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- $Unique_ID{SSP02251}
- $Title{A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act I, Scene I}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*02250.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
-
-
- 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 10
- 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! 20
-
- 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, 30
- 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, 40
- 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 50
- 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, 60
- 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, 70
- 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 80
- 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. 90
-
- 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; 100
- 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. 110
-
- 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-- 120
- 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 130
- 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. 140
-
- 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, 150
- 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. 160
- 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, 170
- 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? 180
-
- 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, 190
- 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. 200
-
- 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, 210
- 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; 220
- 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, 230
- 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, 240
- 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, 250
- To have his sight thither and back again.
-
- [Exit.]
-
