A Midsummer Night's Dream: Important Quotes

Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks, Make mouths upon me when I turn my back; Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up: This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled. If you have any pity, grace, or manners, You would not make me such an argument. But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault; Which death or absence soon shall remedy.

Helena

Have you conspired, have you with these contrived To bait me with this foul derision? Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us,--O, is it all forgot?

Helena

He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him; But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too: And now, so you will let me quiet go, To Athens will I bear my folly back

Helena

I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me: I was never curst; I have no gift at all in shrewishness; I am a right maid for my cowardice: Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, Because she is something lower than myself, That I can match her.

Helena

I will not trust you, I, Nor longer stay in your curst company. Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray, My legs are longer though, to run away.

Helena

I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.

Helena

It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world

Helena

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.

Helena

Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love,-- And yet a place of high respect with me,-- Than to be used as you use your dog?

Helena

O weary night, O long and tedious night, Abate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east, That I may back to Athens by daylight, From these that my poor company detest: And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.

Helena

O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Helena

O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce.

Helena

The more I love, the more he hateth me.

Helena

perforce I must confess I thought you lord of more true gentleness. O, that a lady, of one man refused. Should of another therefore be abused!

Helena

And here am I, and wode within this wood, Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

Demetrius

Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

Demetrius

My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, Of this their purpose hither to this wood; And I in fury hither follow'd them, Fair Helena in fancy following me.

Demetrius

Come, tears, confound; Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop:

Pyramus

Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake:

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.

Quince

'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.' Merry and tragical! tedious and brief! That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord?

Theseus

Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: Of this discourse we more will hear anon. Egeus, I will overbear your will; For in the temple by and by with us These couples shall eternally be knit:

Theseus

I pray you all, stand up. I know you two are rival enemies: How comes this gentle concord in the world, That hatred is so far from jealousy, To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?

Theseus

In himself he is; But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, The other must be held the worthier.

Theseus

More strange than true: I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact:

Theseus

No doubt they rose up early to observe The rite of May, and hearing our intent, Came here in grace our solemnity. But speak, Egeus; is not this the day That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

Theseus

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve: Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn As much as we this night have overwatch'd. This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity, In nightly revels and new jollity.

Theseus

The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.

Theseus

Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove? O Pyramus, arise! Speak, speak. Quite dumb? Dead, dead?

Thisbe

All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our play is preferred.

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!'

Bottom

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.

Bottom

I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.

Bottom

No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me' is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.

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.

Bottom

Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

Bottom

Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed

Bottom

there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to look to 't.

Bottom

Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough: I beg the law, the law, upon his head. They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius, Thereby to have defeated you and me, You of your wife and me of my consent, Of my consent that she should be your wife.

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.

Egeus

'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and 'little'! Why will you suffer her to flout me thus? Let me come to her.

Hermia

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!

Hermia

But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy Lie further off; in human modesty, Such separation as may well be said Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,

Hermia

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.

Hermia

How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak; How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

Hermia

It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him; So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.

Hermia

Methought a serpent eat my heart away, And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.

Hermia

O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom! You thief of love! what, have you come by night And stolen my love's heart from him?

Hermia

But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange and admirable.

Hippolyta

And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake. Transparent.........! Nature shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

Lysander

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.

Lysander

One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.

Lysander

So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, Of all be hated, but the most of me!

Lysander

Who will not change a raven for a dove? The will of man is by his reason sway'd; And reason says you are the worthier maid. Things growing are not ripe until their season So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;

Lysander

Come, my queen, take hands with me, And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Now thou and I are new in amity, And will to-morrow midnight solemnly Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, And bless it to all fair prosperity:

Oberon

Her dotage now I do begin to pity: For, meeting her of late behind the wood, Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool, I did upbraid her and fall out with her; For she his hairy temples then had rounded With a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;

Oberon

Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: A sweet Athenian 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 know the man By the Athenian garments he hath on.

Oberon

Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight: Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night; The starry welkin cover thou anon With drooping fog as black as Acheron, And lead these testy rivals so astray As one come not within another's way.

Oberon

Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury.

Oberon

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

And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls; He murder cries and help from Athens calls. Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong, Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;

Puck

I jest to Oberon and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks, against her lips I bob And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.

Puck

Pretty soul! she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe.

Puck

Take heed the queen come not within his sight; For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, Because that she as her attendant hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;

Puck

And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original.

Titania

Come, my lord, and in our flight Tell me how it came this night That I sleeping here was found With these mortals on the ground.

Titania

I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;

Titania

If you will patiently dance in our round And see our moonlight revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

Titania

These are the forgeries of jealousy: And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.

Titania

Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful

Titania