ermengarde had an idea that if she had
been like any other little girl, she might have suddenly burst out
sobbing and crying. But she did not.
"Have you a--a pain?" Ermengarde ventured.
"Yes," Sara answered, after a moment's silence. "But it is not in my
body." Then she added something in a low voice which she tried to keep
quite steady, and it was this: "Do you love your father more than
anything else in all the whole world?"
Ermengarde's mouth fell open a little. She knew that it would be far
from behaving like a respectable child at a select seminary to say that
it had never occurred to you that you COULD love your father, that you
would do anything desperate to avoid being left alone in his society
for ten minutes. She was, indeed, greatly embarrassed.
"I--I scarcely ever see him," she stammered. "He is always in the
library--reading things."
"I love mine more than all the world ten times over," Sara said. "That
is what my pain is. He has gone away."
She put her head quietly down on her little, huddled-up knees, and sat
very still for a few minutes.
"She's going to cry out loud," thought Ermengarde, fearfully.
But she did not. Her short, black locks tumbled about her ears, and
she sat still. Then she spoke without lifting her head.
"I promised him I would bear it," she said. "And I will. You have to
bear things. Think what soldiers bear! Papa is a soldier. If there
was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and, perhaps,
deep wounds. And he would never say a word--not one word."
Ermengarde could only gaze at her, but she felt that she was beginning
to adore her. She was so wonderful and different from anyone else.
Presently, she lifted her face and shook back her black locks, with a
queer little smile.
"If I go on talking and talking," she said, "and telling you things
about pretending, I shall bear it better. You don't forget, but you
bear it better."
Ermengarde did not know why a lump came into her throat and her eyes
felt as if tears were in them.
"Lavinia and Jessie are 'best friends,'" she said rather huskily. "I
wish we could be 'best friends.' Would you have me for yours? You're
clever, and I'm the stupidest child in the school, but I--oh, I do so
like you!"
"I'm glad of that," said Sara. "It makes you thankful when you are
liked. Yes. We will be friends. And I'll tell you what"--a sudden
gleam lighting her face--"I can help you with your French lessons."
| A Little Princess.chapter | Sara enters the classroom for the first time the next morning, and everyone checks her out because she's the new kid. Some of her classmates include: Lavinia Herbert and Lottie Leigh . Talk about multi-age classrooms. All the girls have been gossiping about Sara: she has a French maid and boxes full of ridiculously frilly clothes, canyouevenbelieveit? Oh, and she's been telling tales about how she believes that dolls can talk and walk but only do it when people are out of the room. Who is this girl? Miss Minchin introduces Sara to the rest of the class and tells her that she will be studying French. Sara wants to say that she already knows French, but she doesn't know how to say so and ends up giving Miss Minchin the impression that she's being difficult and doesn't want to learn the language. When the French master, Monsieur Dufarge comes in, Miss Minchin announces to him that Sara does not wish to learn French. However, Sara stands up and begins to explain to Monsieur Dufarge--in perfect French, of course--that she totally does know French, merci beaucoup. Miss Minchin has a secret: she doesn't speak French. So now she's ticked off that Sara didn't tell her, annoyed that she knows she's in the wrong, and also a little resentful of her new pupil. Yeah, this is going to end well. |
chapter 4|chapter 14 | Craft a concise overview of chapter 4 using the context provided. | cliffnotes |
----------CHAPTER 4---------
If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss
Minchin's Select Seminary for the next few years would not have been at
all good for her. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished
guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. If
she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might have
become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much
indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would
have learned nothing. Privately Miss Minchin disliked her, but she was
far too worldly a woman to do or say anything which might make such a
desirable pupil wish to leave her school. She knew quite well that if
Sara wrote to her papa to tell him she was uncomfortable or unhappy,
Captain Crewe would remove her at once. Miss Minchin's opinion was that
if a child were continually praised and never forbidden to do what she
liked, she would be sure to be fond of the place where she was so
treated. Accordingly, Sara was praised for her quickness at her
lessons, for her good manners, for her amiability to her fellow pupils,
for her generosity if she gave sixpence to a beggar out of her full
little purse; the simplest thing she did was treated as if it were a
virtue, and if she had not had a disposition and a clever little brain,
she might have been a very self-satisfied young person. But the clever
little brain told her a great many sensible and true things about
herself and her circumstances, and now and then she talked these things
over to Ermengarde as time went on.
"Things happen to people by accident," she used to say. "A lot of nice
accidents have happened to me. It just HAPPENED that I always liked
lessons and books, and could remember things when I learned them. It
just happened that I was born with a father who was beautiful and nice
and clever, and could give me everything I liked. Perhaps I have not
really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and
everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? I
don't know"--looking quite serious--"how I shall ever find out whether
I am really a nice child or a horrid one. Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child,
and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials."
"Lavinia has no trials," said Ermengarde, stolidly, "and she is horrid
enough."
Sara rubbed the end of her little nose reflectively, as she thought the
matter over.
"Well," she said at last, "perhaps--perhaps that is because Lavinia is
GROWING." This was the result of a charitable recollection of having
heard Miss Amelia say that Lavinia was growing so fast that she
believed it affected her health and temper.
Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sara.
Until the new pupil's arrival, she had felt herself the leader in the
school. She had led because she was capable of making herself
extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered
over the little children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough
to be her companions. She was rather pretty, and had been the
best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked
out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared,
combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin
at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter
enough; but as time went on it became apparent that Sara was a leader,
too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because
she never did.
"There's one thing about Sara Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best
friend" by saying honestly, "she's never 'grand' about herself the
least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I couldn't
help being--just a little--if I had so many fine things and was made
such a fuss over. It's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off
when parents come."
"'Dear Sara must come into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave
about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation
of Miss Minchin. "'Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her
accent is so perfect.' She didn't learn her French at the Seminary, at
any rate. And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says
herself she didn't learn it at all. She just picked it up, because she
always heard her papa speak it. And, as to her papa, there is nothing
so grand in being an Indian officer."
"Well," said Jessie, slowly, "he's killed tigers. He killed the one in
the skin Sara has in her room. That's why she likes it so. She lies on
it and strokes its head, and talks to it as if it was a cat."
"She's always doing something silly," snapped Lavinia. "My mamma says
that way of hers of pretending things is silly. She says she will grow
up eccentric."
It was quite true that Sara was never "grand." She was a friendly
little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a free hand.
The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out
of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve, were never made to cry
by this most envied of them all. She was a motherly young person, and
when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them
up and patted them, or found in her pocket a bonbon or some other
article of a soothing nature. She never pushed them out of her way or
alluded to their years as a humiliation and a blot upon their small
characters.
"If you are four you are four," she said severely to Lavinia on an
occasion of her having--it must be confessed--slapped Lottie and called
her "a brat;" "but you will be five next year, and six the year after
that. And," opening large, convicting eyes, "it takes sixteen years to
make you twenty."
"Dear me," said Lavinia, "how we can calculate!" In fact, it was not
to be denied that sixteen and four made twenty--and twenty was an age
the most daring were scarcely bold enough to dream of.
So the younger children adored Sara. More than once she had been known
to have a tea party, made up of these despised ones, in her own room.
And Emily had been played with, and Emily's own tea service used--the
one with cups which held quite a lot of much-sweetened weak tea and had
blue flowers on them. No one had seen such a very real doll's tea set
before. From that afternoon Sara was regarded as a goddess and a queen
by the entire alphabet class.
Lottie Legh worshipped her to such an extent that if Sara had not been
a motherly person, she would have found her tiresome. Lottie had been
sent to school by a rather flighty young papa who could not imagine
what else to do with her. Her young mother had died, and as the child
had been treated like a favorite doll or a very spoiled pet monkey or
lap dog ever since the first hour of her life, she was a very appalling
little creature. When she wanted anything or did not want anything she
wept and howled; and, as she always wanted the things she could not
have, and did not want the things that were best for her, her shrill
little voice was usually to be heard uplifted in wails in one part of
the house or another.
Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out
that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought
to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grown-up
people talking her over in the early days, after her mother's death. So
it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge.
The first time Sara took her in charge was one morning when, on passing
a sitting room, she heard both Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia trying to
suppress the angry wails of some child who, evidently, refused to be
silenced. She refused so strenuously indeed that Miss Minchin was
obliged to almost shout--in a stately and severe manner--to make
herself heard.
"What IS she crying for?" she almost yelled.
"Oh--oh--oh!" Sara heard; "I haven't got any mam--ma-a!"
"Oh, Lottie!" screamed Miss Amelia. "Do stop, darling! Don't cry!
Please don't!"
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" Lottie howled tempestuously.
"Haven't--got--any--mam--ma-a!"
"She ought to be whipped," Miss Minchin proclaimed. "You SHALL be
whipped, you naughty child!"
Lottie wailed more loudly than ever. Miss Amelia began to cry. Miss
Minchin's voice rose until it almost thundered, then suddenly she
sprang up from her chair in impotent indignation and flounced out of
the room, leaving Miss Amelia to arrange the matter.
Sara had paused in the hall, wondering if she ought to go into the
room, because she had recently begun a friendly acquaintance with
Lottie and might be able to quiet her. When Miss Minchin came out and
saw her, she looked rather annoyed. She realized that her voice, as
heard from inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or
amiable.
"Oh, Sara!" she exclaimed, endeavoring to produce a suitable smile.
"I stopped," explained Sara, "because I knew it was Lottie--and I
thought, perhaps--just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try,
Miss Minchin?"
"If you can, you are a clever child," answered Miss Minchin, drawing in
her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by
her asperity, she changed her manner. "But you are clever in
everything," she said in her approving way. "I dare say you can manage
her. Go in." And she left her.
When Sara entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming
and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending
over her in consternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with
heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that
kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted
on. Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method, and then
another.
"Poor darling," she said one moment, "I know you haven't any mamma,
poor--" Then in quite another tone, "If you don't stop, Lottie, I will
shake you. Poor little angel! There--! You wicked, bad, detestable
child, I will smack you! I will!"
Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going
to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better
not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and
excitedly.
"Miss Amelia," she said in a low voice, "Miss Minchin says I may try to
make her stop--may I?"
Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. "Oh, DO you think you
can?" she gasped.
"I don't know whether I CAN", answered Sara, still in her half-whisper;
"but I will try."
Miss Amelia stumbled up from her knees with a heavy sigh, and Lottie's
fat little legs kicked as hard as ever.
"If you will steal out of the room," said Sara, "I will stay with her."
"Oh, Sara!" almost whimpered Miss Amelia. "We never had such a
dreadful child before. I don't believe we can keep her."
But she crept out of the room, and was very much relieved to find an
excuse for doing it.
Sara stood by the howling furious child for a few moments, and looked
down at her without saying anything. Then she sat down flat on the
floor beside her and waited. Except for Lottie's angry screams, the
room was quite quiet. This was a new state of affairs for little Miss
Legh, who was accustomed, when she screamed, to hear other people
protest and implore and command and coax by turns. To lie and kick and
shriek, and find the only person near you not seeming to mind in the
least, attracted her attention. She opened her tight-shut streaming
eyes to see who this person was. And it was only another little girl.
But it was the one who owned Emily and all the nice things. And she
was looking at her steadily and as if she was merely thinking. Having
paused for a few seconds to find this out, Lottie thought she must
begin again, but the quiet of the room and of Sara's odd, interested
face made her first howl rather half-hearted.
"I--haven't--any--ma--ma--ma-a!" she announced; but her voice was not
so strong.
Sara looked at her still more steadily, but with a sort of
understanding in her eyes.
"Neither have I," she said.
This was so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped
her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a
crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while
Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was
foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew her.
She did not want to give up her grievance, but her thoughts were
distracted from it, so she wriggled again, and, after a sulky sob,
said, "Where is she?"
Sara paused a moment. Because she had been told that her mamma was in
heaven, she had thought a great deal about the matter, and her thoughts
had not been quite like those of other people.
"She went to heaven," she said. "But I am sure she comes out sometimes
to see me--though I don't see her. So does yours. Perhaps they can
both see us now. Perhaps they are both in this room."
Lottie sat bolt upright, and looked about her. She was a pretty,
little, curly-headed creature, and her round eyes were like wet
forget-me-nots. If her mamma had seen her during the last half-hour,
she might not have thought her the kind of child who ought to be
related to an angel.
Sara went on talking. Perhaps some people might think that what she
said was rather like a fairy story, but it was all so real to her own
imagination that Lottie began to listen in spite of herself. She had
been told that her mamma had wings and a crown, and she had been shown
pictures of ladies in beautiful white nightgowns, who were said to be
angels. But Sara seemed to be telling a real story about a lovely
country where real people were.
"There are fields and fields of flowers," she said, forgetting herself,
as usual, when she began, and talking rather as if she were in a dream,
"fields and fields of lilies--and when the soft wind blows over them it
wafts the scent of them into the air--and everybody always breathes it,
because the soft wind is always blowing. And little children run about
in the lily fields and gather armfuls of them, and laugh and make
little wreaths. And the streets are shining. And people are never
tired, however far they walk. They can float anywhere they like. And
there are walls made of pearl and gold all round the city, but they are
low enough for the people to go and lean on them, and look down onto
the earth and smile, and send beautiful messages."
Whatsoever story she had begun to tell, Lottie would, no doubt, have
stopped crying, and been fascinated into listening; but there was no
denying that this story was prettier than most others. She dragged
herself close to Sara, and drank in every word until the end came--far
too soon. When it did come, she was so sorry that she put up her lip
ominously.
"I want to go there," she cried. "I--haven't any mamma in this school."
Sara saw the danger signal, and came out of her dream. She took hold
of the chubby hand and pulled her close to her side with a coaxing
little laugh.
"I will be your mamma," she said. "We will play that you are my little
girl. And Emily shall be your sister."
Lottie's dimples all began to show themselves.
"Shall she?" she said.
"Yes," answered Sara, jumping to her feet. "Let us go and tell her.
And then I will wash your face and brush your hair."
To which Lottie agreed quite cheerfully, and trotted out of the room
and upstairs with her, without seeming even to remember that the whole
of the last hour's tragedy had been caused by the fact that she had
refused to be washed and brushed for lunch and Miss Minchin had been
called in to use her majestic authority.
And from that time Sara was an adopted mother.
----------CHAPTER 14---------
What Melchisedec Heard and Saw
On this very afternoon, while Sara was out, a strange thing happened in
the attic. Only Melchisedec saw and heard it; and he was so much
alarmed and mystified that he scuttled back to his hole and hid there,
and really quaked and trembled as he peeped out furtively and with
great caution to watch what was going on.
The attic had been very still all the day after Sara had left it in the
early morning. The stillness had only been broken by the pattering of
the rain upon the slates and the skylight. Melchisedec had, in fact,
found it rather dull; and when the rain ceased to patter and perfect
silence reigned, he decided to come out and reconnoiter, though
experience taught him that Sara would not return for some time. He had
been rambling and sniffing about, and had just found a totally
unexpected and unexplained crumb left from his last meal, when his
attention was attracted by a sound on the roof. He stopped to listen
with a palpitating heart. The sound suggested that something was moving
on the roof. It was approaching the skylight; it reached the skylight.
The skylight was being mysteriously opened. A dark face peered into
the attic; then another face appeared behind it, and both looked in
with signs of caution and interest. Two men were outside on the roof,
and were making silent preparations to enter through the skylight
itself. One was Ram Dass and the other was a young man who was the
Indian gentleman's secretary; but of course Melchisedec did not know
this. He only knew that the men were invading the silence and privacy
of the attic; and as the one with the dark face let himself down
through the aperture with such lightness and dexterity that he did not
make the slightest sound, Melchisedec turned tail and fled
precipitately back to his hole. He was frightened to death. He had
ceased to be timid with Sara, and knew she would never throw anything
but crumbs, and would never make any sound other than the soft, low,
coaxing whistling; but strange men were dangerous things to remain
near. He lay close and flat near the entrance of his home, just
managing to peep through the crack with a bright, alarmed eye. How much
he understood of the talk he heard I am not in the least able to say;
but, even if he had understood it all, he would probably have remained
greatly mystified.
The secretary, who was light and young, slipped through the skylight as
noiselessly as Ram Dass had done; and he caught a last glimpse of
Melchisedec's vanishing tail.
"Was that a rat?" he asked Ram Dass in a whisper.
"Yes; a rat, Sahib," answered Ram Dass, also whispering. "There are
many in the walls."
"Ugh!" exclaimed the young man. "It is a wonder the child is not
terrified of them."
Ram Dass made a gesture with his hands. He also smiled respectfully.
He was in this place as the intimate exponent of Sara, though she had
only spoken to him once.
"The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib," he answered.
"She is not as other children. I see her when she does not see me. I
slip across the slates and look at her many nights to see that she is
safe. I watch her from my window when she does not know I am near. She
stands on the table there and looks out at the sky as if it spoke to
her. The sparrows come at her call. The rat she has fed and tamed in
her loneliness. The poor slave of the house comes to her for comfort.
There is a little child who comes to her in secret; there is one older
who worships her and would listen to her forever if she might. This I
have seen when I have crept across the roof. By the mistress of the
house--who is an evil woman--she is treated like a pariah; but she has
the bearing of a child who is of the blood of kings!"
"You seem to know a great deal about her," the secretary said.
"All her life each day I know," answered Ram Dass. "Her going out I
know, and her coming in; her sadness and her poor joys; her coldness
and her hunger. I know when she is alone until midnight, learning from
her books; I know when her secret friends steal to her and she is
happier--as children can be, even in the midst of poverty--because they
come and she may laugh and talk with them in whispers. If she were ill
I should know, and I would come and serve her if it might be done."
"You are sure no one comes near this place but herself, and that she
will not return and surprise us. She would be frightened if she found
us here, and the Sahib Carrisford's plan would be spoiled."
Ram Dass crossed noiselessly to the door and stood close to it.
"None mount here but herself, Sahib," he said. "She has gone out with
her basket and may be gone for hours. If I stand here I can hear any
step before it reaches the last flight of the stairs."
The secretary took a pencil and a tablet from his breast pocket.
"Keep your ears open," he said; and he began to walk slowly and softly
round the miserable little room, making rapid notes on his tablet as he
looked at things.
First he went to the narrow bed. He pressed his hand upon the mattress
and uttered an exclamation.
"As hard as a stone," he said. "That will have to be altered some day
when she is out. A special journey can be made to bring it across. It
cannot be done tonight." He lifted the covering and examined the one
thin pillow.
"Coverlet dingy and worn, blanket thin, sheets patched and ragged," he
said. "What a bed for a child to sleep in--and in a house which calls
itself respectable! There has not been a fire in that grate for many a
day," glancing at the rusty fireplace.
"Never since I have seen it," said Ram Dass. "The mistress of the
house is not one who remembers that another than herself may be cold."
The secretary was writing quickly on his tablet. He looked up from it
as he tore off a leaf and slipped it into his breast pocket.
"It is a strange way of doing the thing," he said. "Who planned it?"
Ram Dass made a modestly apologetic obeisance.
"It is true that the first thought was mine, Sahib," he said; "though
it was naught but a fancy. I am fond of this child; we are both
lonely. It is her way to relate her visions to her secret friends.
Being sad one night, I lay close to the open skylight and listened. The
vision she related told what this miserable room might be if it had
comforts in it. She seemed to see it as she talked, and she grew
cheered and warmed as she spoke. Then she came to this fancy; and the
next day, the Sahib being ill and wretched, I told him of the thing to
amuse him. It seemed then but a dream, but it pleased the Sahib. To
hear of the child's doings gave him entertainment. He became interested
in her and asked questions. At last he began to please himself with
the thought of making her visions real things."
"You think that it can be done while she sleeps? Suppose she
awakened," suggested the secretary; and it was evident that whatsoever
the plan referred to was, it had caught and pleased his fancy as well
as the Sahib Carrisford's.
"I can move as if my feet were of velvet," Ram Dass replied; "and
children sleep soundly--even the unhappy ones. I could have entered
this room in the night many times, and without causing her to turn upon
her pillow. If the other bearer passes to me the things through the
window, I can do all and she will not stir. When she awakens she will
think a magician has been here."
He smiled as if his heart warmed under his white robe, and the
secretary smiled back at him.
"It will be like a story from the Arabian Nights," he said. "Only an
Oriental could have planned it. It does not belong to London fogs."
They did not remain very long, to the great relief of Melchisedec, who,
as he probably did not comprehend their conversation, felt their
movements and whispers ominous. The young secretary seemed interested
in everything. He wrote down things about the floor, the fireplace,
the broken footstool, the old table, the walls--which last he touched
with his hand again and again, seeming much pleased when he found that
a number of old nails had been driven in various places.
"You can hang things on them," he said.
Ram Dass smiled mysteriously.
"Yesterday, when she was out," he said, "I entered, bringing with me
small, sharp nails which can be pressed into the wall without blows
from a hammer. I placed many in the plaster where I may need them.
They are ready."
The Indian gentleman's secretary stood still and looked round him as he
thrust his tablets back into his pocket.
"I think I have made notes enough; we can go now," he said. "The Sahib
Carrisford has a warm heart. It is a thousand pities that he has not
found the lost child."
"If he should find her his strength would be restored to him," said Ram
Dass. "His God may lead her to him yet."
Then they slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as they had
entered it. And, after he was quite sure they had gone, Melchisedec
was greatly relieved, and in the course of a few minutes felt it safe
to emerge from his hole again and scuffle about in the hope that even
such alarming human beings as these might have chanced to carry crumbs
in their pockets and drop one or two of them.
| null | Miss Minchin kisses up to Sara all the time and compliments her because she wants her to stay at the boarding school--on account of all that money, of course. Whenever parents come, Sara is brought out to speak to them as evidence of how good the school is. That's bananas, of course, since Sara hasn't learned a thing at the school. Lavinia is super jealous of Sara, Mean Girls-style. She wants to stay the queen bee and thinks that Sara's habit of playing pretend and making up stories is completely silly. However, Sara is super friendly and kind to all the students so obviously they like her more. She even has tea parties for them in her room. One little girl, Lottie Leigh, is prone to tantrums and constantly uses the fact that her mother is dead as a bargaining chip. One day when she's having a tantrum that Miss Amelia and Miss Minchin can't deal with, Sara volunteers to to calm her down. Sara lets her cry and then calmly informs Lottie that she doesn't have a mother either. Both their mothers are in heaven and that it is an absolutely beautiful and angelic place. Sara says that she will be Lottie's mama at the school, and takes her to go wash her face and brush her hair. |
null | Craft a concise overview of chapter 19 using the context provided. | cliffnotes |
----------CHAPTER 17---------
"It Is the Child!"
The next afternoon three members of the Large Family sat in the Indian
gentleman's library, doing their best to cheer him up. They had been
allowed to come in to perform this office because he had specially
invited them. He had been living in a state of suspense for some time,
and today he was waiting for a certain event very anxiously. This
event was the return of Mr. Carmichael from Moscow. His stay there had
been prolonged from week to week. On his first arrival there, he had
not been able satisfactorily to trace the family he had gone in search
of. When he felt at last sure that he had found them and had gone to
their house, he had been told that they were absent on a journey. His
efforts to reach them had been unavailing, so he had decided to remain
in Moscow until their return. Mr. Carrisford sat in his reclining
chair, and Janet sat on the floor beside him. He was very fond of
Janet. Nora had found a footstool, and Donald was astride the tiger's
head which ornamented the rug made of the animal's skin. It must be
owned that he was riding it rather violently.
"Don't chirrup so loud, Donald," Janet said. "When you come to cheer
an ill person up you don't cheer him up at the top of your voice.
Perhaps cheering up is too loud, Mr. Carrisford?" turning to the Indian
gentleman.
But he only patted her shoulder.
"No, it isn't," he answered. "And it keeps me from thinking too much."
"I'm going to be quiet," Donald shouted. "We'll all be as quiet as
mice."
"Mice don't make a noise like that," said Janet.
Donald made a bridle of his handkerchief and bounced up and down on the
tiger's head.
"A whole lot of mice might," he said cheerfully. "A thousand mice
might."
"I don't believe fifty thousand mice would," said Janet, severely; "and
we have to be as quiet as one mouse."
Mr. Carrisford laughed and patted her shoulder again.
"Papa won't be very long now," she said. "May we talk about the lost
little girl?"
"I don't think I could talk much about anything else just now," the
Indian gentleman answered, knitting his forehead with a tired look.
"We like her so much," said Nora. "We call her the little un-fairy
princess."
"Why?" the Indian gentleman inquired, because the fancies of the Large
Family always made him forget things a little.
It was Janet who answered.
"It is because, though she is not exactly a fairy, she will be so rich
when she is found that she will be like a princess in a fairy tale. We
called her the fairy princess at first, but it didn't quite suit."
"Is it true," said Nora, "that her papa gave all his money to a friend
to put in a mine that had diamonds in it, and then the friend thought
he had lost it all and ran away because he felt as if he was a robber?"
"But he wasn't really, you know," put in Janet, hastily.
The Indian gentleman took hold of her hand quickly.
"No, he wasn't really," he said.
"I am sorry for the friend," Janet said; "I can't help it. He didn't
mean to do it, and it would break his heart. I am sure it would break
his heart."
"You are an understanding little woman, Janet," the Indian gentleman
said, and he held her hand close.
"Did you tell Mr. Carrisford," Donald shouted again, "about the
little-girl-who-isn't-a-beggar? Did you tell him she has new nice
clothes? P'r'aps she's been found by somebody when she was lost."
"There's a cab!" exclaimed Janet. "It's stopping before the door. It
is papa!"
They all ran to the windows to look out.
"Yes, it's papa," Donald proclaimed. "But there is no little girl."
All three of them incontinently fled from the room and tumbled into the
hall. It was in this way they always welcomed their father. They were
to be heard jumping up and down, clapping their hands, and being caught
up and kissed.
Mr. Carrisford made an effort to rise and sank back again.
"It is no use," he said. "What a wreck I am!"
Mr. Carmichael's voice approached the door.
"No, children," he was saying; "you may come in after I have talked to
Mr. Carrisford. Go and play with Ram Dass."
Then the door opened and he came in. He looked rosier than ever, and
brought an atmosphere of freshness and health with him; but his eyes
were disappointed and anxious as they met the invalid's look of eager
question even as they grasped each other's hands.
"What news?" Mr. Carrisford asked. "The child the Russian people
adopted?"
"She is not the child we are looking for," was Mr. Carmichael's answer.
"She is much younger than Captain Crewe's little girl. Her name is
Emily Carew. I have seen and talked to her. The Russians were able to
give me every detail."
How wearied and miserable the Indian gentleman looked! His hand
dropped from Mr. Carmichael's.
"Then the search has to be begun over again," he said. "That is all.
Please sit down."
Mr. Carmichael took a seat. Somehow, he had gradually grown fond of
this unhappy man. He was himself so well and happy, and so surrounded
by cheerfulness and love, that desolation and broken health seemed
pitifully unbearable things. If there had been the sound of just one
gay little high-pitched voice in the house, it would have been so much
less forlorn. And that a man should be compelled to carry about in his
breast the thought that he had seemed to wrong and desert a child was
not a thing one could face.
"Come, come," he said in his cheery voice; "we'll find her yet."
"We must begin at once. No time must be lost," Mr. Carrisford fretted.
"Have you any new suggestion to make--any whatsoever?"
Mr. Carmichael felt rather restless, and he rose and began to pace the
room with a thoughtful, though uncertain face.
"Well, perhaps," he said. "I don't know what it may be worth. The
fact is, an idea occurred to me as I was thinking the thing over in the
train on the journey from Dover."
"What was it? If she is alive, she is somewhere."
"Yes; she is SOMEWHERE. We have searched the schools in Paris. Let us
give up Paris and begin in London. That was my idea--to search London."
"There are schools enough in London," said Mr. Carrisford. Then he
slightly started, roused by a recollection. "By the way, there is one
next door."
"Then we will begin there. We cannot begin nearer than next door."
"No," said Carrisford. "There is a child there who interests me; but
she is not a pupil. And she is a little dark, forlorn creature, as
unlike poor Crewe as a child could be."
Perhaps the Magic was at work again at that very moment--the beautiful
Magic. It really seemed as if it might be so. What was it that brought
Ram Dass into the room--even as his master spoke--salaaming
respectfully, but with a scarcely concealed touch of excitement in his
dark, flashing eyes?
"Sahib," he said, "the child herself has come--the child the sahib felt
pity for. She brings back the monkey who had again run away to her
attic under the roof. I have asked that she remain. It was my thought
that it would please the sahib to see and speak with her."
"Who is she?" inquired Mr. Carmichael.
"God knows," Mr. Carrrisford answered. "She is the child I spoke of. A
little drudge at the school." He waved his hand to Ram Dass, and
addressed him. "Yes, I should like to see her. Go and bring her in."
Then he turned to Mr. Carmichael. "While you have been away," he
explained, "I have been desperate. The days were so dark and long. Ram
Dass told me of this child's miseries, and together we invented a
romantic plan to help her. I suppose it was a childish thing to do;
but it gave me something to plan and think of. Without the help of an
agile, soft-footed Oriental like Ram Dass, however, it could not have
been done."
Then Sara came into the room. She carried the monkey in her arms, and
he evidently did not intend to part from her, if it could be helped.
He was clinging to her and chattering, and the interesting excitement
of finding herself in the Indian gentleman's room had brought a flush
to Sara's cheeks.
"Your monkey ran away again," she said, in her pretty voice. "He came
to my garret window last night, and I took him in because it was so
cold. I would have brought him back if it had not been so late. I knew
you were ill and might not like to be disturbed."
The Indian gentleman's hollow eyes dwelt on her with curious interest.
"That was very thoughtful of you," he said.
Sara looked toward Ram Dass, who stood near the door.
"Shall I give him to the Lascar?" she asked.
"How do you know he is a Lascar?" said the Indian gentleman, smiling a
little.
"Oh, I know Lascars," Sara said, handing over the reluctant monkey. "I
was born in India."
The Indian gentleman sat upright so suddenly, and with such a change of
expression, that she was for a moment quite startled.
"You were born in India," he exclaimed, "were you? Come here." And he
held out his hand.
Sara went to him and laid her hand in his, as he seemed to want to take
it. She stood still, and her green-gray eyes met his wonderingly.
Something seemed to be the matter with him.
"You live next door?" he demanded.
"Yes; I live at Miss Minchin's seminary."
"But you are not one of her pupils?"
A strange little smile hovered about Sara's mouth. She hesitated a
moment.
"I don't think I know exactly WHAT I am," she replied.
"Why not?"
"At first I was a pupil, and a parlor boarder; but now--"
"You were a pupil! What are you now?"
The queer little sad smile was on Sara's lips again.
"I sleep in the attic, next to the scullery maid," she said. "I run
errands for the cook--I do anything she tells me; and I teach the
little ones their lessons."
"Question her, Carmichael," said Mr. Carrisford, sinking back as if he
had lost his strength. "Question her; I cannot."
The big, kind father of the Large Family knew how to question little
girls. Sara realized how much practice he had had when he spoke to her
in his nice, encouraging voice.
"What do you mean by 'At first,' my child?" he inquired.
"When I was first taken there by my papa."
"Where is your papa?"
"He died," said Sara, very quietly. "He lost all his money and there
was none left for me. There was no one to take care of me or to pay
Miss Minchin."
"Carmichael!" the Indian gentleman cried out loudly. "Carmichael!"
"We must not frighten her," Mr. Carmichael said aside to him in a
quick, low voice. And he added aloud to Sara, "So you were sent up
into the attic, and made into a little drudge. That was about it,
wasn't it?"
"There was no one to take care of me," said Sara. "There was no money;
I belong to nobody."
"How did your father lose his money?" the Indian gentleman broke in
breathlessly.
"He did not lose it himself," Sara answered, wondering still more each
moment. "He had a friend he was very fond of--he was very fond of him.
It was his friend who took his money. He trusted his friend too much."
The Indian gentleman's breath came more quickly.
"The friend might have MEANT to do no harm," he said. "It might have
happened through a mistake."
Sara did not know how unrelenting her quiet young voice sounded as she
answered. If she had known, she would surely have tried to soften it
for the Indian gentleman's sake.
"The suffering was just as bad for my papa," she said. "It killed him."
"What was your father's name?" the Indian gentleman said. "Tell me."
"His name was Ralph Crewe," Sara answered, feeling startled. "Captain
Crewe. He died in India."
The haggard face contracted, and Ram Dass sprang to his master's side.
"Carmichael," the invalid gasped, "it is the child--the child!"
For a moment Sara thought he was going to die. Ram Dass poured out
drops from a bottle, and held them to his lips. Sara stood near,
trembling a little. She looked in a bewildered way at Mr. Carmichael.
"What child am I?" she faltered.
"He was your father's friend," Mr. Carmichael answered her. "Don't be
frightened. We have been looking for you for two years."
Sara put her hand up to her forehead, and her mouth trembled. She
spoke as if she were in a dream.
"And I was at Miss Minchin's all the while," she half whispered. "Just
on the other side of the wall."
----------CHAPTER 19---------
Anne
Never had such joy reigned in the nursery of the Large Family. Never
had they dreamed of such delights as resulted from an intimate
acquaintance with the little-girl-who-was-not-a-beggar. The mere fact
of her sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession.
Everybody wanted to be told over and over again the things which had
happened to her. When one was sitting by a warm fire in a big, glowing
room, it was quite delightful to hear how cold it could be in an attic.
It must be admitted that the attic was rather delighted in, and that
its coldness and bareness quite sank into insignificance when
Melchisedec was remembered, and one heard about the sparrows and things
one could see if one climbed on the table and stuck one's head and
shoulders out of the skylight.
Of course the thing loved best was the story of the banquet and the
dream which was true. Sara told it for the first time the day after
she had been found. Several members of the Large Family came to take
tea with her, and as they sat or curled up on the hearth-rug she told
the story in her own way, and the Indian gentleman listened and watched
her. When she had finished she looked up at him and put her hand on his
knee.
"That is my part," she said. "Now won't you tell your part of it,
Uncle Tom?" He had asked her to call him always "Uncle Tom." "I don't
know your part yet, and it must be beautiful."
So he told them how, when he sat alone, ill and dull and irritable, Ram
Dass had tried to distract him by describing the passers by, and there
was one child who passed oftener than any one else; he had begun to be
interested in her--partly perhaps because he was thinking a great deal
of a little girl, and partly because Ram Dass had been able to relate
the incident of his visit to the attic in chase of the monkey. He had
described its cheerless look, and the bearing of the child, who seemed
as if she was not of the class of those who were treated as drudges and
servants. Bit by bit, Ram Dass had made discoveries concerning the
wretchedness of her life. He had found out how easy a matter it was to
climb across the few yards of roof to the skylight, and this fact had
been the beginning of all that followed.
"Sahib," he had said one day, "I could cross the slates and make the
child a fire when she is out on some errand. When she returned, wet
and cold, to find it blazing, she would think a magician had done it."
The idea had been so fanciful that Mr. Carrisford's sad face had
lighted with a smile, and Ram Dass had been so filled with rapture that
he had enlarged upon it and explained to his master how simple it would
be to accomplish numbers of other things. He had shown a childlike
pleasure and invention, and the preparations for the carrying out of
the plan had filled many a day with interest which would otherwise have
dragged wearily. On the night of the frustrated banquet Ram Dass had
kept watch, all his packages being in readiness in the attic which was
his own; and the person who was to help him had waited with him, as
interested as himself in the odd adventure. Ram Dass had been lying
flat upon the slates, looking in at the skylight, when the banquet had
come to its disastrous conclusion; he had been sure of the profoundness
of Sara's wearied sleep; and then, with a dark lantern, he had crept
into the room, while his companion remained outside and handed the
things to him. When Sara had stirred ever so faintly, Ram Dass had
closed the lantern-slide and lain flat upon the floor. These and many
other exciting things the children found out by asking a thousand
questions.
"I am so glad," Sara said. "I am so GLAD it was you who were my friend!"
There never were such friends as these two became. Somehow, they
seemed to suit each other in a wonderful way. The Indian gentleman had
never had a companion he liked quite as much as he liked Sara. In a
month's time he was, as Mr. Carmichael had prophesied he would be, a
new man. He was always amused and interested, and he began to find an
actual pleasure in the possession of the wealth he had imagined that he
loathed the burden of. There were so many charming things to plan for
Sara. There was a little joke between them that he was a magician, and
it was one of his pleasures to invent things to surprise her. She
found beautiful new flowers growing in her room, whimsical little gifts
tucked under pillows, and once, as they sat together in the evening,
they heard the scratch of a heavy paw on the door, and when Sara went
to find out what it was, there stood a great dog--a splendid Russian
boarhound--with a grand silver and gold collar bearing an inscription.
"I am Boris," it read; "I serve the Princess Sara."
There was nothing the Indian gentleman loved more than the recollection
of the little princess in rags and tatters. The afternoons in which
the Large Family, or Ermengarde and Lottie, gathered to rejoice
together were very delightful. But the hours when Sara and the Indian
gentleman sat alone and read or talked had a special charm of their
own. During their passing many interesting things occurred.
One evening, Mr. Carrisford, looking up from his book, noticed that his
companion had not stirred for some time, but sat gazing into the fire.
"What are you 'supposing,' Sara?" he asked.
Sara looked up, with a bright color on her cheek.
"I WAS supposing," she said; "I was remembering that hungry day, and a
child I saw."
"But there were a great many hungry days," said the Indian gentleman,
with rather a sad tone in his voice. "Which hungry day was it?"
"I forgot you didn't know," said Sara. "It was the day the dream came
true."
Then she told him the story of the bun shop, and the fourpence she
picked up out of the sloppy mud, and the child who was hungrier than
herself. She told it quite simply, and in as few words as possible;
but somehow the Indian gentleman found it necessary to shade his eyes
with his hand and look down at the carpet.
"And I was supposing a kind of plan," she said, when she had finished.
"I was thinking I should like to do something."
"What was it?" said Mr. Carrisford, in a low tone. "You may do
anything you like to do, princess."
"I was wondering," rather hesitated Sara--"you know, you say I have so
much money--I was wondering if I could go to see the bun-woman, and
tell her that if, when hungry children--particularly on those dreadful
days--come and sit on the steps, or look in at the window, she would
just call them in and give them something to eat, she might send the
bills to me. Could I do that?"
"You shall do it tomorrow morning," said the Indian gentleman.
"Thank you," said Sara. "You see, I know what it is to be hungry, and
it is very hard when one cannot even PRETEND it away."
"Yes, yes, my dear," said the Indian gentleman. "Yes, yes, it must be.
Try to forget it. Come and sit on this footstool near my knee, and
only remember you are a princess."
"Yes," said Sara, smiling; "and I can give buns and bread to the
populace." And she went and sat on the stool, and the Indian gentleman
(he used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes) drew her small
dark head down on his knee and stroked her hair.
The next morning, Miss Minchin, in looking out of her window, saw the
things she perhaps least enjoyed seeing. The Indian gentleman's
carriage, with its tall horses, drew up before the door of the next
house, and its owner and a little figure, warm with soft, rich furs,
descended the steps to get into it. The little figure was a familiar
one, and reminded Miss Minchin of days in the past. It was followed by
another as familiar--the sight of which she found very irritating. It
was Becky, who, in the character of delighted attendant, always
accompanied her young mistress to her carriage, carrying wraps and
belongings. Already Becky had a pink, round face.
A little later the carriage drew up before the door of the baker's
shop, and its occupants got out, oddly enough, just as the bun-woman
was putting a tray of smoking-hot buns into the window.
When Sara entered the shop the woman turned and looked at her, and,
leaving the buns, came and stood behind the counter. For a moment she
looked at Sara very hard indeed, and then her good-natured face lighted
up.
"I'm sure that I remember you, miss," she said. "And yet--"
"Yes," said Sara; "once you gave me six buns for fourpence, and--"
"And you gave five of 'em to a beggar child," the woman broke in on
her. "I've always remembered it. I couldn't make it out at first." She
turned round to the Indian gentleman and spoke her next words to him.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but there's not many young people that notices
a hungry face in that way; and I've thought of it many a time. Excuse
the liberty, miss,"--to Sara--"but you look rosier and--well, better
than you did that--that--"
"I am better, thank you," said Sara. "And--I am much happier--and I
have come to ask you to do something for me."
"Me, miss!" exclaimed the bun-woman, smiling cheerfully. "Why, bless
you! Yes, miss. What can I do?"
And then Sara, leaning on the counter, made her little proposal
concerning the dreadful days and the hungry waifs and the buns.
The woman watched her, and listened with an astonished face.
"Why, bless me!" she said again when she had heard it all; "it'll be a
pleasure to me to do it. I am a working-woman myself and cannot afford
to do much on my own account, and there's sights of trouble on every
side; but, if you'll excuse me, I'm bound to say I've given away many a
bit of bread since that wet afternoon, just along o' thinking of
you--an' how wet an' cold you was, an' how hungry you looked; an' yet
you gave away your hot buns as if you was a princess."
The Indian gentleman smiled involuntarily at this, and Sara smiled a
little, too, remembering what she had said to herself when she put the
buns down on the ravenous child's ragged lap.
"She looked so hungry," she said. "She was even hungrier than I was."
"She was starving," said the woman. "Many's the time she's told me of
it since--how she sat there in the wet, and felt as if a wolf was
a-tearing at her poor young insides."
"Oh, have you seen her since then?" exclaimed Sara. "Do you know where
she is?"
"Yes, I do," answered the woman, smiling more good-naturedly than ever.
"Why, she's in that there back room, miss, an' has been for a month;
an' a decent, well-meanin' girl she's goin' to turn out, an' such a
help to me in the shop an' in the kitchen as you'd scarce believe,
knowin' how she's lived."
She stepped to the door of the little back parlor and spoke; and the
next minute a girl came out and followed her behind the counter. And
actually it was the beggar-child, clean and neatly clothed, and looking
as if she had not been hungry for a long time. She looked shy, but she
had a nice face, now that she was no longer a savage, and the wild look
had gone from her eyes. She knew Sara in an instant, and stood and
looked at her as if she could never look enough.
"You see," said the woman, "I told her to come when she was hungry, and
when she'd come I'd give her odd jobs to do; an' I found she was
willing, and somehow I got to like her; and the end of it was, I've
given her a place an' a home, and she helps me, an' behaves well, an'
is as thankful as a girl can be. Her name's Anne. She has no other."
The children stood and looked at each other for a few minutes; and then
Sara took her hand out of her muff and held it out across the counter,
and Anne took it, and they looked straight into each other's eyes.
"I am so glad," Sara said. "And I have just thought of something.
Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you be the one to give the buns and bread
to the children. Perhaps you would like to do it because you know what
it is to be hungry, too."
"Yes, miss," said the girl.
And, somehow, Sara felt as if she understood her, though she said so
little, and only stood still and looked and looked after her as she
went out of the shop with the Indian gentleman, and they got into the
carriage and drove away.
| null | Sara tells the children in the Large Family all about her story, which they love--especially the part about the magical things that appeared in her attic room. Mr. Carrisford tells his part of the story and says that Ram Dass thought of the idea of sneaking over to Sara's room and making it magical and warm--and that Mr. Carrisford loved how fanciful the idea was. They become great friends, Sara and Mr. Carrisford. He plans all sorts of fun activities, gives her little gifts, and even buys her a dog named Boris. One day, Sara looks thoughtful and Mr. Carrisford asks her what she's thinking about. She says she's thinking about "the hungry day" when she found the fourpence and bought the buns. She wants to go talk to the baker and ask her if she'll give bread to the poor children and send the bill to Sara. The next morning, Sara and Mr. Carrisford and Becky set out to go to the bakery, and Sara has to remind the baker woman about who she is. Then Sara asks her if she'll give food to the hungry children and let Sara pay for it. When the baker woman hears this, she says that she's already doing a bit of that. Oh, and she took in that hungry child that Sara gave the five buns. The girl now works at the bakery. Sara says that because Anne knows what it's like to be hungry, that she should be the one to give the buns and bread to the children in the future. And ... that's all, folks. Happy endings all around. |
act 4|act 1, scene 1 | Produce a brief summary for act 4 based on the provided context. | cliffnotes |
----------ACT 4---------
ACT IV. SCENE I.
The wood. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA, lying asleep
Enter TITANIA and Bottom; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH,
MUSTARDSEED,
and other FAIRIES attending;
OBERON behind, unseen
TITANIA. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
BOTTOM. Where's Peaseblossom?
PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.
BOTTOM. Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.
Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?
COBWEB. Ready.
BOTTOM. Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons
in
your hand and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a
thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not
fret
yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good
mounsieur,
have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have
you
overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur
Mustardseed?
MUSTARDSEED. Ready.
BOTTOM. Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,
leave
your curtsy, good mounsieur.
MUSTARDSEED. What's your will?
BOTTOM. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to
scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am
marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass,
if
my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.
TITANIA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
BOTTOM. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the
tongs
and the bones.
TITANIA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
BOTTOM. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry
oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good
hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But,
I
pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an
exposition
of sleep come upon me.
TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away. Exeunt FAIRIES
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! [They sleep]
Enter PUCK
OBERON. [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet
sight?
Her dotage now I do begin to pity;
For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her.
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
And that same dew which sometime on the buds
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls
Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,
I then did ask of her her changeling child;
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
And now I have the boy, I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
From off the head of this Athenian swain,
That he awaking when the other do
May all to Athens back again repair,
And think no more of this night's accidents
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
But first I will release the Fairy Queen.
[Touching her eyes]
Be as thou wast wont to be;
See as thou was wont to see.
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
TITANIA. My Oberon! What visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
OBERON. There lies your love.
TITANIA. How came these things to pass?
O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
OBERON. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
Titania, music call; and strike more dead
Than common sleep of all these five the sense.
TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!
PUCK. Now when thou wak'st with thine own fool's eyes peep.
OBERON. Sound, music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me,
[Music]
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
Now thou and I are new in amity,
And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair prosperity.
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Theseus, an in jollity.
PUCK. Fairy King, attend and mark;
I do hear the morning lark.
OBERON. Then, my Queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after night's shade.
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
TITANIA. Come, my lord; and in our flight,
Tell me how it came this night
That I sleeping here was found
With these mortals on the ground. Exeunt
To the winding of horns, enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,
EGEUS, and train
THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester;
For now our observation is perform'd,
And since we have the vaward of the day,
My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.
Dispatch, I say, and find the forester. Exit an ATTENDANT
We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear
Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
Judge when you hear. But, soft, what nymphs are these?
EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,
And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,
This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.
I wonder of their being here together.
THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe
The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
Came here in grace of our solemnity.
But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS. It is, my lord.
THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
[Horns and shout within. The sleepers
awake and kneel to THESEUS]
Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.
THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up.
I know you two are rival enemies;
How comes this gentle concord in the world
That hatred is so far from jealousy
To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
I cannot truly say how I came here,
But, as I think- for truly would I speak,
And now I do bethink me, so it is-
I came with Hermia hither. Our intent
Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
Without the peril of the Athenian law-
EGEUS. Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;
I beg the law, the law upon his head.
They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,
Thereby to have defeated you and me:
You of your wife, and me of my consent,
Of my consent that she should be your wife.
DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither followed them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-
But by some power it is- my love to Hermia,
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia.
But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.
THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;
Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
Egeus, I will overbear your will;
For in the temple, by and by, with us
These couples shall eternally be knit.
And, for the morning now is something worn,
Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.
Away with us to Athens, three and three;
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.
Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train
DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
When every thing seems double.
HELENA. So methinks;
And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
Mine own, and not mine own.
DEMETRIUS. Are you sure
That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?
HERMIA. Yea, and my father.
HELENA. And Hippolyta.
LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.
DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him;
And by the way let us recount our dreams. Exeunt
BOTTOM. [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will
answer. My
next is 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute,
the
bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,
stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare
vision.
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it
was.
Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.
Methought
I was- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and
methought I had, but man is but a patch'd fool, if he will
offer
to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard,
the
ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste,
his
tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was. I
will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It
shall
be call'd 'Bottom's Dream,' because it hath no bottom; and I
will
sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.
Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it
at
her death. Exit
SCENE II.
Athens. QUINCE'S house
Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING
QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?
STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is
transported.
FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; it goes not
forward, doth it?
QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens
able
to discharge Pyramus but he.
FLUTE. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in
Athens.
QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour
for
a sweet voice.
FLUTE. You must say 'paragon.' A paramour is- God bless us!- A
thing of naught.
Enter SNUG
SNUG. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple; and there is
two
or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone
forward, we had all been made men.
FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day
during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An
the
Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus,
I'll
be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in
Pyramus,
or nothing.
Enter BOTTOM
BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!
BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not
what;
for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you
everything, right as it fell out.
QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the
Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to
your
beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the
palace;
every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is,
our
play is preferr'd. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen;
and
let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they
shall
hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no
onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do
not
doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more
words.
Away, go, away! Exeunt
----------ACT 1, SCENE 1---------
ACT I. SCENE I.
Athens. The palace of THESEUS
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS
THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man's revenue.
HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp. Exit PHILOSTRATE
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won thy love doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,
and DEMETRIUS
EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!
THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?
EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
Be it so she will not here before your Grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
As she is mine I may dispose of her;
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.
To you your father should be as a god;
One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA. So is Lysander.
THESEUS. In himself he is;
But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
But I beseech your Grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be 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.
HERMIA. 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.
THESEUS. 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.
DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazed title to my certain right.
LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.
EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him;
And she is mine; and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
If not with vantage, as Demetrius';
And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will,
Or else the law of Athens yields you up-
Which by no means we may extenuate-
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial, and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.
Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA
LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But either it was different in blood-
HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-
HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.
LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-
HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up;
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,
It stands as an edict in destiny.
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.
LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child-
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA. My good Lysander!
I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
By his best arrow, with the golden head,
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke,
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Enter HELENA
HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!
HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you. Exit
HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again. Exit
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Scene One Titania and Bottom, still with an asses head, enter the stage followed by Titania's fairies. Bottom asks the fairies to scratch his head, and is hungry for some hay. Titania, completely in love with him, orders the fairies to find him food. Together they soon fall asleep. Oberon enters and looks at his sleeping Queen. He tells the puck that Titania gave him her young boy earlier in the woods, and so it is time for him to remove the spell from her eyes. He orders Robin to change Bottom back to normal, but first he wakes up Titania. She at first thinks she dreamed about being in love with an ass, but then sees Bottom still asleep by her side. Oberon helps her off the ground and tells her that tomorrow they will dance at the weddings of Theseus and the other two couples. Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus arrive where the lovers are sleeping. They are in the woods to celebrate the May morning with hunting hounds in preparation of the day's ceremonies. Theseus sees the lovers and has them woken by sounding the hunting horns. The lovers tell Theseus what they remember from the night before, and Lysander declares his love for Hermia while Demetrius speaks of his love for Helena. Theseus decides to override Egeus' will and have all three of them get married in Athens that day. They eventually all depart for Athens. Bottom wakes up and realizes that he has been abandoned in the woods by his friends. He recalls what happened to him only as a dream, a dream about which he says, "I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called 'Bottom's Dream' . Bottom then returns to Athens. Act Four, Scene Two The artisans are lamenting the fact that the Duke Theseus is already married, as well as the other noblemen, which means they missed their chance to perform Pyramus and Thisbe at the wedding. Bottom finally arrives and tells the men to hurry to the festivities since there is still enough time to perform the play. |
act 1, scene 2|act 2, scene 1|act 2, scene 2 | Craft a concise overview of act 2, scene 2 using the context provided. | cliffnotes |
----------ACT 1, SCENE 2---------
SCENE II.
Athens. QUINCE'S house
Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING
QUINCE. Is all our company here?
BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man,
according
to the scrip.
QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought
fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the
Duke
and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.
BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on;
then
read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most
Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'
BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.
Now,
good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.
Masters,
spread yourselves.
QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?
QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it.
If I
do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move
storms; I
will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief
humour is
for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a
cat
in, to make all split.
'The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.'
This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is
Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.
QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?
QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard
coming.
QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you
may
speak as small as you will.
BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.
I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'
[Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy
Thisby dear, and lady dear!'
QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.
BOTTOM. Well, proceed.
QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.
Tom Snout, the tinker.
SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug,
the
joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play
fitted.
SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be,
give it
me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do
any
man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the
Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'
QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the
Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were
enough to hang us all.
ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.
BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies
out
of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang
us;
but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as
gently
as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any
nightingale.
QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a
sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's
day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must
needs
play Pyramus.
BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to
play
it in?
QUINCE. Why, what you will.
BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard,
your
orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.
QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and
then
you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts;
and
I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them
by
to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile
without
the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we
meet in
the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices
known.
In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our
play wants. I pray you, fail me not.
BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely
and
courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.
QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.
BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings. Exeunt
----------ACT 2, SCENE 1---------
ACT II. SCENE I.
A wood near Athens
Enter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another
PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
FAIRY. Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, through fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours.
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.
Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.
She never had so sweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square, that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.
FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
Are not you he?
PUCK. Thou speakest aright:
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.
FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA,
at another, with hers
OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;
I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity?
OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigouna, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy;
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest;
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And through this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.
TITANIA. Set your heart at rest;
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot'ress of my order;
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking th' 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
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;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy;
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
Exit TITANIA with her train
OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
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.
OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
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 loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
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 flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
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
In forty minutes. Exit PUCK
OBERON. Having once this juice,
I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes;
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
As I can take it with another herb,
I'll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him
DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?
HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,
And yet a place of high respect with me,
Than to be used as you use your dog?
DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not;
To trust the opportunity of night,
And the ill counsel of a desert place,
With the rich worth of your virginity.
HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that:
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies.
DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go;
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
We cannot fight for love as men may do;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.
Exit DEMETRIUS
I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well. Exit HELENA
OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Re-enter PUCK
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK. Ay, there it is.
OBERON. I pray thee give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love.
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so. Exeunt
----------ACT 2, SCENE 2---------
SCENE II.
Another part of the wood
Enter TITANIA, with her train
TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices, and let me rest.
The FAIRIES Sing
FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy Queen.
CHORUS. Philomel with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby.
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.
Never harm
Nor spell nor charm
Come our lovely lady nigh.
So good night, with lullaby.
SECOND FAIRY. Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail do no offence.
CHORUS. Philomel with melody, etc. [TITANIA sleeps]
FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.
One aloof stand sentinel. Exeunt FAIRIES
Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids
OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true-love take;
Love and languish for his sake.
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near. Exit
Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA
LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;
And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;
We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.
LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
So that but one heart we can make of it;
Two bosoms interchained with an oath,
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
Lie further off, in human modesty;
Such separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!
HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!
[They sleep]
Enter PUCK
PUCK. Through the forest have I gone,
But Athenian found I none
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower's force in stirring love.
Night and silence- Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe:
When thou wak'st let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon. Exit
Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running
HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go. Exit
HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;
If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
For beasts that meet me run away for fear;
Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet
sake.
Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.
LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love:
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
The will of man is by his reason sway'd,
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season;
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.
HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can,
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare you well; perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
O, that a lady of one man refus'd
Should of another therefore be abus'd! Exit
LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
Or as the heresies that men do leave
Are hated most of those they did deceive,
So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
Of all be hated, but the most of me!
And, all my powers, address your love and might
To honour Helen, and to be her knight! Exit
HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
Either death or you I'll find immediately. Exit
| null | Titania instructs her fairies to dance and sing her to sleep. Afterwards, her attendants can go back to their fairy work and disappear. Oberon slips in and manages to get the pansy juice onto Titania eyes before running off. Lysander and Hermia come tripping in after Oberon exits. They're lost so they decide to stop for the night and rest. Lysander wants to sleep close to Hermia but she tells him to back off because they're not married yet. Lysander tries to sweet-talk Hermia but she's not having it. They fall asleep separately. Puck ambles onto the stage. Puck thinks Lysander is Demetrius and sprinkles the love juice on his eyelids. Puck runs off to tell Oberon. Then Demetrius runs onto the stage with Helena chasing after him. Demetrius tells her to scram but she refuses. Demetrius exits the stage, leaving Helena to roam around on her own. Helena, finally weary of running after Demetrius, wanders alone for a bit, talking to herself about how poorly she measures up to Hermia. Hermia's eyes are so much brighter--probably, Helena thinks, because she hasn't spent as much time crying as Helena has. In the middle of her pity party, she notices Lysander on the ground. Worried that he's dead, she shakes him awake. Lysander takes one look at Helena and falls in love at first sight. Then he says he's going to kill Demetrius. Helena is confused and thinks Lysander is mocking her, which adds to the indignity of Demetrius not loving her. She exits, certain that she's being punked. Lysander says he never wants to see Hermia again and deserts her while she's sleeping. Hermia wakes up from a horrible dream. Thinking Lysander is still sleeping near her, she recounts the nightmare: she thought a serpent was eating her heart while Lysander stood by smiling. Hermia then realizes that Lysander's not there. She panics and runs off looking for him, promising she'll either find her love or kill herself. |
act 3, scene 1|scene 1|scene 2 | Produce a brief summary for scene 1 based on the provided context. | cliffnotes |
----------ACT 3, SCENE 1---------
ACT III. SCENE I.
The wood. TITANIA lying asleep
Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING
BOTTOM. Are we all met?
QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for
our
rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn
brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we
will
do it before the Duke.
BOTTOM. Peter Quince!
QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby
that
will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill
himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all
is
done.
BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me
a
prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm
with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and
for
the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not
Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of
fear.
QUINCE. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be
written
in eight and six.
BOTTOM. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and
eight.
SNOUT. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
STARVELING. I fear it, I promise you.
BOTTOM. Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring
in-
God shield us!- a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing;
for
there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living;
and
we ought to look to't.
SNOUT. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
BOTTOM. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be
seen
through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through,
saying thus, or to the same effect: 'Ladies,' or 'Fair
ladies, I
would wish you' or 'I would request you' or 'I would entreat
you
not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think
I
come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no
such
thing; I am a man as other men are.' And there, indeed, let
him
name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
QUINCE. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things-
that
is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know,
Pyramus
and Thisby meet by moonlight.
SNOUT. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
BOTTOM. A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out
moonshine, find out moonshine.
QUINCE. Yes, it doth shine that night.
BOTTOM. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber
window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the
casement.
QUINCE. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and
a
lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the
person
of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a
wall in
the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story,
did
talk through the chink of a wall.
SNOUT. You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
BOTTOM. Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have
some
plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to
signify
wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that
cranny
shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.
QUINCE. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every
mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin;
when
you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so
every
one according to his cue.
Enter PUCK behind
PUCK. What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here,
So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?
What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
QUINCE. Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
BOTTOM. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet-
QUINCE. 'Odious'- odorous!
BOTTOM. -odours savours sweet;
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
And by and by I will to thee appear. Exit
PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here! Exit
FLUTE. Must I speak now?
QUINCE. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes
but to
see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
FLUTE. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse, that would never tire,
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
QUINCE. 'Ninus' tomb,' man! Why, you must not speak that yet;
that
you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues,
and
all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never tire.'
FLUTE. O- As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head
BOTTOM. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.
QUINCE. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters!
fly,
masters! Help!
Exeunt all but BOTTOM and PUCK
PUCK. I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;
Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
Exit
BOTTOM. Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make
me
afeard.
Re-enter SNOUT
SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art chang'd! What do I see on thee?
BOTTOM. What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do
you?
Exit SNOUT
Re-enter QUINCE
QUINCE. Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.
Exit
BOTTOM. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to
fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this
place, do
what they can; I will walk up and down here, and will sing,
that
they shall hear I am not afraid. [Sings]
The ousel cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill.
TITANIA. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?
BOTTOM. [Sings]
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo grey,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay-
for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?
Who would give a bird the lie, though he cry 'cuckoo' never
so?
TITANIA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,
On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for
that.
And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little
company
together now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest
neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon
occasion.
TITANIA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM. Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of
this
wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
TITANIA. Out of this wood do not desire to go;
Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate;
The summer still doth tend upon my state;
And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!
Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED
PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.
COBWEB. And I.
MOTH. And I.
MUSTARDSEED. And I.
ALL. Where shall we go?
TITANIA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
PEASEBLOSSOM. Hail, mortal!
COBWEB. Hail!
MOTH. Hail!
MUSTARDSEED. Hail!
BOTTOM. I cry your worships mercy, heartily; I beseech your
worship's name.
COBWEB. Cobweb.
BOTTOM. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your
name, honest gentleman?
PEASEBLOSSOM. Peaseblossom.
BOTTOM. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother,
and
to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I
shall
desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech
you,
sir?
MUSTARDSEED. Mustardseed.
BOTTOM. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well.
That
same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devour'd many a
gentleman
of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes
water
ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
Mustardseed.
TITANIA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower;
Lamenting some enforced chastity.
Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently. Exeunt
----------SCENE 1---------
ACT I. SCENE I.
Athens. The palace of THESEUS
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS
THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man's revenue.
HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp. Exit PHILOSTRATE
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won thy love doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,
and DEMETRIUS
EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!
THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?
EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,
And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
Be it so she will not here before your Grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
As she is mine I may dispose of her;
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.
To you your father should be as a god;
One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA. So is Lysander.
THESEUS. In himself he is;
But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
But I beseech your Grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be 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.
HERMIA. 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.
THESEUS. 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.
DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazed title to my certain right.
LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.
EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him;
And she is mine; and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
If not with vantage, as Demetrius';
And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will,
Or else the law of Athens yields you up-
Which by no means we may extenuate-
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial, and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.
Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA
LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But either it was different in blood-
HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-
HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.
LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-
HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up;
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,
It stands as an edict in destiny.
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.
LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child-
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA. My good Lysander!
I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
By his best arrow, with the golden head,
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever women spoke,
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Enter HELENA
HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!
HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you. Exit
HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again. Exit
----------SCENE 2---------
SCENE II.
Athens. QUINCE'S house
Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING
QUINCE. Is all our company here?
BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man,
according
to the scrip.
QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought
fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the
Duke
and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.
BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on;
then
read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most
Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'
BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.
Now,
good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.
Masters,
spread yourselves.
QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?
QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it.
If I
do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move
storms; I
will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief
humour is
for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a
cat
in, to make all split.
'The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.'
This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is
Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.
QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?
QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard
coming.
QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you
may
speak as small as you will.
BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.
I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'
[Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy
Thisby dear, and lady dear!'
QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.
BOTTOM. Well, proceed.
QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.
Tom Snout, the tinker.
SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug,
the
joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play
fitted.
SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be,
give it
me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do
any
man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the
Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'
QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the
Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were
enough to hang us all.
ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.
BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies
out
of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang
us;
but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as
gently
as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any
nightingale.
QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a
sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's
day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must
needs
play Pyramus.
BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to
play
it in?
QUINCE. Why, what you will.
BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard,
your
orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.
QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and
then
you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts;
and
I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them
by
to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile
without
the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we
meet in
the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices
known.
In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our
play wants. I pray you, fail me not.
BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely
and
courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.
QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.
BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings. Exeunt
| null | This scene opens in Theseus' palace in Athens. It is four days before his wedding to Hippolyta, the former queen of the Amazons, and Theseus is impatient with how slowly time is moving. Hippolyta assures him that the wedding day will soon arrive. As Theseus and Hippolyta plan their wedding festivities, Egeus and his daughter, Hermia, arrive on the scene with Lysander and Demetrius. Egeus is angry because his daughter refuses to marry Demetrius, the man of his choice, but is instead in love with Lysander. Egeus accuses Lysander of bewitching his daughter and stealing her love by underhanded means. Agreeing with Egeus, Theseus declares that it is a daughter's duty to obey her father. Hermia demands to know the worst punishment she will receive for disobedience. Death or spending her life in a nunnery comprise Hermia's choices. Lysander joins the argument, arguing that he is Demetrius' equal in everything and is, indeed, more constant in his affection than Demetrius, who was recently in love with Helena. These proceedings upset Hippolyta, because the prospect of Hermia's death upsets her plans for a happy, festive wedding day. Finally, everyone except Lysander and Hermia leave the stage. Lysander reminds Hermia that the course of true love has never run smoothly, so they must view their difficulties as typical for lovers. He has a plan for eluding Athenian law: The two lovers will run away from Athens and live with his childless widow aunt to whom he has always been a surrogate son. Living with her, they will be outside of Athenian jurisdiction so that Hermia can avoid Theseus' death sentence and can marry. Having few other options, Hermia is enthusiastic about Lysander's idea and declares her undying love for him. Just as the lovers have completed their plan for escape, Helena enters the scene. What charms does Hermia possess, Helena wonders, that have so completely captivated Demetrius? Hermia swears that she has no interest in Demetrius, that he actually seems to thrive on her hatred of him. Hermia and Lysander confess their intention of fleeing Athens, and Helena decides to tell Demetrius about it in a final attempt to win his love. |
scene 1|scene 2 | Craft a concise overview of scene 1 using the context provided. | cliffnotes |
----------SCENE 1---------
ACT II. SCENE I.
A wood near Athens
Enter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another
PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
FAIRY. Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, through fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours.
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.
Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.
She never had so sweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square, that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.
FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
Are not you he?
PUCK. Thou speakest aright:
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.
FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA,
at another, with hers
OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;
I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity?
OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigouna, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy;
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest;
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And through this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.
TITANIA. Set your heart at rest;
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot'ress of my order;
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking th' 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
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;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy;
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
Exit TITANIA with her train
OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
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.
OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
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 loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
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 flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
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
In forty minutes. Exit PUCK
OBERON. Having once this juice,
I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes;
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
As I can take it with another herb,
I'll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him
DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?
HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,
And yet a place of high respect with me,
Than to be used as you use your dog?
DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not;
To trust the opportunity of night,
And the ill counsel of a desert place,
With the rich worth of your virginity.
HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that:
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies.
DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go;
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
We cannot fight for love as men may do;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.
Exit DEMETRIUS
I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well. Exit HELENA
OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Re-enter PUCK
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK. Ay, there it is.
OBERON. I pray thee give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love.
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so. Exeunt
----------SCENE 2---------
SCENE II.
Another part of the wood
Enter TITANIA, with her train
TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices, and let me rest.
The FAIRIES Sing
FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy Queen.
CHORUS. Philomel with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby.
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.
Never harm
Nor spell nor charm
Come our lovely lady nigh.
So good night, with lullaby.
SECOND FAIRY. Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail do no offence.
CHORUS. Philomel with melody, etc. [TITANIA sleeps]
FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.
One aloof stand sentinel. Exeunt FAIRIES
Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids
OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true-love take;
Love and languish for his sake.
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near. Exit
Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA
LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;
And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;
We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.
LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
So that but one heart we can make of it;
Two bosoms interchained with an oath,
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
Lie further off, in human modesty;
Such separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!
HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!
[They sleep]
Enter PUCK
PUCK. Through the forest have I gone,
But Athenian found I none
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower's force in stirring love.
Night and silence- Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe:
When thou wak'st let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon. Exit
Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running
HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go. Exit
HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;
If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
For beasts that meet me run away for fear;
Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet
sake.
Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.
LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love:
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
The will of man is by his reason sway'd,
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season;
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.
HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can,
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare you well; perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
O, that a lady of one man refus'd
Should of another therefore be abus'd! Exit
LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
Or as the heresies that men do leave
Are hated most of those they did deceive,
So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
Of all be hated, but the most of me!
And, all my powers, address your love and might
To honour Helen, and to be her knight! Exit
HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
Either death or you I'll find immediately. Exit
| null | This scene transports its viewers from Athens into the woods outside of the city, the dwelling place of Oberon, Titania, and their band of fairies. The scene begins with a conversation between Oberon's mischievous elf Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck, and one of Titania's attendants. Puck warns her to keep Titania away from this part of the woods because Oberon will be reveling here, and if the two meet there will certainly be a serious quarrel. Oberon is angry with Titania because she refuses to give him a sweet Indian boy upon whom she dotes. Titania's attendant suddenly recognizes Puck, accusing him of being the hobgoblin who is blamed for roguish acts in the village, such as frightening young women or misleading night travelers. Puck admits that he is this "merry wanderer of the night." Suddenly Oberon and Titania enter the scene from opposite directions. Their bickering begins. Each accuses the other of having had affairs, and Titania says Oberon's persecution of her has caused the current chaos in the world: The rivers are flooding, the corn is rotting, and people are plagued by "rheumatic" diseases. Oberon blames Titania; if she would simply relinquish the Indian boy, peace would be restored. Titania refuses to let the boy go because his mother was a close friend of hers, and when she died in childbirth, Titania agreed to raise her son. Hatching a plan to win the Indian boy, Oberon sends Puck in search of a flower called love-in-idleness. When the juice of this magical flower is poured on sleepers' eyelids, it makes them dote crazily on the first live creature they see upon awakening. In this way, Oberon plans to make Titania fall in love with some wild beast; he won't release her from this unpleasant spell until she gives him the Indian boy. After Puck has left in search of the powerful flower, Oberon sits scheming. Demetrius and Helena unknowingly stumble into his bower, but he is invisible to them. Helena actively pursues her beloved, but Demetrius vows to hurt her if she doesn't leave him alone. After they have left, Puck returns. Taking pity on Helena, Oberon tells Puck to anoint the eyes of the Athenian man so that he will fall in love with this jilted woman. Puck promises to fulfill Oberon's order, though Puck hasn't seen Demetrius, so he doesn't know which Athenian Oberon is talking about. |
scene 1|scene 2 | Generate a succinct summary for scene 1 with the given context. | cliffnotes | "\n\n----------SCENE 1---------\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe wood. TITANIA lying asleep\n\nEnter QUINCE(...TRUNCATED) | null | "Bottom is enjoying his sojourn in Titania's bower: Peaseblossom amiably scratches his head, while C(...TRUNCATED) |
act 1, scene 1|act 1, scene 2 | "Create a compact summary that covers the main points of act 1, scene 2, utilizing the provided cont(...TRUNCATED) | cliffnotes | "\n\n----------ACT 1, SCENE 1---------\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter TH(...TRUNCATED) | null | "A group of craftsmen have been instructed to present a play to honor Duke Theseus on his wedding da(...TRUNCATED) |
act 2, scene 1|act 2, scene 2 | Craft a concise overview of act 2, scene 2 using the context provided. | cliffnotes | "\n\n----------ACT 2, SCENE 1---------\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA wood near Athens\n\nEnter a FAIRY at O(...TRUNCATED) | null | "Titania orders her fairies to sing a song and then proceed with their tasks of gathering canker fro(...TRUNCATED) |
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Multi-chapter summaries
The dataset is derived from BOOKSUM
The idea here is to make use of the BOOKSUM dataset to finetune models with larger context length (8k+) but very few samples in BOOKSUM have such length.
Enter multi-chapter summaries!
The context here comprises multiple chapters taken from the same book appended together to form a larger context length.
The prompt requests a summary from one of the chapters and a summary of the corresponding chapter is present in the summary column.
Approximate token length of contexts of 8k version
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