A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781722524043
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Witness the stages of love, marriage and jealousy as well as all of the mysterious images of romantic desire in this beautiful edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. A Midsummer Night's Dream, a romantic comedy play by William Shakespeare, is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed throughout the world.Theseus and Hippolyta, wonderful figures from classical mythology, are about to marry. In the woods outside Athens, two young men and two young women finally sort themselves out into couples after first forming one love triangle, and then another. By presenting them as almost interchangeable, Shakespeare probes the mystery of how lovers find compelling, life-shaping differences where there seem to be only likenesses.In the same woods, controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest, we find yet other images of desire in Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of Fairyland, and Bottom, an Athenian weaver who had been magically transformed into an ass-headed monster by Oberon's helper, hobgoblin Robin Goodfellow. King Oberon who is engaged in a near epic battle with Queen Titania over the custody of an orphan boy, uses magic to make the queen fall in love with Bottom, who had come into the woods with his companions - six amateur actors - to rehearse a play for the king's wedding. This "Beauty and the Beast" story adds another dimension as it brings in the power of infatuation to transform the image of the beloved in the lover's eyes.

Act I—Scene I

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 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 sung,

With feigning voice verses of feigning love,

And stolen 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,

Turn’d 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 advised fair maid:

To you your father should be as a god;

One that composed 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 in 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...