Tuesday, April 23, 2013

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Bottom

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Act 5 Scene 2

Bottom:
Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
But stay, O spite!
But mark, poor knight,
What dreadful dole is here!
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck! O dear!
Thy mantle good,
What, stain'd with blood!
Approach, ye Furies fell!
O Fates, come, come,
Cut thread and thrum;
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!

Theseus. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.

Hippolyta. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.


Bottom. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame
That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd with cheer.
Come, tears, confound;
Out, sword, and wound
The pap of Pyramus;
Ay, that left pap,
Where heart doth hop:
[Stabs himself]
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon take thy flight:
[Exit Moonshine]
Now die, die, die, die, die.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Bottom

 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Act 4 Scene 1

Bottom:
When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer: 
my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' 
Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! 
Flute, the bellows-mender! 
Snout, the tinker! Starveling! 
God's my life, stolen hence, and left me asleep! 
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. 
Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. 
And methought I had--but man is but a patched fool, 
if he will offer to say what methought I had. 
The eye of man hath not heard,
the ear of man hath not seen, 
man's hand is not able to taste,
his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, 
what my dream was. 
I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: 
it shall be called Bottom's Dream,
because it hath no bottom; 
and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke: 
peradventure, to make it the more gracious, 
I shall sing it at her death.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Hermia

 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Act 3 Scene 2

Hermia:
Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse,
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
And kill me too.
The sun was not so true unto the day
As he to me: would he have stolen away
From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
This whole earth may be bored and that the moon
May through the centre creep and so displease
Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.
It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;
So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.

Demetrius. So should the murder'd look, and so should I,

Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.


Hermia. What's this to my Lysander? where is he?
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?

Demetrius. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.

Hermia. Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds
Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
Henceforth be never number'd among men!
O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!
Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,
And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.

I left Demetrius' lines in to help you with this monologue, you obviously shouldn't say them...

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Puck

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Act 3 Scene 2

Puck:
My mistress with a monster is in love.
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day.
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's nole I fixed on his head:
Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;
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;
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.
I led them on in this distracted fear,
And left sweet Pyramus translated there:
When in that moment, so it came to pass,
Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.