Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love? Demetrius and Egeus, go along: I must employ you in some business Against our nuptial and confer with you Of something nearly that concerns yourselves. With duty and desire we follow you. • [Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia. How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast? Belike for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. 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; But, either it was different in blood,— O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low. Or else misgraffed in respect of years,— O spite! too old to be engaged to young. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,— O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’