A Midsummer Night's Dream

By William Shakespeare

In the enchanting realm of Athens and the mystical forest, A Midsummer Night's Dream weaves a tapestry of love, mischief, and magic. Lovers entangle in whimsical confusion, fairies cast spells, and the mischievous Puck orchestrates a romantic ballet. Amidst the dreamlike chaos, Shakespeare explores the ephemeral nature of love and the transformative power of imagination, creating a timeless comedy where reality and fantasy dance in delightful harmony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Interactive Media
• Release date: Sep 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910833506

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

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William Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Published by Sovereign

This edition first published in 2015

Copyright © 2015 Sovereign

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 9781910833506

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

THESEUS, Duke of Athens

EGEUS, father to Hermia

LYSANDER, in love with Hermia

DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia

PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus

QUINCE, a carpenter

SNUG, a joiner

BOTTOM, a weaver

FLUTE, a bellows-mender

SNOUT, a tinker

STARVELING, a tailor

HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus

HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander

HELENA, in love with Demetrius

OBERON, King of the Fairies

TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies

PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW

PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy

COBWEB, fairy

MOTH, fairy

MUSTARDSEED, fairy

PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented by: QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG

Other Fairies attending their King and Queen

Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta

SCENE: Athens and a wood near it

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

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!

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,

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,

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

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,

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,

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

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--

Upon that

Reviews for A Midsummer Night's Dream

[kennethwdavis_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite Shakespearean comedy, a miracle.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

" The course of true love never did run smooth."This is one of Shakespeare's most performed comedies and as such probably one of his best known. Consequently I'm not going to going to say anything about the plot. I personally studied this whilst at school as part of an English Literature course and despite my callow years I remember enjoying. However, I haven't read it since.Now, far too many decades later, I read Bernard Cornwell's novel 'Fools and Mortals' which centres around a speculative and fictional première of the play. Having really enjoyed reading that book decided to revisit the original. Once again I found it a highly enjoyable read which made me smile and a piece of true genius.

[clq_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've been meaning to catch up on various Shakespeare plays that "everyone" has read, and after finishing a book and having no immediate plans for what to read next, A Midsummer Night's Dream was conveniently waiting for me on my Kindle.In short, I didn't really like reading it much. I can see how it would probably work much better on stage, but read as a book it didn't really do much for me.If I ever get the opportunity to see it on stage I probably will, and I'll be prepared to be pleasantly surprised at how well it can work as a play.That said, I do enjoy poems, and I found the lyrical nature of the dialogue, the rhythm and the rhyme, to be quite fun. But as a story I just didn't really appreciate it as much as I had expected.

[fredacochran · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Read it in high school. Loved it, it was funny

[therebelprince · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A reasonably mild edition of a great play, but one that will be eminently suitable for highschool students and actors.

[deckla_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Perfect comedy.

[jljaina · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lyrical and mesmerizing! I got a dramatized audio copy of this book. It really brings this story to life!

A very different love story for the ages. Couplings, love triangles, love quads, and love chases. It is all here. Thank you fantasy forest for all this wonderful chaos. Some parts a whimsical, others near tragic, some comedy. You never know what the next scene will hold.

When just listening to this, it can take a bit to follow the story at first. I had no idea who anyone was and names are not mentioned enough to quickly catch on. The only indication to the setting is the sounds you here. It really is just like listening to a play. They even have a full cast for the audio so each character is voiced by someone new. While it makes it far more enjoyable it just made things take a little longer.

I finally got to learn where several famous quotes and expressions came from. Hearing certain lines brought a smile to my face. Now I just need to read the print version of this book so I can be sure I didn't miss anything. I now have a mental soundtrack to go with it.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"The course of true love never did run smooth"; but oh my friends and neighbours, when was love ever "true"? This is the jolly cynic's Romeo and Juliet, with English country faire elements displaced to Theseus's Athens (itself a place that hardly did exist) and the mythological, metaphysical backdrop, the ridiculous-but-still-great-and-terrible Olympians, disinvited from the party in favour of the fairies, magnificent and dreadful but still ridiculous (it sounds like the same thing as the gods but it's actually the opposite): Oberon, equal parts virile intensity and cat-chasing-his-tail; Titania, majestic and intoxicating and yet you also just want to pat her on the head; Puck, with all the mystique of a trickster spirit and all the bathos of a cigar-smoking baby. Lord, what fools these immortals be!They elevate the humans as the humans drag them into the mundane, to the benefit of the action in both cases. Just a quartet of pretty young goofballs bouncing through the sacred groves on a wave of hormonal exuberance, as the rules get mixed up and upside-downed and love-potion-number-nined till it's all reduced to the lowest common denominator. Bucolic rumpus--pratfalls and sex. They seem too quick and alive for the law to catch up with them, and indeed Theseus and Hippolyta do present a fairly mellow or enlightened face on disciplining authority, as the king reassures us that EVEN IF things fall over the precipice and go all two-households-both-alike-in-dignity on us, Hermia can choose forcible cloisterment over death--but is this really such a comfort? We see Demetrius and Lysander play fistfights for laughs and never think about how close either of them is to braining himself on a rock, the other being strung up. Skulking around somewhere in the background is always the deeply unfunny Egeus, the patriarch with filicide in his fist.The estimable Bottom and his bunch of goony players (special shout out to Wall--I see you, Wall!) bring it all home by staging the tragic romance of Pyramus and Thisbe farcically for a bunch of complacent chuckleheads who don't know that they're in a play themselves, and that comedy and tragedy are a mere knife-edge apart. And ever if we manage to keep it light and nobody falls on a dagger, love fades and everyone you know will one day still certainly die. The comic dignity of the man with the donkey's head sums up the message quite nicely: The play's an ass, and it is a matter of life and death that we keep it that way. Laugh at that! No, I mean it!

[cebellol · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Still one of my favorites, but I am reminded that some plays can be read and some are better watched. This is one that is better on the stage, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be experienced in some way or another. I got a little twisted up a couple times because some of the names are similar & I wasn't paying complete attention to who was supposed to be reading.

[elmyra_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Was promted to re-read this by reading Neil Gaiman's eponymous Sandman short story. Learned:That my English has gotten a hell of a lot better in the last 11 years. This was the first Shakespeare play I tried to read, and I read it by myself at the time, so I didn't really get it.That I still don't really get the "brilliance" of this particular Sandman story.That I should probably read more Shakespeare.That some of the notes to this edition are utterly useless, and that Reclam can't quite decide what level of audience they're aiming their notes and translations at.

[kerrilea-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great story of romance with enough trickery to make it fantastical. He loves her but she loves him, and nothing is ever clear when you're in the middle of it all!

This is an easy-to-read for anyone who is new to Shakespeare, play formats, or both. I highly recommend this for a fun look into romance and the drama that naturally ensues. It seems that we all have our own Fae dictating the rules of our hearts, sometimes.

[seraphinac.b4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In "A Midnight's Summer Dream", there are four lovers, Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena. Hermia wishes to marry Lysander but Demetrius is also in love with her. Hermia's father, Egeus, wants her to marry Demetrius. If she refuses, she could receive the full extent of the law and be executed. Nevertheless, Hermia and Lysander plan to flee Athens the next night and marry in the house of Lysander's aunt. They tell Helena, who was once engaged to Demetrius, who still loves him even though he dumped her for Hermia. Helene wanting to regain Demetrius's love, tells him about Lysander and Hermia escaping. Demetrius follows Lysander and Hermia while Helena follows Demetrius. Fairy king, Oberon, notices how cruelly Demetrius acts towards Helena. Oberon orders Puck, a fairy messenger, to spread the juice of a magic flower on Demetrius's eye lids so that the first person he sees, he will love. Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and when Lysander wakes up he immediately falls in love with Helena, who was the first person he saw. Later that night, Puck tries to fix his mistake, but it ends up that they both now love Helena. The next night Puck succeeds in making Lysander love Hermia, and Demetrius love Helena. Theseus, a duke, and Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons, find them sleeping and take them to Athens to be married. Overall, this book was lacking. I thought this because it was dull. I found it dull because you would know what happened next. it didn't have any cliffhangers. I thought it was slow to get to the climax... if there was one. Shakespeare wrote using strong literal and metaphorical language, which makes it confusing. It was not my cup of tea.

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While I liked the overall plot, I found this to be one of the plays in which Shakespeare's language is hard for me. I have seen some of the film versions (most notably the 1935 movie with Olivia de Havilland & Jimmy Cagney and the BBC Production with Helen Mirren as Titania) & seeing the action does help (especially in the 'humorous' parts!).One thing that I noticed in reading this was how unpleasant I found Oberon to be.

[rbeene-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's Shakespeare. Wonderful story but I prefer his tragedies.

[charleshollis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wish I could have been more fair with my grade for this book. The concept of condensing and rewording Shakespeare's plays into a format that a much younger audience could understand is certainly valuable. This series serves the laudable purpose of introducing the Bard to an elementary age audience, the benefit of which is an even earlier exposure to good literature. I will say that this would be a middle school audience would be too old for this book as they would be ready for the real thing, or at least an unabridged translation. I would also add that the book, understandably so, didn't deal very much in nuance, or interpretations. I know that the main action in the story centers upon the young lovers in the forest, and Titania and her being bewitched to fall for Bottom by Oberon's machinations, however, there are glaring thematic omissions. The biggest of these missteps would have to be the (author's? editors?) decision not to focus upon the forest itself, specifically the fact that this isn't an ordinary forest, but rather a magical realm of fae beings. Instead of presenting the woods as being a separate world (Shakespeare's intent) its presentation was rather mundane. Furthermore, there is something to be said about promoting Puck. In this version, Puck is presented as mixing up the lovers due to carelessness rather than out of the agency of mischief. Still, the book was solid and I would recommend it to elementary classes.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This will always be my favorite Shakespeare play. I love all the fairies, Puck especially, and I'll never get over the four lovers' quarrels when half of them are under spells. Plus, how can anyone not enjoy Pyramus and Thisby?

[aarondesk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A comedy by Shakespeare on love and marriage. The way he mixes English culture with ancient mythology is brilliant.

[osunale · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I consider this my first Shakespeare: this is the play that made me fall in love with the master. It's a supremely delightful work that never wears thin with time. It's that immortal "O lord, what fools these mortals be" that does me in every time. Humorous and splendidly human despite the fairies dancing across the words.

[brianinbuffalo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As hard as I've tried, I could never quite get into this one. I've read it once and seen it performed twice. Both productions were classy. Still, I found the play tedious.

[paradox98_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite comedies. Significant to me because I've actually been in a love rhombus, as it were; therefore, I can relate some of the characters.

[librarylou · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favourite Shakespeare plays, very witty and funny.

[hvymetalmg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having taken a Shakespeare class in college, I've read, studied and analyzed a number of the bard's plays. This was a sleeper as it turned out to be my favorite. If a book this old can make me laugh, that says something, especially when most television shows today can't make me smirk.

[jfoster_sf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great romantic comedy.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hermia's father brings her before Theseus to be judged, as Hermia refuses to marry her father's choice, Demetrius. Instead she loves Lysander, who loves her back. With the threat of death if Hermia doesn't follow her father's wishes, the couple run into the woods, but are pursued by Demetrius and the girl who loves him, Helena. Also in the woods are the King and Queen of the Fairies and their followers. When the King attempts to smooth love's way for the mortals, he makes things much worse.Not one of my favorites from Shakespeare, but I can see where it would be a great choice for the stage. Romance in the forest and fairies would be difficult to resist

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Far too contrived for my reading enjoyment. I'm certain that it is charming when performed on stage, but the premise wore thin upon reading. I really had no feel for the characters and cared little for their fate.

[laphenix · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fast and fun. I liked the characters and comedy alike.

[writercity · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite Shakespeare tales that give me a new laugh every time. I've re-read it and love the characters of Helena and Hermia more every time.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Studied it for A Level. I wasn't really fond, though there were some good/clever bits in the writing.

[dmtcer-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was on a Shkespeare kick!

[grytajme · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was a stagehand for this. Incredibly fun.