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  • Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Quarto 1, 1600)
  • Editor: Suzanne Westfall
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-465-3

    Copyright Suzanne Westfall. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Suzanne Westfall
    Not Peer Reviewed

    A Midsummer Night's Dream (Quarto 1, 1600)

    A Midsommer nightes dreame.
    1670To sleepe by hate, and feare no enmitie,
    Lys. My Lord, I shal reply amazedly,
    Halfe sleepe, halfe waking. But, as yet, I sweare,
    I cannot truely say how I came here.
    But as I thinke (for truely would I speake)
    1675And now I doe bethinke mee, so it is;
    I came with Hermia, hither. Our intent
    Was to be gon from Athens: where we might
    Without the perill of the Athenian lawe,
    Ege. Enough, enough my Lord: you haue enough.
    1680I begge the law, the law, vpon his head:
    They would haue stolne away, they would, Demetrius,
    Thereby to haue defeated you and me:
    You of your wife, and mee, of my consent:
    Of my consent, that she should be your wife.
    1685Deme. My Lord, faire Helen told me of their stealth,
    Of this their purpose hither, to this wood,
    And I in fury hither followed them;
    Faire Helena, in fancy following mee.
    But my good Lord, I wote not by what power
    1690(But by some power it is) my loue,
    To Hermia (melted as the snowe)
    Seemes to me now as the remembrance of an idle gaude,
    Which in my childehoode I did dote vpon:
    And all the faith, the vertue of my heart,
    1695The obiect and the pleasure of mine eye,
    Is onely Helena. To her, my Lord,
    Was I betrothed, ere I see Hermia:
    But, like a sicknesse, did I loath this foode.
    But, as in health, come to my naturall taste,
    1700Now I doe wish it, loue it, long for it,
    And will for euermore be true to it.
    The. Faire louers, you are fortunately met.
    Of this discourse, we more will here anon.
    Egeus,