"Thank you, my dear
master," said Ariel; "but give me leave to attend your ship home with
prosperous gales, before you bid farewell to the assistance of your
faithful spirit; and then, master, when I am free, how merrily I shall
live!" Here Ariel sung this pretty song:

"Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:
There I crouch when owls do cry
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."

Prospero then buried deep in the earth his magical books and wand, for
he was resolved never more to make use of the magic art. And having thus
overcome his enemies, and being reconciled to his brother and the King
of Naples, nothing now remained to complete his happiness, but to
revisit his native land, to take possession of his dukedom, and to
witness the happy nuptials of his daughter and Prince Ferdinand, which
the king said should be instantly celebrated with great splendour on
their return to Naples. At which place, under the safe convoy of the
spirit Ariel, they, after a pleasant voyage, soon arrived.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

There was a law in the city of Athens which gave to its citizens the
power of compelling their daughters to marry whomsoever they pleased;
for upon a daughter's refusing to marry the man her father had chosen to
be her husband, the father was empowered by this law to cause her to be
put to death; but as fathers do not often desire the death of their own
daughters, even though they do happen to prove a little refractory, this
law was seldom or never put in execution, though perhaps the young
ladies of that city were not unfrequently threatened by their parents
with the terrors of it.

There was one instance, however, of an old man, whose name was Egeus,
who actually did come before Theseus (at that time the reigning Duke of
Athens), to complain that his daughter Hermia, whom he had commanded to
marry Demetrius, a young man of a noble Athenian family, refused to obey
him, because she loved another young Athenian, named Lysander. Egeus
demanded justice of Theseus, and desired that this cruel law might be
put in force against his daughter.

Hermia pleaded in excuse for her disobedience, that Demetrius had
formerly professed love for her dear friend Helena, and that Helena
loved Demetrius to distraction; but this honourable reason