William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595)
Sir Joseph Noel Paton, Study for the Quarrel of Oberon and Titania, c. 1849" style="width: 300px; height: 196px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/>ACT ONE
SCENE 1. Athens. A room in the Palace of THESEUS.
[Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants.]
THESEUS
- Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
- Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
- Another moon; but, oh, methinks, how slow
- This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
- Like to a step-dame or a dowager,
- Long withering out a young man's revenue.
HIPPOLYTA
- Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights;
- Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
- And then the moon, like to a silver bow
- New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
- Of our solemnities.
THESEUS
- Go, Philostrate,
- Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
- Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
- Turn melancholy forth to funerals—
- The pale companion is not for our pomp. —
[Exit PHILOSTRATE.]
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
- And won thy love doing thee injuries;
- But I will wed thee in another key,
- With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
[Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS.]
EGEUS
- Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!
THESEUS
- Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?
EGEUS
- Full of vexation come I, with complaint
- Against my child, my daughter Hermia.—
- Stand forth, Demetrius.—My noble lord,
- This man hath my consent to marry her:—
- Stand forth, Lysander;—and, my gracious duke,
- This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.
- Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
- And interchang'd love-tokens with my child:
- Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
- With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
- And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
- With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
- Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats,—messengers
- Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth;—
- With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
- Turned her obedience, which is due to me,
- To stubborn harshness.—And, my gracious duke,
- Be it so she will not here before your grace
- Consent to marry with Demetrius,
- I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,—
- As she is mine I may dispose of her:
- Which shall be either to this gentleman
- Or to her death; according to our law
- Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS
- What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid:
- To you your father should be as a god;
- One that compos'd your beauties: yea, and one
- To whom you are but as a form in wax,
- By him imprinted, and within his power
- To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
- Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA
- So is Lysander.
THESEUS
- In himself he is:
- But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
- The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA
- I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
THESEUS
- Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA
- I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
- I know not by what power I am made bold,
- Nor how it may concern my modesty
- In such a presence here to plead my thoughts:
- But I beseech your grace that I may know
- The worst that may befall me in this case
- If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS
- Either to die the death, or to abjure
- For ever the society of men.
- Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
- Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
- Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
- You can endure the livery of a nun;
- For aye to be shady cloister mew'd,
- To live a barren sister all your life,
- Chanting faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon.
- Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood
- To undergo such maiden pilgrimage:
- But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
- Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
- Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
HERMIA
- So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
- Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
- Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
- My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
THESEUS
- Take time to pause; and by the next new moon,—
- The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
- For everlasting bond of fellowship,—
- Upon that day either prepare to die
- For disobedience to your father's will;
- Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;
- Or on Diana's altar to protest
- For aye austerity and single life.
DEMETRIUS
- Relent, sweet Hermia;—and, Lysander, yield
- Thy crazed title to my certain right.
LYSANDER
- You have her father's love, Demetrius;
- Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.
EGEUS
- Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love;
- And what is mine my love shall render him;
- And she is mine; and all my right of her
- I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER
- I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
- As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
- My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
- If not with vantage, as Demetrius's;
- And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
- I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia:
- Why should not I then prosecute my right?
- Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
- Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
- And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
- Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
- Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS
- I must confess that I have heard so much,
- And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
- But, being over-full of self-affairs,
- My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come;
- And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;
- I have some private schooling for you both.—
- For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
- To fit your fancies to your father's will,
- Or else the law of Athens yields you up,—
- Which by no means we may extenuate,—
- To death, or to a vow of single life.—
- 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.
EGEUS
- With duty and desire we follow you.
[Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, DEMETRIUS, and Train.]
LYSANDER
- How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?
- How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA
- Belike for want of rain, which I could well
- Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER
- Ah 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,—
HERMIA
- O cross! Too high to be enthrall'd to low!
LYSANDER
- Or else misgraffed in respect of years;—
HERMIA
- O spite! Too old to be engag'd to young!
LYSANDER
- Or else it stood upon the choice of friends:
HERMIA
- O hell! to choose love by another's eye!
LYSANDER
- 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!
- The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
- So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA
- If then true lovers have ever cross'd,
- It stands as an edict in destiny:
- Then let us teach our trial patience,
- Because it is a customary cross;
- As due to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs,
- Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.
LYSANDER
- A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
- I have a widow aunt, a dowager
- Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
- From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
- And she respects me as her only son.
- There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
- And to that place the sharp Athenian law
- Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
- Steal forth thy father's house tomorrow night;
- And in the wood, a league without the town,
- Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
- To do observance to a morn of May,
- There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA
- My good Lysander!
- I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
- By his best arrow, with the golden head,
- By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
- By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
- And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
- When the false Trojan under sail was seen,—
- By all the vows that ever men have broke,
- In number more than ever women spoke,—
- In that same place thou hast appointed me,
- Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER
- Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
[Enter HELENA.]
HERMIA
- God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
HELENA
- Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
- Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
- Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
- More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
- When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
- Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
- Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
- My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
- My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
- Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
- The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
- O, teach me how you look; and with what art
- You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!
HERMIA
- I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA
- O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA
- I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA
- O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA
- The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA
- The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA
- His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA
- None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!
HERMIA
- Take comfort; he no more shall see my face;
- Lysander and myself will fly this place.—
- Before the time I did Lysander see,
- Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
- O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
- That he hath turn'd a heaven unto hell!
LYSANDER
- Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
- To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
- Her silver visage in the watery glass,
- Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,—
- A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,—
- Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
HERMIA
- And in the wood where often you and I
- Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
- Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
- There my Lysander and myself shall meet:
- And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
- To seek new friends and stranger companies.
- Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us,
- And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!—
- Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
- From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER
- I will, my Hermia.
[Exit HERMIA.]
LYSANDER
- Helena, adieu:
- As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
[Exit LYSANDER.]
HELENA
- How happy some o'er other some can be!
- Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
- But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
- He will not know what all but he do know.
- And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
- So I, admiring of his qualities.
- Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
- Love can transpose to form and dignity.
- Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
- And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
- Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
- Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
- And therefore is love said to be a child,
- Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
- As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
- So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere:
- For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
- He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
- And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
- So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt.
- I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;
- Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
- Pursue her; and for this intelligence
- If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
- But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
- To have his sight thither and back again.
[Exit HELENA.]
SCENE 2. The same. A room in a cottage.
[Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING.]
QUINCE
- Is all our company here?
BOTTOM
- You were best to call them generally, man by man,
- according to the scrip.
QUINCE
- Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought
- fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the
- duke and duchess on his wedding-day at night.
BOTTOM
- First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on;
- then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
QUINCE
- Marry, our play is—The most lamentable comedy and most
- cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.
BOTTOM
- A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.—
- Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.—
- Masters, spread yourselves.
QUINCE
- Answer, as I call you.—Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOTTOM
- Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUINCE
- You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM
- What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?
QUINCE
- A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love.
BOTTOM
- That will ask some tears in the true performing of it.
- If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move
- storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest:—yet my
- chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a
- part to tear a cat in, to make all split.
- The raging rocks
- And shivering shocks
- Shall break the locks
- Of prison gates:
- And Phibbus' car
- Shall shine from far,
- And make and mar
- The foolish Fates.
- This was lofty.—Now name the rest of the players.—This is
- Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein;—a lover is more condoling.
QUINCE
- Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLUTE
- Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
- Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
FLUTE
- What is Thisby? a wandering knight?
QUINCE
- It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE
- Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.
QUINCE
- That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as
- small as you will.
BOTTOM
- An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too:
- I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;—'Thisne, Thisne!'—
- 'Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!'
QUINCE
- No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.
BOTTOM
- Well, proceed.
QUINCE
- Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STARVELING
- Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
- Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.—
- Tom Snout, the tinker.
SNOUT
- Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
- You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father;—Snug,
- the joiner, you, the lion's part:—and, I hope, here is a play
- fitted.
SNUG
- Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it
- me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE
- You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM
- Let me play the lion too: I will roar that I will do
- any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the
- duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'
QUINCE
- An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the
- duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were
- enough to hang us all.
ALL
- That would hang us every mother's son.
BOTTOM
- I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies
- out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang
- us: but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as
- gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any
- nightingale.
QUINCE
- You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a
- sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's
- day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must
- needs play Pyramus.
BOTTOM
- Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?
QUINCE
- Why, what you will.
BOTTOM
- I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard,
- your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
- French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.
QUINCE
- Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and
- then you will play bare-faced.— But, masters, here are your
- parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to
- con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a
- mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse: for
- if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our
- devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties,
- such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.
BOTTOM
- We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely
- and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.
QUINCE
- At the duke's oak we meet.
BOTTOM
- Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.
[Exeunt.]