Many scholars and editors have supposed that the play was written to celebrate some aristocratic marriage and performed privately, but there is no external evidence to support this theory, and the title-page of the 1600 Quarto claims that A Midsummer Night’s Dream had been ‘sundry times publicly acted’ by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s regular company. There are few records of pre-Restoration performances, but it became popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, usually in adapted form with the addition of music and dancing. It has inspired two operas: Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen (1692) and Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960); Felix Mendelssohn wrote extensive music for it (1842). The Victorian tradition encumbered the play with lavish spectacle; twentiethcentury productions have been less elaborate and have included the revolutionary 1970 version directed by Peter Brook for the Royal Shakespeare Company with its ‘white box’ set, gymnastic actors and rediscovery of the play’s darker side. Films have included a 1935 Hollywood version directed by Max Reinhardt with James Cagney as Bottom, and Woody Allen’s more recent adaptation, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982), which combined the Shakespearean source with influences from Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night (1955).
The Arden text is based on the 1600 First Quarto.
LIST OF ROLES
THESEUS
Duke of Athens
HIPPOLYTA
Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus
young courtiers in love with Hermia
HERMIA
In love with Lysander
HELENA
In love with Demetrius
EGEUS
Hermia’s father
PHILOSTRATE
Theseus’ Master of the Revels
OBERON
King of the Fairies
TITANIA
Queen of the Fairies
FAIRY
in Titania’s service
PUCK
or Robin Goodfellow, Oberon’s jester and lieutenant
fairies, in Titania’s service
Peter QUINCE
a carpenter; PROLOGUE in the Interlude
Nick BOTTOM
a weaver; PYRAMUS in the Interlude
Francis FLUTE
a bellows-mender; THISBE in the Interlude
Tom SNOUT
a tinker; WALL in the Interlude
SNUG
a joiner; LION in the Interlude
Robin STARVELING
a tailor; MOONSHINE in the Interlude
Other Fairies attending on Oberon and Titania
Lords and Attendants to Theseus and Hippolyta
1.1 Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA and PHILOSTRATE,
with 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
5
Long withering out a young man’s 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.
15
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 and his daughter HERMIA,
and 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.
25
Stand forth Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
This hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang’d love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
30
With faining voice verses of feigning love,
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats (messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth):
35
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.
45
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia? Be advis’d, fair maid.
To you your father should be as a god:
One that compos’d 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.
55
HERMIA I would my father look’d but with my eyes.
THESEUS
Rather your eyes must with his judgement 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
65
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;
75
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 yield 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 next new moon,
The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
For everlasting bond of fellowship,
85
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;
95
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 deriv’d 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 belov’d of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
105
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:
115
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
125
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 –
135
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 engag’d 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,
145
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.
155
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 lov’st me then,
Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town
165
(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
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 389
