“Thou speak’st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean–fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three–foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And ‘tailor,’ cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and laugh;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear,
A merrier hour was never wasted there.”
His usual exclamation in this play is Ho, ho, ho!
“Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com’st thou not?”