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        […]

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 the duchess on his wedding day at night. […]

HELENA         For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne, He hailed down oaths that he was only mine; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight. Then to the wood will he tomorrow night Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it […]

HELENA         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 winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love’s mind of any judgement taste: Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves […]

LYSANDER     I will, my Hermia. Helena, adieu. As you on him, Demetrius dote on you. (Exit.) 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 […]

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 strange companies. Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us, And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius. Keep word, Lysander. We must […]

LYSANDER     Helen, to you our minds we will unfold. Tomorrow 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 devised to steal.   (1.1.208-213) Well, Hermia’s already blurted it out, and so Lysander interrupts to take a little more control of the […]

HERMIA         Take comfort: he no more shall see my face. Lysander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lysander see, Seemed Athens as a paradise to me. O then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turned a heaven unto a hell!  (1.1.202-7) Lysander sometimes makes no, no, stop, don’t tell her gestures or […]

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 […]

HELENA         Sickness is catching; O, were favour so! Your words 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’ll give to be to you translated. O teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart. (1.1.186-193) […]