A Midsummer Night's Dream - Act 1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Act one of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is a
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A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Act one, Scene one, Athens,

(00:26):
the palace of Theseus, Enter theseus, Hippolyta, Philistrate and attendants.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Now fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace. Four
happy days bring in another moon. But oh, 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's revenue.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night. Four nights
will quickly dream away the time, and then, like to
a silver bow new bent in heaven, she'll behold the
knight of our solemnities.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Go fillustrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments. Awake
the pert and nimble spirit of mirth. Turn Melancholy forth
to funerals. The pale companion is.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Not for our pomp Exit Philistrate.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Hippolyta. I wooed 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 reveling.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Enter Igius, Hermia, Assander and Demetrius.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Happy be theseus, our renowned duke.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thanks good Eegius, what's the news?

Speaker 4 (01:44):
With thee 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

(02:08):
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 with feigning voice, verses
a feigning love, and stolen the impression of her fantasy,
with bracelets of thy hair rings, gods, conceits, gnats, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers,

(02:37):
a strong prevailment in an harden'd youth. With cunning hast,
Thou filst my daughter's heart, turn her obedience, which is
due to me, to stubborn harshness, and my gracious duke
be it so she will not hear before your grace
consent to marry with Demetrius. I beg the ancient privilege

(03:02):
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.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
In that case, what say you, Hermia be advised, fair maid?

Speaker 5 (03:21):
To you?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Your father should be as a god, one that composed
your beauties, yea, and one to whom you are but
a form in wax by him imprinted, and within his
power to leave the figure or disfigure it. Demetrius is
a worthy gentleman, so is Lysander in himself he is.
But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, the other

(03:44):
must be held the worthier.

Speaker 6 (03:47):
I would my father looked, but with my eyes.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Rather your eyes must with his judgment.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
Look.

Speaker 6 (03:54):
Do entreat your grace to pardon me. I know not
by what power I am made bold, nor how 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.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Either to die the death or to abjure forever 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 I to be in shady cloister, mewed,

(04:32):
to live a barren sister all your life, chanting faint
hymns to the cold, fruitless moon. Thrice blessed they that
masters sow their blood to undergo such maiden pilgrimage. But
earthlier happy is the rose distilled than that which withering
on the virgin thorn grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

Speaker 6 (04:54):
So will I grow, so live, so die my lord ere.
I will yield my virgin patent up than to his lordship,
whose unwished yoke must soul consent not to give sovereignty.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Take time to pause, and by the next new moon,
the ceiling day, betwixt my love and thee for everlasting
bond of fellowship. 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

(05:27):
for I austerity and single life relent.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
Sweet Hermia, Lysander, yield thy crazed title to my certain right.

Speaker 7 (05:38):
You have her father's love, Demetrius, let me have Hermia's.
Do you marry him?

Speaker 4 (05:44):
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 a state unto Demetrius.

Speaker 7 (05:57):
I am my lord, as well derived as he, as
well possessed. My love is more than his, My fortunes
every way as fairly ranked, if not with advantage, as Demetrius,
and which is more than all these boasts can be.
I am beloved of beauteus Hermia. Why should not I
then prosecute my right? Demetrius, all about to his head,

(06:22):
made love to Nider's daughter Helena, and won her soul,
And she, sweet lady, doats devoutly dotes, doats and idolatry.
Upon this spotted and inconstant man, I must confess that
I have heard so much, and with Demetrius thought to
have spoke thereof, but being over full of self affair,

(06:44):
as my mind did lose it.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
But Demetrius, come and come, Egius, you shall go with
me 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 to death or to vow of single life. Come,

(07:11):
my Hippolyta, what cheer my love? Demetrius and Aegeus go along.
I must employ you in some business against our nuptial
and confer with you of something nearly that concerns yourselves
with duty and desire.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
We follow you, excellant all but Lysander and Hermia.

Speaker 7 (07:32):
How now, my love, why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
The like for want of rain, which I could well
beheem them from the tempest of my eyes.

Speaker 7 (07:44):
I 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.

Speaker 6 (07:56):
Oh cross too high to be enthralled to low.

Speaker 7 (07:59):
Or else miss graft in respective years.

Speaker 6 (08:02):
Oh spite too old to be engaged to young, or.

Speaker 7 (08:06):
Else It stood upon the choice of friends.

Speaker 6 (08:08):
Oh hell, to choose love by another's eyes.

Speaker 7 (08:12):
Or if there were a sympathy in choice, war, death
or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentiny
as a sound, 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

(08:35):
devour it up so quick bright things come to confusion.

Speaker 6 (08:40):
If then true lovers have been ever crossed, 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.

Speaker 7 (08:57):
A good persuasion. Therefore hear me, Hermia, I have a
widow aunt, a dowager of great revenue, and she hath
no child from athids is her house remote seven leagues,
and she respects me as her only son. There, Gentle Hermia,

(09:17):
may I marry thee and to that place the sharp
Athenian law cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me, then
steal forth thy father's house to morrow night, and in
the wood a league without the town where I did
meet THEE once with Helena, to do observance to a
morn of may. There will I stay for thee.

Speaker 6 (09:39):
My good Lysander. I swear to THEE by Cupid's strongest beau,
by his best arrow with the golden head, by the
simplicity of venus doves, by that which knitteth souls and
prosperous loves, and by that fire which burnt the Carthage Queen,
when the false troy and under sail was seen, by
all the vows that ever men have broke in number

(09:59):
more than ever women spoke in that same place, Thou
hast appointed me tomorrow? Truly will I meet with THEE.

Speaker 7 (10:07):
Keep promised love. Look here comes Helena.

Speaker 6 (10:11):
Enter Helena, God speak fair Helena, whither away.

Speaker 8 (10:15):
Call you me fair? That fair again? On say Demetrius
loves your fair, Oh happy fair. Your eyes are load stars,
and your tongue's sweet air more tuneable than lark to
shepherd's ear. When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear,
sickness is catching. Oh where favor so yours? Would I catch?
Fair Hermia? Ere I go My ear should catch your voice,

(10:37):
my eye, your eye my tongue should catch your tongue,
sweet melody, were the world mind Demetrius being baited, the
rest I'd give to you to be translated. Oh, teach
me how you look and with what art you sway
the motion of Demetrius's heart.

Speaker 6 (10:51):
I frown upon him, Yet he loves me still.

Speaker 8 (10:54):
Oh that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill.

Speaker 6 (10:58):
I give him curses, Yet he gives me love.

Speaker 8 (11:01):
Oh that my prayers could such affection move.

Speaker 6 (11:04):
The more I hate, the more he follows me.

Speaker 8 (11:06):
The more I love. The more he hateth me.

Speaker 6 (11:09):
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

Speaker 8 (11:12):
None but your beauty. Would that fault were mine?

Speaker 6 (11:16):
Take comfort? He no more shall see my face, Lysander,
and myself will fly this place before the time I did.
Lysander see seemed Athens as a paradise to me. Oh,
then what graces in my love? Do dwell? That he
hath turned a heaven unto a hell?

Speaker 7 (11:32):
Helen to you are minds we will unfold to morrow night,
when Phoebe doth behold her silver visage in the watery glass,
decking with liquid pearl a bladed grass, A time that
lover's flights doth still conceal through Athen's gates have we
devised to steal?

Speaker 6 (11:53):
And in the wood where often you and I, upon
faint primrose beds were wont to lie, emptying our bosoms
of their counsels. Swe there, my Lysander and myself shall meet,
and thence from Athen to turn away our eyes to
seek new friends and stranger companies. Farewell, sweet playfellow, pray
thou for us, and good luck. Grant thee thy Demetrius,

(12:14):
keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight from lover's
food till morrow deep midnight.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
I will my Hermia exit, Hermia.

Speaker 7 (12:24):
Helena, adieu, as you on him, Demitrius dote on you exit.

Speaker 8 (12:32):
How happy some or other sum can be through Athens?
I am thought as fair as she? But what of that?
Demetrius thinks not, so he will not know what all?
But he do know. And as he errs doting on
Hermia's eyes, so I admiring of his qualities. Things base
and vile folding. No quantity love can transpose to form

(12:54):
and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with
the mind, And therefore is wing cupid painted blind? Nor
hath love's mind of any judgment, 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
as waggish boys, and games themselves foreswear so the boy

(13:16):
love is perjured everywhere. For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia's
I he hailed down oaths that he was only mine.
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt so
he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will
go tell him a fair Hermia's flight. Then to the wood,
will he tomorrow night pursue her? And for this intelligence,

(13:38):
if I have thanks, it is a dear expense. But
here and mean I to enrich my pain to have
his sight thither and back again.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Exit scene too athens Quince's house, Enter Quince, snub bottom, flute,
snout and starveling.

Speaker 9 (14:06):
It's all our company here.

Speaker 5 (14:08):
You were best to call them generally man by man.
According to the scrap.

Speaker 9 (14:12):
Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is
thought fit for Ethens to play in our interlude before
the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding day at night.

Speaker 5 (14:23):
First, could Peter a Quins say what the play treats are.
Then read the names of the actors, and so grow
to a point.

Speaker 9 (14:31):
Mary, our play is the most lamentable comedy and most
cruel death of Pyramus. And thisby a very.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
Good piece of work, I assure you, Anna, Mary, Now
could Peter a quince Call forth your actors by the
scroll masters, spread yourselves.

Speaker 9 (14:48):
Answer as I call you, nick Bottom the weaver.

Speaker 5 (14:52):
Ready, name what part I am for, and proceed.

Speaker 9 (14:56):
You, Nickbottom, are set down for Pyramous.

Speaker 5 (14:59):
What is Peramus? A lover or a tyrant?

Speaker 9 (15:04):
A lover that cures himself most gallant for love?

Speaker 5 (15:07):
Oh, 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 humor
is for a tyrant. I could play ercles rarely, or

(15:30):
a part to tear a cat in, to make all
split the raging rocks and shivering shocks shall break the
locks of prison gates, and Phibis's car shall shine from
far and make and mar the foolish fates. Oh, this

(15:58):
was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This
is Ercles, vain. A tyrant's vain. A lover is more condoling.

Speaker 9 (16:11):
Francis flute, the bellows mender here, Peter Quince, flute. You
must take thisbee on you.

Speaker 8 (16:18):
What is tsbee?

Speaker 1 (16:19):
A wandering knight?

Speaker 9 (16:21):
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
Oh, nay, face, let me not play a woman.

Speaker 9 (16:26):
I have a beard coming, that's all one. You shall
play it in a mask, and you may speak as
small as you will, and.

Speaker 5 (16:34):
I may eye my face. Let me play thisbee too.
I'll speak in a monstrous little voice. Disney, Disney, Ah Pirimus, lover,
dear thy thisbe dear and lady dear.

Speaker 9 (16:49):
No, no, you must pay Pyramus and flute you thisby wow. Proceed,
Robin Startling the tailor here, Peter Quince, Robin starveling. You
must play thisbe's mother, Tom Snout.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
The tinker here, Peter Quince, you.

Speaker 9 (17:07):
Hermos's father, and myself thisbee's father, snug the joiner. You
the lion's part. And I hope here is a play fitted.

Speaker 8 (17:17):
Have you the lion's part written?

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I
am slow of study.

Speaker 9 (17:24):
You may do it extemple, for it is nothing but roaring.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
Let me play the lion too. I will oh tho,
I will do any man's art good to wear me.
I will oh. They will make the duke say, let
him roar again, Let him roar again.

Speaker 9 (17:44):
And you should do it too terribly. You would fright
the duchess and the ladies that they would shriek. And
that were enough to hang us.

Speaker 8 (17:51):
All that would hang us every mother's son.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
That would hang us every mother's son. I grant you, friends,
if you should frighten the ladies out of the wet,
they would have no more discretion but to angers. But
I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar
you as gently as any sucking dove. I will rare you,
and twere any nightingale.

Speaker 9 (18:15):
Oh, you can play no part but Pyramos. For Peremos
is a sweet faced man, a proper man, as once
you see in a summer's day, a most lovely gentlemanlike man.
Therefore you must need play Pyramids well.

Speaker 5 (18:33):
I will undertake it. What beard were I best to
play it in?

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Why?

Speaker 9 (18:40):
What you will?

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Hmm?

Speaker 5 (18:44):
I will discharge it in either your straw color beard,
your orange tawny beard, your purple ingrain beard or your
French crown color beard, you're a perfect yellow.

Speaker 9 (18:59):
Some of your French crowns have no hair at all,
and then you will play bare faced. But masters, here
are your parts, and I am to entreat you, request you,
and desire you to con them by to morrow night
and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without
the town by moonlight. There we will rehearse, for if

(19:19):
we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company,
and our advice is known. In the meantime I will
draw a bit of properties such as our play wants.
I pray you fail me not.

Speaker 5 (19:32):
We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely
and courageously take pains. Be perfact adieu.

Speaker 9 (19:44):
At the Duke's Oak we meet.

Speaker 5 (19:46):
Enough old a cup bowl strings

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Exsu want end of Act one of A Midsummer Night's
Dream se