Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 1
Athens. The palace of THESEUS.
Theseus : Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
[p]Draws on apace; four happy
days bring in
[p]Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow
[p]This old
moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
[p]Like to a step-dame or a
dowager
[p]Long withering out a young man revenue.
Hippolyta : Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
[p]Four nights will
quickly dream away the time;
[p]And then the moon, like to a silver
bow
[p]New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
[p]Of our
solemnities.
Theseus : Go, Philostrate,
[p]Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
[p]Awake
the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
[p]Turn melancholy forth to
funerals;
[p]The pale companion is not for our pomp.
[p][Exit
PHILOSTRATE]
[p]Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
[p]And won thy
love, doing thee injuries;
[p]But I will wed thee in another
key,
[p]With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.
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
[p]Against my child, my
daughter Hermia.
[p]Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
[p]This man
hath my consent to marry her.
[p]Stand forth, Lysander: and my
gracious duke,
[p]This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my
child;
[p]Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
[p]And
interchanged love-tokens with my child:
[p]Thou hast by moonlight at
her window sung,
[p]With feigning voice verses of feigning
love,
[p]And stolen the impression of her fantasy
[p]With bracelets of
thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
[p]Knacks, trifles, nosegays,
sweetmeats, messengers
[p]Of strong prevailment in unharden'd
youth:
[p]With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's
heart,
[p]Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
[p]To stubborn
harshness: and, my gracious duke,
[p]Be it so she; will not here
before your grace
[p]Consent to marry with Demetrius,
[p]I beg the
ancient privilege of Athens,
[p]As she is mine, I may dispose of
her:
[p]Which shall be either to this gentleman
[p]Or to her death,
according to our law
[p]Immediately provided in that case.
Theseus : What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:
[p]To you your father
should be as a god;
[p]One that composed your beauties, yea, and
one
[p]To whom you are but as a form in wax
[p]By him imprinted and
within his power
[p]To leave the figure or disfigure it.
[p]Demetrius
is a worthy gentleman.
Hermia : So is Lysander.
Theseus : In himself he is;
[p]But in this kind, wanting your father's
voice,
[p]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 : I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
[p]I know not by what power I am
made bold,
[p]Nor how it may concern my modesty,
[p]In such a presence
here to plead my thoughts;
[p]But I beseech your grace that I may
know
[p]The worst that may befall me in this case,
[p]If I refuse to
wed Demetrius.
Theseus : Either to die the death or to abjure
[p]For ever the society of
men.
[p]Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
[p]Know of your
youth, examine well your blood,
[p]Whether, if you yield not to your
father's choice,
[p]You can endure the livery of a nun,
[p]For aye to
be in shady cloister mew'd,
[p]To live a barren sister all your
life,
[p]Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless
moon.
[p]Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
[p]To undergo
such maiden pilgrimage;
[p]But earthlier happy is the rose
distill'd,
[p]Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
[p]Grows,
lives and dies in single blessedness.
Hermia : So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
[p]Ere I will my virgin
patent up
[p]Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
[p]My soul
consents not to give sovereignty.
Theseus : Take time to pause; and, by the nest new moon--
[p]The sealing-day
betwixt my love and me,
[p]For everlasting bond of
fellowship--
[p]Upon that day either prepare to die
[p]For
disobedience to your father's will,
[p]Or else to wed Demetrius, as he
would;
[p]Or on Diana's altar to protest
[p]For aye austerity and
single life.
Demetrius : Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield
[p]Thy crazed title to my
certain right.
Lysander : You have her father's love, Demetrius;
[p]Let me have Hermia's: do you
marry him.
Egeus : Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love,
[p]And what is mine my love
shall render him.
[p]And she is mine, and all my right of her
[p]I do
estate unto Demetrius.
Lysander : I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
[p]As well possess'd; my love is
more than his;
[p]My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
[p]If not
with vantage, as Demetrius';
[p]And, which is more than all these
boasts can be,
[p]I am beloved of beauteous Hermia:
[p]Why should not
I then prosecute my right?
[p]Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his
head,
[p]Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
[p]And won her soul;
and she, sweet lady, dotes,
[p]Devoutly dotes, dotes in
idolatry,
[p]Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
Theseus : I must confess that I have heard so much,
[p]And with Demetrius
thought to have spoke thereof;
[p]But, being over-full of
self-affairs,
[p]My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
[p]And
come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
[p]I have some private schooling
for you both.
[p]For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
[p]To fit
your fancies to your father's will;
[p]Or else the law of Athens
yields you up--
[p]Which by no means we may extenuate--
[p]To death,
or to a vow of single life.
[p]Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my
love?
[p]Demetrius and Egeus, go along:
[p]I must employ you in some
business
[p]Against our nuptial and confer with you
[p]Of something
nearly that concerns yourselves.
Egeus : With duty and desire we follow you.
Lysander : How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?
[p]How chance the roses
there do fade so fast?
Hermia : Belike for want of rain, which I could well
[p]Beteem them from the
tempest of my eyes.
Lysander : Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
[p]Could ever hear by tale or
history,
[p]The course of true love never did run smooth;
[p]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 : 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,
[p]War, death, or sickness did
lay siege to it,
[p]Making it momentany as a sound,
[p]Swift as a
shadow, short as any dream;
[p]Brief as the lightning in the collied
night,
[p]That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
[p]And ere
a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
[p]The jaws of darkness do devour it
up:
[p]So quick bright things come to confusion.
Hermia : If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
[p]It stands as an edict
in destiny:
[p]Then let us teach our trial patience,
[p]Because it is
a customary cross,
[p]As due to love as thoughts and dreams and
sighs,
[p]Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.
Lysander : A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.
[p]I have a widow aunt,
a dowager
[p]Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
[p]From Athens
is her house remote seven leagues;
[p]And she respects me as her only
son.
[p]There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
[p]And to that place
the sharp Athenian law
[p]Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me
then,
[p]Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
[p]And in the
wood, a league without the town,
[p]Where I did meet thee once with
Helena,
[p]To do observance to a morn of May,
[p]There will I stay for
thee.
Hermia : My good Lysander!
[p]I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow,
[p]By
his best arrow with the golden head,
[p]By the simplicity of Venus'
doves,
[p]By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
[p]And by
that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
[p]When the false Troyan
under sail was seen,
[p]By all the vows that ever men have
broke,
[p]In number more than ever women spoke,
[p]In that same place
thou hast appointed me,
[p]To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
Lysander : Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Hermia : God speed fair Helena! whither away?
Helena : Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
[p]Demetrius loves your fair:
O happy fair!
[p]Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet
air
[p]More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
[p]When wheat is
green, when hawthorn buds appear.
[p]Sickness is catching: O, were
favour so,
[p]Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
[p]My ear
should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
[p]My tongue should catch
your tongue's sweet melody.
[p]Were the world mine, Demetrius being
bated,
[p]The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
[p]O, teach me
how you look, and with what art
[p]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 : 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;
[p]Lysander and myself
will fly this place.
[p]Before the time I did Lysander see,
[p]Seem'd
Athens as a paradise to me:
[p]O, then, what graces in my love do
dwell,
[p]That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
Lysander : Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
[p]To-morrow night, when
Phoebe doth behold
[p]Her silver visage in the watery
glass,
[p]Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
[p]A time that
lovers' flights doth still conceal,
[p]Through Athens' gates have we
devised to steal.
Hermia : And in the wood, where often you and I
[p]Upon faint primrose-beds
were wont to lie,
[p]Emptying our bosoms of their counsel
sweet,
[p]There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
[p]And thence from
Athens turn away our eyes,
[p]To seek new friends and stranger
companies.
[p]Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;
[p]And
good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
[p]Keep word, Lysander: we must
starve our sight
[p]From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
Lysander : I will, my Hermia.
[p][Exit HERMIA]
[p]Helena, adieu:
[p]As you on
him, Demetrius dote on you!
Helena : How happy some o'er other some can be!
[p]Through Athens I am thought
as fair as she.
[p]But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
[p]He
will not know what all but he do know:
[p]And as he errs, doting on
Hermia's eyes,
[p]So I, admiring of his qualities:
[p]Things base and
vile, folding no quantity,
[p]Love can transpose to form and
dignity:
[p]Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
[p]And
therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:
[p]Nor hath Love's mind of
any judgement taste;
[p]Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
[p]And
therefore is Love said to be a child,
[p]Because in choice he is so
oft beguiled.
[p]As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
[p]So
the boy Love is perjured every where:
[p]For ere Demetrius look'd on
Hermia's eyne,
[p]He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
[p]And
when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
[p]So he dissolved, and
showers of oaths did melt.
[p]I will go tell him of fair Hermia's
flight:
[p]Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
[p]Pursue her; and
for this intelligence
[p]If I have thanks, it is a dear
expense:
[p]But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
[p]To have his sight
thither and back again.
Next: Act 1 - Scene 2
