Mid Summer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare

NARRATOR: The course of true love never did run smooth and never did it stumble worse than on one
summers day; when all others was bright with expectancy for the wedding of Duke Theseus and
Hippolyta but love was not as simple for others in the town. Hermia loved Lysander. And Lysander loved
Hermia. And what could have been better than that! At the same time, Helena loved Hermia. What could
have been worse than that! Only Hermias father. Although there was nothing to choose between the two
young men, Hermias father had choosen; and he had chosen Demetrius!
LYSANDER: so quick bright things come to confusion!
NARRATOR: And such there was the law of Athens that, if Hermia disobeyed her father. She would be
shut up in a munnery for the rest of her life. Then lovers were in despair. But despair leads to
desperations; and desperations to desperate measures the very next night, first Hermia the Lysander crept
from the town. At midnight they were to meet in a wood not far from Athens from there to fly away
together to some distant place where the cruel law could not touch them. Confided I Helena who was her
best friend. For Helena, hoping for no more than a grateful smile, told Demetrius. Outraged, Demetrius
rushed after the runaways, meaning to win Hermias heart by plunging his sword in Lysanders and after
him, stumbled Helena, still hoping for a kindness to be flung over his shoulder, like a bone to a starving
dog. And so the lour lovers hastened to the wood. But they were not the only ones to leave the town that
night. For secrecy of the wood. Peter Quince, the carpeter, and scholar of the company; nick Bottom, the
weaver, a great man and a tower of strength in any enterprise which not even he would deny. Flute the
bellows mender, snug the joiner, snout the tinker and starveling the tailor. Snout the tinker and starveling
the tailor.
PETER QUINCE: Is all our company here?
NARRATOR: Six men of Athens. They were met in secret to rehearse a play for the wedding of the
Duke. The play theyd chosen was, most fittingly, about love. It was the most lamentable tragedy and
most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe. Nick bottom of course, was to play Pyramus; although he could
have taken any, or all the other parts with equal success.
NICK BOTTOM: Let me play Thisbe, too.
PETER QUINCE: No, no, you must play Pyramus.
NICK BOTTOM: Let me play the lion too. I will roar, (roar). That I will make the Duke say,Let him
roar again (roar)
NARRATOR: It was a strange wood, huge and mysterious, and haunted by more than spinning spiders,
betters, hedgehogs and softly, spotted snakes. Oberon, the dread king of the night-time world, with Puck,
his wild henchman, and all his goblin train!
OBERON: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania! Titania, his queen!
TITANIA: What jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence! I have forsworn his bed and company;
OBERON: Tarry, rash wanton! Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling
boy. To be my henchman.

TITANIA: Set your heart at rest. The fairy land boys not the child of me. His mother was a votress of my
order
OBERON: Give me that boy!
TITANIA: Not for thy fairy kingdom! Fairies, away!
OBERON: Well, go thy way; thou shall not from this groove. Till I torment thee for this injury. My
gentle Puck, come neither. (Whispering). Even the seasons were disturbed for as among the moral lovers
there was discoerd between the spirit king and green. And so dangerous a quarrel inside a sickness in
nature.
OBERON: fetch me this herb . . .
PUCK: Ill put a gridle round about the earth. In forty minutes!
NARRATOR: The herb that puck had gave to fetch grew possessed of strange powers.
If the juice of it was dropped on sleeping eyes then the moment they awoke, the sleeper would fall wildly,
madly in love with the very first living creature their magically anointed eyes beheld. No matter who or
what it was.
DEMETRIUS: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not!
HELENA: I am your spaniel, and Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you!
Spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me, only give me leave, unworthy as I am to follow you!
DEMETRIUS: Iam sick when I do look on thee!
HELENA: and Iam sick when I look not on you!
DEMETRIUS: let me go! Or, if thou follow me, do not believe but I shall do thee mischief in the wood!
HELENA: (crying) we should be wood and were not made to woo!
OBERON: Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove. Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seen thy
love; I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the wodding violet grows, Quite overcanopied w/ luscious wood bind, with sweet musk- noses and w/ elagantine. There sleeps Titania some
time of the night. With the juice of this Ill streak her eyes, and make her full of hateful fantasies. Take
thou some of it, and seek through this grove. A sweet anthenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth;
anoint his eyes; but do it when the next thing he espies may be the lady, thou shalt Athenian garments he
hath on.
PUCK: Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
TITANIA: Come now a roundel and fairy song
FAIRIES: (SINGING) You spotted snakes w/ double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; newts and
blind-worms do no wrong come not near our fairy queen we axing spiders come not here; Hence you
long- legged spinners, hence! Beatles black, approach not near, worm nor snail do not offence.

OBERON: What thou seest when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true love take. Wake when something
vile is near!
LYSANDER: Well rest us, Hermia, if you think it good.
HERMIA: Be it so, Lysander, find you out a bed; for my sake my dear; lie further off yet.
LYSANDER: (sigh)
HERMIA: Lie further off, in human modesty; Such separation as many well be said. Becomes a virtuous
bachelor and a maid. So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.
PUCK: This is he my master said, Despised the Athenian maid; And here the maiden, sleeping sound; On
the dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul, she durst not lie, near this lack-love, this kill- courtesy! Churl,
Upon thine eyes I throw. All the power this charm doth owe. (flew away)
DEMETRIUS: Hence, hence I charge thee thus! And do not haunt me thus!
HELENA: O wilt thou darkling leave me? But who is here? Lysander, on the ground? Dead or asleep? I
see no blood, no wound. Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake!
LYSANDER: Not Helena but Hermia I Love. Who will not change, a raven for a dove!
HELENA: Good truth, You do me wrong, Good sooth, you do! Fare you well!
LYSANDER: Helena, sleep thou there, and never mayest thou, come Lysander near! All my powers,
address your love and might, to honour Hermia, and to be her knight!
HERMIA: Lysander! Lysander, Lord! Alack, where are you?
NARRATOR: From love in earnest to love in play; The six good men of Athens.
NICK BOTTOM: Are we all met?
PETER QUINCE: Heres a marvelous. Convenient place for our rehearsal. So their parts were allotted;
Pyramus, the love to bottom; Thisbe, the lady, to flute .
FLUTE: Let me not play a woman. I had a beard coming.
PETER QUINCE: Thisbe tha lady, to flute.
FLUTE: (sigh)
PETER QUINCE: Snug, to play the lion.
SNUG: (roar)
NARRATOR: Starveling to represent the moon, and shout to be the wall that cruely separated the lovers,
one from another, and Peter Quince, the scholar, to direct the play. (All Six men, participating)
But though they had chosen the time and place for rehearsing with care, so as to be quite secret, they had
an audience, though they knew it not.

PUCK: What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here, so near the cradle of the fairy queen?
FLUTE: Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue! Ill meet thee Pyramus, at ninnys tomb.
PETER QUINCE: At Ninos tomb man! Why, you must not speak that yet; that you must answer to
Pyramus you speak all your part at once, cues and all! Pyramus, enter!
PUCK: (Magic Nick Bottom into a horse/donkey)
PETER QUINCE: Pyramus, enter!
NICK BOTTOM: If I were fairy, Fair Thisbe (5 men Shocked)
PETER QUINCE: O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted! Pray, masters! Fly, masters! Help!
(5 men, HELP) (Runaway)
NICK BOTTOM: Why do they runaway?
PETER QUINCE: Bless thee, Bottom; bless thee! Thou are translated!
NICK BOTTOM: (Horse) I see their knavery this is to make an ass of me, to fright me, if they could.. I
will sing, that they shall hear I m not afraid. (Singing) The ousel cock, so black of hue, with orange-tawny
bill. The throstle, with his note so true, The wren with little quill. The Throstle, with him note so tru-u-ue..
TITANIA: What angle wakes me from my flowery bed? I, gentle mortal, sing again; Mine ear is much
enamoured of thy note. So is mine I enthralled to thy shape, on the first view to say, top swear, I love thee.
NICK BOTTOM: Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that.
TITANIA: I am a spirit of no common rate; and I do love thee: therefore go with me. Ill give the fairies
to attend on thee..
FAIRIES (Kilig)
OBERON: This falls out better than I could devise. But hast thou yet latched the Athenians eyes with the
love-juice? I took him sleeping stand close. This is the same Athenian.
PUCK: This is the woman, but not this the man!
HERMIA: Out dog! Out, cur! Hast thou slain him them?
DEMETRIUS: I am not guilty of Lysanders blood!
HERMIA: See me no more, whether he be dead or no!
DEMETRIUS: There is no following her in this fierce vein. (Sigh)
OBERON: What have thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite, and laid the love-juice on some true loves
sight, about the wood go swifter than the wind, and Helena of Athens look thou find.

PUCK: I go, I go, and look now I go? Swifter than arrow from the Tartars bow!
(Fly away)
DEMETRIUS: (resting at the tree)
OBERON: Flower of this purple dye hit with Cupids archery, Sink in apple of his eye.
(Patak ng Juice). When his Love he doth espy
PUCK: Captain of cur Faith band, Helena is here at hand. Shall we their fond pageant see?
DEMETRIUS: (saw Hermia) O, Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
HELENA: O spite! O hell! I see you are all bent to set against me for your merriment. You both, are
rivals, and love Hermia.
DEMETRIUS: Lysander, Keep thy Hermia. If ere I loved her, all that love is gone. And now to Helena is
it home returned!
LYSANDER: Helena, it is not so
DEMETRIUS: Look where thy love comes yonder is thy clear!
HERMIA: You juggler! Canker-blossoms! You thief of Love!
HELENA: Have you no modesty, no maiden shame?
HERMIA: You, puppet you!
HELENA: Puppet! Thou painted maypole!
PUCK: (Laughing) Lord, what fools these mortals be.
HELENA: She was a vixen when she went to school!
HERMIA: Let me come to her!
LYSANDER: Get you gone, you dwarf!
OBERON: This is thy negligence, still thou mistakes or else committee thy knaveries willfully.
(sword)
PUCK: Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
OBERON: Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight. Therefore, Robin, overcast the wight.
PUCK: (

OBERON: and lead these testy rivals so astray, that one comes not within anothers way. Then crush this
herb into Lysanders eye.

PUCK: Thou takes true delight in the sight of the former ladys eye, and the country proverb known, that
every man should take his own.
(Fly away)
NARRATOR: But the madness of Love still lingered in another part of the wood
NARRATOR: Sweet Love, what dervishs thou to eat?
NICK BOTTOM: Truly, a peck of provender; I could much your good dry oats But I pray you, let none
of your people stir me up. I have an expression of sleep come upon me
FAIRY: (Laughing)
TITANIA: Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. O I Love thee, how I doth on thee!
(Hinawak-hawakan si Botton)
NARRATOR: Oberon saw his chance take revenge and with it pity followed.
OBERON: Now, I have the boy, I will undo these hateful imperfections. Her eyes are as thou wast wont
to be, See as thou wast wont to see.
TITANIA: My Oberon! What vision have I seen? Methought I was enamored of an ass.
OBERON: There Lies your Love
TITANIA: (Shock)
OBERON: Come my queen take hands with me
NARRATOR: Titania, Oberon and the Fairies Flew Away. Duke Theseus with his bride up early to
celebrate their wedding day with a hunt.
THESEUS: No doubt they rose up early to observe, the rite of may, and hearing our intent. Go, bid the
Hunysmen wake them with their horns.
NARRATOR: Amongst the party was egeus the father of hermia, His obedient child
EGEUS: I beg the law, the law, upon his head.
THESEUS: Fair Lovers, you are fortunately met, Egeus, I will overbear your will; For in the temple by
and by with us. These couple shall eternally be knit. Away with us to Athens; three and three; Well hold a
feast in great Solemnity
DEMETRIUS: Are you sure? That we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.
NARRATOR: And so, another dreamer Bottom was transformed again from ass to actor and Left the
wood to joined his anxious company in Athens, To celebrate with that play Duke Theseus is waiting there.
People: (Laughing)

PETER QUINCE: This man, Pyramus if you would know this Beatious Lady thisby certain, This man
with Lime and roughcast doth presents wall that vile wall which did these lover sunder and this man with
lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn presenteth moonshine, and this grisly beast, which Lion night by name.
FLUTE: (shout and runaway)
NARRATOR: But Bully Bottom weaver was best of all. He live Pyramus, He died Pyramus.
NICK BOTTOM: Those Die I, Those Uuh , Those Uuh, Those Uuh
NARRATOR: Now the mortals have come to sleep into the palace create a happy spirits.
OBERON: Through the house give glimmering light. Sing and dance it trippingly.
TITANIA: Hand in Hand with fairy grace, we will sing, and bless this place
OBERON: Now, until the break of day, through this house each Fairy stays. To the best bride-bed will
we, each by us shall blessed be. Trip away, make no stay, and meet me all by Break of day.
NARRATOR: And so At last, after the madness of the Midsummer night. The cause of true love came
home and smiles and laugh, the peace, contentment, and the well endless.