《Love's Labour's Lost (version 2)》 - 免费有声读物

ACT I.

000 Scene I. Athens. The palace of Theseus.

MSND I. 1 Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, and Attendants.

The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace; four happy days bring in

Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow

004 This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,

005 Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

006 Long withering out a young man’s revenue.

007 Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;

008 Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

010 New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.

The.

Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;

Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth:

Turn melancholy forth to funerals;

015 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,

019 With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.

Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius.

020 Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!

The. Thanks, good Egeus: what’s the news with thee?

Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

024 Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,

025 This man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth, Lysander: and, my gracious duke,

027 This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child:

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,

And interchanged love-tokens with my child:

030 Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,

With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;

And stolen the impression of her fantasy

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers

035 Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth:

With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart;

Turn’d her obedience, which is due to me,

038 To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,

Be it so she will not here before your Grace

040 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

045 Immediately provided in that case.

The. What say you, Hermia? be advised, fair maid:

To you your father should be as a god;

One that composed your beauties; yea, and one

To whom you are but as a form in wax

050 By him imprinted and within his power

051 To leave the figure or disfigure it.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

Her. So is Lysander.

The.

In himself he is;

But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,

055 The other must be held the worthier.

Her. I would my father look’d but with my eyes.

The. Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.

Her. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold,

060 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.

065 The. 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,

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

070 You can endure the livery of a nun;

For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d,

To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,

075 To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

076 But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d,

Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,

Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

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

080 Ere I will yield my virgin patent up

081 Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

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

The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,

085 For everlasting bond of fellowship,—

Upon that day either prepare to die

087 For disobedience to your father’s will,

Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;

Or on Diana’s altar to protest

090 For aye austerity and single life.

Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield

Thy crazed title to my certain right.

Lys. You have her father’s love, Demetrius;

094 Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.

095 Ege. 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

098 I do estate unto Demetrius.

Lys. I am, my lord, as well derived as he,

100 As well possess’d; my love is more than his;

101 My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d,

102 If not with vantage, as Demetrius’;

And, which is more than all these boasts can be,

I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:

105 Why should not I then prosecute my right?

Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,

107 Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,

And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

110 Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

The. 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;

115 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,—

120 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

125 Against our nuptial, and confer with you

Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

127 Ege. With duty and desire we follow you. [Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia.

128 Lys. How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

130 Her. Belike for want of rain, which I could well

131 Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

132 Lys. 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;

135 But, either it was different in blood,—

136 Her. O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.

Lys. Or else misgraffed in respect of years,—

138 Her. O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

139 Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,—

140 Her. O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.

Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,

143 Making it momentany as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

145 Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

146 That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’

148 The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

150 Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,

It stands as an edict in destiny:

Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross,

154 As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,

155 Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.

Lys. A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

Of great revenue, and she hath no child:

159 From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;

160 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;

165 And in the wood, a league without the town,

Where I did meet thee once with Helena,

167 To do observance to a morn of May,

There will I stay for thee.

Her.

168 My good Lysander!

I swear to thee, by Cupid’s strongest bow,

170 By his best arrow with the golden head,

By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,

172 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,

175 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.

Lys. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter Helena.

180 Her. God speed fair Helena! whither away?

Hel. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.

182 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.

185 When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

186 Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,

187 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.

190 Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,

191 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!

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

195 Hel. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

Hel. O that my prayers could such affection move!

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me.

Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me.

200 Her. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

Hel. None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

Her. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;

Lysander and myself will fly this place.

Before the time I did Lysander see,

205 Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me:

206 O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,

207 That he hath turn’d a heaven unto a hell!

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:

To-morrow night, when Phœbe doth behold

210 Her silver visage in the watery glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,

A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal,

213 Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

Her. And in the wood, where often you and I

215 Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,

216 Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,

There my Lysander and myself shall meet;

And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,

219 To seek new friends and stranger companies.

220 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.

Lys. I will, my Hermia. [Exit Herm.

   Helena, adieu:

225 As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [Exit.

Hel. 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;

229 He will not know what all but he do know:

230 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;

235 And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:

Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgement taste;

237 Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste:

And therefore is Love said to be a child,

239 Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

240 As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,

So the boy Love is perjured every where:

For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,

He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;

244 And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,

245 So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.

I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:

Then to the wood will he to-morrow night

248 Pursue her; and for this intelligence

249 If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:

250 But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither and back again. [Exit.