TPTT A Midsummer Night's Dream: ACT I
Introduction
ACT I
SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.
SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house.
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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,
5     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
10    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;
15    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,
20    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.
25    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,
30    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,
35    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,
40    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
45    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
50    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
55    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
60    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
65    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;
70    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,
75    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
80    Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.
HERMIA
      So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
      Ere I will my virgin patent up
      Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
      My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
THESEUS
85    Take time to pause; and, by the nest 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,
90    Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;
      Or on Diana's altar to protest
      For aye austerity and single life.
DEMETRIUS
      Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield
      Thy crazed title to my certain right.
LYSANDER
95    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 what is mine my love shall render him.
      And she is mine, and all my right of her
100   I 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';
105   And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
      I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:
      Why should not I then prosecute my right?
      Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
      Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
110   And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, 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 thought to have spoke thereof;
115   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 yourself
120   To 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?
125   Demetrius and Egeus, go along:
      I must employ you in some business
      Against our nuptial and confer with you
      Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGEUS
      With duty and desire we follow you.
Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA
LYSANDER
130   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 well
      Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER
      Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
135   Could ever hear by tale or history,
      The course of true love never did run smooth;
      But, either it was different in blood,--
HERMIA
      O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
LYSANDER
      Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--
HERMIA
140   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,
145   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!'
150   The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
      So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA
      If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
      It stands as an edict in destiny:
      Then let us teach our trial patience,
155   Because it is 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 dowager
160   Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
      From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
      And she respects me as her only son.
      There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
      And to that place the sharp Athenian law
165   Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
      Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
      And in the wood, a league without the town,
      Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
      To do observance to a morn of May,
170   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,
175   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 all the vows that ever men have broke,
      In number more than ever women spoke,
180   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.
185   Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
      Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
      More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
      When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
      Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
190   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.
195   O, teach me how you look, and with what art
      You 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
200   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
205   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,
210   That he 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 pearl the bladed grass,
215   A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
      Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.
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,
220   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 grant thee thy Demetrius!
225   Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
      From 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
230   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,
235   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:
240   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 forswear,
245   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.
250   I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
      Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
      Pursue her; and for this intelligence
      If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
      But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
255   To have his sight thither and back again.
Exit
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