A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream, written in 1595 or 1596, is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare.
Act I
- Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights;
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.- Hippolyta, scene i
- Simple: Four days will go by quickly, and then we will see the night when we wed.
- About the quote: They are planning to get married, but the guy is very anxious
- 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.- Lysander, scene i
- Simple: For all I have ever read in history, true love never goes easily/smoothly
- O, hell! to choose love by another’s eye.
- Hermia, scene i
- 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.- Lysander, scene i
- Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.- Helena, scene i
- Masters, spread yourselves.
- Bottom, scene ii
- This is Ercles’ vein.
- Bottom, scene ii
- I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice.
- Bottom, scene ii
- I am slow of study.
- Snug, scene ii
- That would hang us, every mother’s son.
- All, scene ii
- I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you, an ’twere any nightingale.
- Bottom, scene ii
- A proper man, as one shall see in a summer’s day.
- Quince, scene ii
Act II
- Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats, spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In their freckles live our savours.
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone;
My queen and all her elves come here anon!- Fairy, scene i
- The human mortals.
- Titania, scene i
- Once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music.- Oberon, scene i
- And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before, milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, —
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.- Oberon, scene i
- I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.- Puck, scene i
- My heart
Is true as steel.- Helena, scene i
- I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.- Oberon, scene i