Puck by Joshua Reynolds 1789

"Fairy:

    Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
    Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
    That frights the maidens of the villagery;
    Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
    And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
    Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
    You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
    Are not you he?

Puck:

    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 sometime 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."

 -William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

 

Puck by Joshua Reynolds 1789.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reynolds-Puck.JPG

 

Quote:

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/full.html