Enter SNUG. SNUG  Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men. FLUTE O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life: he could not have scaped sixpence a […]

Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT and STARVELING. QUINCE          Have you sent to Bottom’s house? Is he come home yet? STARVELING  He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported. FLUTE If he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not forward. Doth it? QUINCE          It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able […]

(Bottom wakes.) BOTTOM        When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is, ‘Most fair Pyramus’. Heigh-ho! Peter Quince? Flute the bellows-mender? Snout the tinker? Starveling? Gods my life! Stolen hence, and left me asleep? I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man […]

DEMETRIUS   These things seem small and undistinguishable, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. HERMIA         Methinks I see these things with parted eye, When everything seems double. HELENA                                 So methinks; And I have found Demetrius, like a jewel Mine own, and not mine own. DEMETRIUS                           Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not […]

THESEUS        Fair lovers, you are fortunately met. Of this discourse we more will hear anon. Egeus, I will overbear your will; For in the temple, by and by, with us, These couples shall eternally be knit. And for the morning now is something worn, Our purposed hunting shall be set aside. Away with us to Athens. Three and three, We’ll hold […]

DEMETRIUS   My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, Of this their purpose hither to this wood, And I in fury hither followed them, Fair Helena in fancy following me. But my good lord, I wot not by what power (But by some power it is) my love to Hermia, Melted as the snow, seems to me now As the remembrance of […]

LYSANDER     My lord, I shall reply amazedly, Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear, I cannot truly say how I came here. But as I think (for truly would I speak), And now I do bethink me, so it is, I came with Hermia hither. Our intent Was to be gone from Athens, where we might […]

[Exit an Attendant.] Shout within. Wind horns. The lovers all start up. THESEUS        Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past. Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? LYSANDER     Pardon, my lord.      [The lovers kneel.] THESEUS        I pray you all, stand up. I know you two are rival enemies. How comes this gentle concord in the world, That hatred is so far from jealousy To sleep by hate, […]

EGEUS My lord, this my daughter here asleep, And this Lysander, this Demetrius is, This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena. I wonder of their being here together. THESEUS        No doubt they rose up early, to observe The rite of May; and hearing our intent, Came here in grace of our solemnity. But speak, Egeus, is not this the day That Hermia should give answer of her […]

THESEUS        My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind: So flewed, so sanded, and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-kneed, and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tunable Was never holloed to nor cheered with horn In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. Judge when you hear. But soft: what nymphs are these?   […]