honourable reason, which
Hermia gave for not obeying her father's command, moved not the stern
Egeus.

Theseus, though a great and merciful prince, had no power to alter the
laws of his country; therefore he could only give Hermia four days to
consider of it: and at the end of that time, if she still refused to
marry Demetrius, she was to be put to death.

When Hermia was dismissed from the presence of the duke, she went to
her lover Lysander, and told him the peril she was in, and that she
must either give him up and marry Demetrius, or lose her life in four
days.

Lysander was in great affliction at hearing these evil tidings; but
recollecting that he had an aunt who lived at some distance from
Athens, and that at the place where she lived the cruel law could not
be put in force against Hermia (this law not extending beyond the
boundaries of the city), he proposed to Hermia that she should steal
out of her father's house that night, and go with him to his aunt's
house, where he would marry her. 'I will meet you,' said Lysander, 'in
the wood a few miles without the city; in that delightful wood where we
have so often walked with Helena in the pleasant month of May.'

To this proposal Hermia joyfully agreed; and she told no one of her
intended flight but her friend Helena. Helena (as maidens will do
foolish things for love) very ungenerously resolved to go and tell this
to Demetrius, though she could hope no benefit from betraying her
friend's secret, but the poor pleasure of following her faithless lover
to the wood; for she well knew that Demetrius would go thither in
pursuit of Hermia.

The wood in which Lysander and Hermia proposed to meet was the
favourite haunt of those little beings known by the name of Fairies.

Oberon the king, and Titania the queen of the fairies, with all their
tiny train of followers, in this wood held their midnight revels.

Between this little king and queen of sprites there happened, at this
time, a sad disagreement; they never met by moonlight in the shady
walks of this pleasant wood, but they were quarrelling, till all their
fairy elves would creep into acorn-cups and hide themselves for fear.

The cause of this unhappy disagreement was Titania's refusing to give
Oberon a little changeling boy, whose mother had been Titania's friend;
and upon her death the fairy queen stole the child from its nurse, and
brought him up in the woods.

The night on which the lovers were to meet