A Midsummer Night’s Dream - William Shakespeare (best classic novels txt) 📗

is past:
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Lysander Pardon, my lord. 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, and fear no enmity?

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 be,
Without the peril of the Athenian law.

Egeus

Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough:
I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius,
Thereby to have defeated you and me,
You of your wife, and me of my consent,
Of my consent that she should be your wife.

Demetrius

My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither follow’d 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 an idle gawd
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object, and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia:
But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.

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 a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta. Exeunt Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and train.

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 you think
The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

Hermia Yea; and my father. Helena And Hippolyta. Lysander And he did bid us follow to the temple. Demetrius

Why, then, we are awake: let’s follow him;
And by the way let us recount our dreams. Exeunt.

Bottom Awaking. 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! God’s 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 to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was⁠—there is no man can tell what. Methought I was⁠—and methought I had⁠—but man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom’s Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke: peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death. Exit. Scene II

Athens. Quince’s house.

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 to discharge Pyramus but he. Flute No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens. Quince Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice. Flute You must say “paragon:” a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught. 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 day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing. Enter Bottom. Bottom Where are these lads? where are these hearts? Quince Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour! Bottom Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you everything, right as it fell out. Quince Let us hear, sweet Bottom. Bottom Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o’er his part; for the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion’s claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet