2 women, 4 men:  Helena, Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, Puck, Oberon

                            A MidsummerNight’s Dream

                               By: William Shakespeare

                                                     Contributed by Paul Harens

Helena: How happy some o’er other some can be!

Through Athens, I am thought as fair as she.

But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;

He will know all but he do know.

And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,

So, I admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vile, holding no quality,

Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;

And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.

Nor hath love’s mind of any judgement taste;

Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:

And therefore is love said to be a child,

Because in choice he so oft beguil’d.

As waggish boys in game forswear,

So the boy Love is perjur’d everywhere:

Fore ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,

He hailed down oaths that were 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 of Hermia’s flight;

Then to the wood will he tomorrow night

Pursue her; and for this intelligence

If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:

But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither and back again.

INTRO:

Demetrius: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?           The one I’ll slay, and the other slayeth me.                                                                                    Thou told’st me they were stolen into this wood and here am I, and wood within this wood,                                                                                Because I cannot meet with Hermia

Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

Helena: You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant

But as you draw not iron, for my heart is true as steel.

 Leave you your power to draw, and I shall have no power to follow you.

Demetrius: Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?

Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth tell you I do not, nor cannot love you?

Helena: And even for that do I love you the more.

I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you:

Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me;

Only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you.

What worser place can I beg in your love,

And yet a place with high respect with me, --

Than to be used as you use your dog?

Demetrius: Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; For I am sick when I do look on thee.

Helena: And I am sick when I do not look on you.

Demetrius: You do impeach your modesty too much,

To leave the city, and commit yourself into the hands of one that loves you not;

To trust the opportunity of night, and the ill counsel of a desert place,

With the rich worth of your virginity.

Helena: your virtue is my privilege for that.

It is not night when I do see your face,

Therefore I think I am not in the night:

Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company

For you, in my respect, are all the world:

Then how can it be said that I am alone when all the world is here to look on me?

Demetrius: I’ll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes, and leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

Helena: The wildest hath not such a heart as you.

Run when you will, the story shall be changed;

Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;

The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind makes speed to catch the tiger, -- bootless speed,

When cowardice pursues and valor flies.

Demetrius: I will not stay thy question; let me go:

Or, if thou follow me, do not believe but I shall do thee mischief in the wood.

Helena: Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, you do me mischief. Fie Demetrius! (he leaves)

Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: we cannot fight for love as men may do:

We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo.

I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,

To die upon the hand I love so well. (She leaves)

(explain that during this time, Oberon tells Puck to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena, and he mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and Hermia for Helena)

Helena: Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.

Demetrius: I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.

Helena: O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.

Demetrius: stay on thy peril; I alone will go (he leaves)

Helena: I am out of breath in this fond chase!

The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.

Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies,

For she hath blessed and attractive eyes. (Tears)

How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears.

If so, my eyes are more often washed than hers.

No, no, no, I am as ugly as a bear;

For beasts that meet me run away for fear:

Therefore no marvel through Demetrius do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.

What wicked and dissembling glass of mine made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne? –

Lysander, on the ground? Dead or sleeping? I see no blood, no wound.

Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake!

Lysander: And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake!

Transparent Helena! Nature here shows art, that through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word is that vile name to perish on my sword!

Helena: Do not say so, Lysander; say not so: What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though? Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.

Lysander: Content with Hermia? No, I do repent to tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Not Hermia, But Helena I love: Who will not change a raven for a dove?

Helena: Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?

I it not enough, young man, that I did never, nor never can deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye? But you must flout my insufficiency? But fare you well:

Perforce I must confess, I thought you lord of more true gentleness. (She leaves)  

Lysander:  All my powers address your love and might to honor Helena, and to be her knight!

(The king of fairies corrects puck’s mistake; Demetrius will now love Helena along with Lysander, oh boy!)

Lysander: Why should you think I would woo in scorn? Scorn and derision never come in tears. Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, in their nativity all truth appears.

Helena: You do advance your cunning more and more; when truth kills truth, o devilish-holy fray! These vows are Hermia’s. Will you give her o’er?

Lysander: I had no judgement when to her I swore.

Helena: Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o’er.

Lysander: Demetrius loves Hermia, he loves not you!

Demetrius: (waking up) O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine! To what my love, shall I compare thy eyne? O, how ripe in show thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow! O, let me kiss this princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!

Helena:  O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent to set against me for your merriment. If you were civil and knew courtesy, you would not do me thus much injury. Can you not hate me, as I know you do, but you must join in souls to mock me too? If you were men, as men you are in show, you would not treat a gentle lady so; to vow and swear, and superpraise my parts, when I am sure you hate me with your hearts. You both are rivals, and love Hermia, and now both rivals to mock Helena.

Lysander: you are unkind Demetrius, be not so; for you love Hermia, this you know I know. And there with all good will, with all my heart in Hermia’s love I yield you up my part; and your of Helena to me bequeath, whom do I love, and will do till my death.

Demetrius: Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none. If e’er I loved her, all that love is gone. My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourned, and now to Helen is it home returned, there to remain.

Lysander: Helen, it is not so.

Oberon: Fare thee well nymph: ere he do leave this grove,

Thou shall fly him, and he shall seek thy love.  (Puck enters)

Hast thou flower there? Welcome, wanderer.

Puck: Ay, there it is

Oberon: I pray thee, give it me.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,

Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;

Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,

With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;

And with the juice of this, I’ll streak her eyes,

And make her full of hateful fantasies.

Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:

A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;

But do it when the next thing he espies may be the lady:

Thou shall know the man by the Athenian garment he hath on.

Effect it with some care, that he may prove more fond on her than she upon love:

And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow

Puck: Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so. (Puck exits)

Lysander: Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood; and to speak troth, I have forgot our way; we’ll rest us Hermia, If you think it good, and tarry for the comfort of the day.

Hermia: Be it so Lysander: find you a bed, for I upon this bank will rest my head.

Puck: Through the forest have I gone,

But Athenian found I none.

On whose eyes I might approve

This flower’s force of stirring love.

Night and silence! Who is here?

Weeds of Athens he doth wear:

This is he, my master said,

Despised the Athenian maid;

And here the maiden, sleeping sound,

On the dank and dirty ground.

Pretty soul! She durst not lie

Near this lack-love this kill-courtesy.

Churl, upon thy eyes I throw

All the power this charm doth owe;

When thou wak’st let love forbid

Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:

So awake when I am gone;

For I must now to Oberon.

(Puck exits)