A Midsummer Night's Dream E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Edicions Perelló
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Universals
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 172

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular and is widely performed.

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William Shakespeare

A MIDSUMMERNIGHT'S DREAM

© Ed. Perelló, SL, 2025

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I.S.B.N.: 978-84-10227-37-8

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Act I

SCENE I.Athens.Thepalace of THESEUS

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants.

THESEUS

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hourDraws on apace;four happy days bring in Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slowThis old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowagerLong 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 bowNew-bentin heaven, shall behold the nightOf our solemnities.

THESEUS

Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;Turn melancholy forthto 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 complaintAgainst my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, This man hath my consentto 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 fantasyWith bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengersOf strong prevailmentin unharden’d youth:With cunning hastthou 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 nothere before your graceConsentto 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 gentlemanOr to her death, according to our lawImmediately 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 oneTo whom you are but as a form in waxBy him imprinted and within his powerTo leave the figure or disfigure it.Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HERMIA

So is Lysander.

THESEUS

In himself he is;Butin 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 judgmentlook.

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 knowThe worstthat may befall me in this case,If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THESEUS

Either to die the death or to abjureFor ever the society of men.Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;Know of your youth, examine well your blood,Whether, if you yield notto 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-blessedthey that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;But earthlier happyis the rose distill’d,Than that which withering on the virgin thornGrows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

HERMIA

So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,Ere I will my virgin patent upUnto his lordship, whose unwished yokeMy soul consents notto give sovereignty.

THESEUS

Take time to pause; and, by the next new moon--The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,For everlasting bond of fellowship--Upon that day either prepare to die

For disobedience to your father’s will, Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;Or on Diana’s altar to protestFor aye austerity and single life.

DEMETRIUS

Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yieldThy crazed title to my certain right.

LYSANDER

You have her father’s love, Demetrius;Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.

EGEUS

Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,And whatis mine my love shall render him.And she is mine, and all my right of herI do estate unto Demetrius.

LYSANDER

I am, my lord, as well derived as he,

As well possess’d; my love is more than his;My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d,If not with vantage, as Demetrius’;

And, which is more than allthese boasts can be, I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:Why should not I then prosecute my right?Demetrius, I’ll avouch itto his head,

Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,

And won her soul; and she, sweetlady, dotes,Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THESEUS

I must confess that I have heard so much,

And with Demetrius thoughtto have spoke thereof;But, being over-full of self-affairs,My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,I have some private schooling for you both. For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourselfTo fit your fancies to your father’s will;Or else the law of Athens yields you up--Which by no means we may extenuate--To death, or to a vow of single life.Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?Demetrius and Egeus, go along:I must employ you in some businessAgainst our nuptial and confer with youOf something nearly that concerns yourselves.

EGEUS

With duty and desire we follow you.

Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA

LYSANDER

How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIA

Belike for want of rain, which I could wellBeteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

LYSANDER

Ay me! for aughtthat I could ever read,Could ever hear by tale or history,The course of true love never did run smooth;But, either it was differentin blood,--

HERMIA

O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.

LYSANDER

Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--

HERMIA

O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDER

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--

HERMIA

O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.

LYSANDER

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,Making it momentany as a sound,Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;Brief as the lightning in the collied night,That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’The jaws of darkness do devour it up:So quick brightthings come to confusion.

HERMIA

If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,It stands as an edictin destiny:Then let us teach our trial patience, Because itis a customary cross,As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.

LYSANDER

A good persuasion:therefore, hear me, Hermia.I have a widow aunt, a dowagerOf great revenue, and she hath no child:From Athens is her house remote seven leaguesAnd she respects me as her only son.There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;And to that place the sharp Athenian lawCannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,

Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night;And in the wood, a league withoutthe town,Where I did meetthee once with Helena,To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee.

HERMIA

My good Lysander!I swear to thee, by Cupid’s strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen, When the false Troyan under sail was seen,By allthe vows that ever men have broke,In number more than ever women spoke,In that same place thou hast appointed me,To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

LYSANDER

Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter HELENA

HERMIA

God speed fair Helena! whither away?

HELENA

Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue’s sweet airMore tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,When wheatis green, when hawthorn buds appear.Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,Yours would 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’d give to be to you translated.O, teach me how you look, and with what artYou sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.

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 he hateth me.

HERMIA

His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

HELENA

None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

HERMIA

Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;Lysander and myself will fly this place.Before the time I did Lysander see,Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me:O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,Thathe hath turn’d a heaven unto a hell!

LYSANDER

Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold

Her silver visage in the watery glass,Decking with liquid pearlthe bladed grass,A time thatlovers’ flights doth still conceal,Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

HERMIA

And in the wood, where often you and IUpon faint primrose-beds were wontto 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 stranger companies.Farewell, sweet playfellow:pray thou for us;And good luck grantthee thy Demetrius!Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sightFrom lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.

LYSANDER

I will, my Hermia.

Exit 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 of his qualities:Things base and vile, folding no quantity,Love can transpose to form and dignity:Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgementtaste;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 forswear,So the boy Love is perjured every where:For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,He hail’d 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 to-morrow nightPursue her; and for this intelligenceIf I have thanks, itis a dear expense:But herein mean I to enrich my pain,To have his sightthither and back again.

Exit

SCENE II.Athens.QUINCE’S house.

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM,FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

QUINCE

Is all our company here?

BOTTOM

You were bestto callthem generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

QUINCE

Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which isthought fit, through all Athens, to play in ourinterlude before the duke and the duchess, on hiswedding-day at night.

BOTTOM

First, good Peter Quince, say whatthe play treats on,then read the names of the actors,and so grow to a point.

QUINCE

Marry, our play is, The mostlamentable comedy,and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

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

Whatis 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, letthe 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 partto tear a catin,to make all split. The raging rocks and shiveringshocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates;And Phibbus’ car Shall shine from far and makeand mar The foolish Fates.

This was lofty! Now namethe rest of the players.This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein; a loveris more condoling.

QUINCE

Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

FLUTE

Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE

Flute, you musttake Thisby on you.

FLUTE

Whatis Thisby? a wandering knight?

QUINCE

Itis the lady that Pyramus mustlove.

FLUTE

Nay, faith, let me not play a woman;I have a beard coming.

That’s all one:you shall play itin a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

BOTTOM

An I may hide my face, letme play Thisby too, I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice. ‘Thisne,

Thisne;’ ‘Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!’

QUINCE

No, no; you must play Pyramus:and, flute, you Thisby.

BOTTOM

Well, proceed.

QUINCE

Robin Starveling, the tailor.

STARVELING

Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE

Robin Starveling, you must playThisby’s mother. Tom Snout, the tinker.

SNOUT

Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE

You, Pyramus’ father: myself, Thisby’s father:Snug, the joiner; you, the lion’s part:and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

SNUG

Have you the lion’s part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

QUINCE

You may do it extempore, for itis nothing but roaring.

BOTTOM

Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me;I will roar, that I will make the duke say‘Let him roar again, let him roar again.’

QUINCE

An you should do ittoo terribly, you would frightthe duchess and the ladies, thatthey would shriek;and that were enough to hang us all.

ALL

That would hang us, every mother’s son.

BOTTOM

I grant you, friends, if that you should frightthe ladies out of their wits, they would haveno more discretion butto hang us:but I will aggravate my voice so thatI will roar you as gently as any sucking dove;I will roar you an ‘twere any nightingale.

QUINCE

You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramusis a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall seein a summer’s day; a mostlovely gentleman-like man:therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

BOTTOM

Well, I will undertake it.What beard were I bestto play itin?

QUINCE

Why, what you will.

BOTTOM

I will discharge itin either your straw-colourbeard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard,your perfect yellow.

QUINCE

Some of your French crowns have no hair at all,and then you will play bare-faced. But, masters,here are your parts: and I am to entreat you,request you and desire you, to con them by tomorrownight; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile withoutthe town, by moonlight;there will we rehearse,for if we meetin the city, we shall be doggedwith company, and our devices known.In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties,such as our play wants.I pray you, fail me not.

BOTTOM

We will meet; and there we may rehearsemost obscenely and courageously.Take pains; be perfect: adieu.

QUINCE

Atthe duke’s oak we meet.

BOTTOM

Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.

Exeunt