| Act 1 Scene 1After (Theseus)Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hourDraws on apace; four happy days bring inAnother moon. | Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;Four nights will quickly dream away the time. |
| Act 5 Scene 1First line | ‘Tis strange my Theseus, that theselovers speak of. |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Theseus)More strange than true: I never may believeThese antique fables, nor these fairy toys.Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends. | But all the story of the night told over,And all their minds transfigured so together,More witnesseth than fancy’s imagesAnd grows to something of great constancy;But, howsoever, strange and admirable. |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Theseus)I will hear that play;For never anything can be amiss,When simpleness and duty tender it.Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies. | I love not to see wretchedness o’er chargedAnd duty in his service perishing. |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Lysander)He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knowsnot the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true. | Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a childon a recorder; a sound, but not in government. |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Demetrius)No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hearwithout warning. | This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard. |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Theseus)The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worstare no worse, if imagination amend them. | It must be your imagination then, and not theirs. |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Demetrius)He dares not come there for the candle; for, yousee, it is already in snuff. | I am aweary of this moon: would he would change! |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Theseus)Well run, Thisbe. | Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with agood grace |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Theseus)This passion, and the death of a dear friend, wouldgo near to make a man look sad. | Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man. |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Theseus) With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass. | How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comesback and finds her lover? |
| Act 5 Scene 1After (Theseus)She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; andher passion ends the play.(Re-enter Thisbe) | Methinks she should not use a long one for such aPyramus: I hope she will be brief. |
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Hippolyta Lines
August 26, 2019