A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Athens. 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, O, 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 night; 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 interchanged love-tokens with my child: Thou hast by moonlight at her window

Athens. Quince’s house.

Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, 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 Thisbe.

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 gallant 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.

Fairy

And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Enter, from one side, Oberon, with his train; from the other, Titania, with hers.

Oberon

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Titania

What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence: I have forsworn his bed and company.

Oberon

Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?

Titania

Then I must be thy lady: but I know When thou hast stolen away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day, Playing on pipes of corn and versing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the farthest steppe of India? But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love, To Theseus must be wedded, and you come To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Oberon

How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night From Perigenia, whom he ravished? And make him with fair Aegle break his faith, With Ariadne and Antiopa?

Titania

But who comes here? I am invisible; And I will overhear their conference.

Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.

Demetrius

I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me. Thou told’st me they were stolen unto this wood; And here am I, and wode within this wood, Because I cannot meet with Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

Helena

You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; But yet you draw not iron, for my heart Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you.

Demetrius

Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

Helena

And even for that do I love you the more. I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love⁠— And yet a place of high respect with me⁠— Than to be used as you use your dog?

Demetrius

Flute

O⁠—As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.

Reenter Puck, and Bottom with an ass’s head.

Bottom

If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.

Quince

O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters! fly, masters! Help! Exeunt Quince, Snug, Flute, Snout, and Starveling.

Puck

I’ll follow you, I’ll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier: Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. Exit.

Bottom

Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to make me afeard.

Reenter Snout.

Snout

O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?

Bottom

What do you see? you see an ass-head of your own, do you? Exit Snout.

Reenter Quince.

Quince

Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated. Exit.

Bottom

I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. Sings.

The ousel cock, so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill⁠—

Titania

Awaking. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?