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, from one side, OBERON, with his train;
	from the other, TITANIA, 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 Steppe 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 thou not lead him through the glimmering night
	From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
	And make him with fair AEgle 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
	Have 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 thorough this distemperature we see
	The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
	Far 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 votaress 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 the 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?