MacWorld 1999 February/Macworld (1999-02).dmg/Games World/SharewareGames/3D Klondike v.1.0a/3D Klondike v.1.0a.rsrc/TEXT_129_Midsummer's Nights Dream.txt

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
by
William Shakespeare


SCENE    Athens, and a wood near it.


ACT I

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,
    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
    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;
    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,
    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.
    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,
    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,
    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,
    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
    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
    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                      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    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
    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;
    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,
    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
    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    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,
    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    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
    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';
    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,
    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;
    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
    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?
    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    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,
    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    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 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,
    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
    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
    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,
    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 all the 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 air
    More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
    When wheat is 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 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    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,
    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,
    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,
    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!
    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    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 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,
    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 night
    Pursue her; and for this intelligence
    If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
    But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
    To have his sight thither and back again.

    [Exit]




    A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM


ACT I



SCENE II    Athens. QUINCE'S house.


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

QUINCE    Is all our company here?

BOTTOM    You were best to call them generally, man by man,
    according to the scrip.

QUINCE    Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is
    thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our
    interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his
    wedding-day at night.

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

QUINCE    Marry, our play is, The most lamentable 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    What is 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, let the 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 part to
    tear a cat in, to make all split.
    The raging rocks
    And shivering shocks
    Shall break the locks
    Of prison gates;
    And Phibbus' car
    Shall shine from far
    And make and mar
    The foolish Fates.
    This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.
    This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is
    more condoling.

QUINCE    Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

FLUTE    Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE    Flute, you must take Thisby on you.

FLUTE    What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

QUINCE    It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

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

QUINCE    That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and
    you may speak as small as you will.

BOTTOM    An I may hide my face, let me 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 play Thisby'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 it is 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 it too terribly, you would fright
    the duchess and the ladies, that they 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 fright the
    ladies out of their wits, they would have no more
    discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my
    voice so that I 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 Pyramus is a
    sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a
    summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man:
    therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

BOTTOM    Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best
    to play it in?

QUINCE    Why, what you will.

BOTTOM    I will discharge it in either your straw-colour
    beard, 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 to-morrow night;
    and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the
    town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if
    we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with
    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 rehearse most
    obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.

QUINCE    At the duke's oak we meet.

BOTTOM    Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.

    [Exeunt]


HEY!  ACT II and III have been suspended because you
really need to get a drink and stretch your
eyes.

You can find all of the Bard's works on the web.
Just go to www.hotbot.com and search for:
"Complete Works of Shakespeare"

Enjoy!

_ Ian