A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Comedy

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781443443234
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

True love takes the stage at the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hipployta, as the fairies of the forest interfere with the lives of mortals attending the wedding feast. Although betrothed to Demetrius, Hermia is in love with Lysander and must choose between bowing to her father's wishes or a life of chastity. But Helena is in love with Demetrius, who only has eyes for Hermia. At the same time, Oberon, king of the fairies, seeks to punish his wife Titania using a love potion, as the realms of mortals and fairies collide on one magical midsummer night.

Known as "The Bard of Avon," William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest English-language writer known. Enormously popular during his life, Shakespeare's works continue to resonate more than three centuries after his death, as has his influence on theatre and literature. Shakespeare's innovative use of character, language, and experimentation with romance as tragedy served as a foundation for later playwrights and dramatists, and some of his most famous lines of dialogue have become part of everyday speech.

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ACT THREE

SCENE I. The wood. Titania lying asleep.

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, ELUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.

BOTTOM Are we all met?

QUINCE Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the Duke.

[6]

BOTTOM Peter Quince!

QUINCE What sayest thou, bully Bottom?

BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How

[11]

answer you that?

SNOUT By’r lakin, a parlous fear.

STAR I believe we must leave the killing out,

[14]

when all is done.

BOTTOM Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill’d indeed; and for the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not Pyramus but Bottom the

[20]

weaver. This will put them out of fear.

QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.

BOTTOM No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

[25]

SNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

STAR I fear it, I promise you.

BOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring in – God shield us! – a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion

[30]

living; and we ought to look to’t.

SNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

BOTTOM Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the samedefect: ‘Ladies,’ or ‘Fair ladies, I would wish you’ or ‘I would request you’ or ‘I would entreat you not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are’. And there, indeed, let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.

QUINCE Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things – that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.

[45]

SNOUT Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

BOTTOM A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.

QUINCE Yes, it doth shine that night.

[51]

BOTTOM Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement.

[57]

QUINCE Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.

SNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you. Bottom?

[63]

BOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

[67]

QUINCE If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin; when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every one according to his cue.

Enter PUCK behind.

PUCK What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here.

So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?

[70]

What, a play toward! I’ll be an auditor;

An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.

QUINCE Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.

BOTTOM Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet –

QUINCE ‘Odious’ – odorous!

[75]

BOTTOM – odours savours sweet;

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.

But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,

And by and by I will to thee appear.

[Exit.

PUCK A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here!

[Exit.

[80]

FLUTE Must I speak now?

QUINCE Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

FLUTE Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,

Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,

[85]

Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,

As true as truest horse, that yet would never lire,

I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.

[91]

QUINCE ‘Ninus’ tomb’, man! Why, you must not speak that yet; that you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues and all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is ‘never tire’.

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

Re-enter 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

[95]

haunted. Pray master! fly, masters! Help!

[Exeunt all but Bottom and Puck.

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...

Table of contents

• Contents
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Dramatis Personae
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Act Four
• Act Five
• About the Author
• About the Series
• Copyright
• About the Publisher