Compliment to Queen Elizabeth

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

From “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act II. Sc. 1.

OBERON.—My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember’st

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 armed: a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal thronèd by the west,

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:

But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon,

And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Yet marked 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 flower.