How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy144, 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 be
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 s
tolen away, they would, Demetrius,
Thereby to have defeated157 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 fancy163 followed 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 gaud167
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 betrothed ere I saw Hermia:
But like a sickness did I loathe this food.
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,