Pardon, my lord.

THESEUS I pray you all, stand up.

They rise.

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,

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 stol’n 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 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 an idle gaud

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 betrothed 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 forevermore 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.

Theseus and his train,

including Hippolyta and Egeus, exit.

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.

Lovers exit.

BOTTOM, waking up When my cue comes, call me,

and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.”

Hey-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.

He exits.

Scene 2

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 handicraftman

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 the joiner.

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 Thisbe 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 comedy. No more

words. Away! Go, away!

They exit.

Scene 1

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, and Philostrate, Lords, and

Attendants.

HIPPOLYTA

’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

THESEUS

More strange than true. I never may believe

These antique fables nor these fairy toys.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to

heaven,

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination

That, if it would but apprehend some joy,

It comprehends some bringer of that joy.

Or in the night, imagining some fear,

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

HIPPOLYTA

But all the story of the night told over,