A Midsummer Night’s Dream

(to BOTTOM) Come over here and sit down on this flowery bed while I caress those lovable cheeks. I’ll put roses on your silky, smooth head and kiss your big, beautiful ears, my gentle darling.

Where’s Peaseblossom?

Here.

Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s Monsieur Cobweb?

Here.

Monsieur Cobweb, sir, get out your weapons and kill me a striped bumblebee on a thistle, and bring me its honey. Don’t tire yourself out, monsieur. Oh, and monsieur, be careful not to break the honey-sac. I’d hate to see you drowned in honey, sir.

Where’s Monsieur Mustardseed?

Here.

Give me your first, Mr. Mustardseed. Please, stop bowing, good sir.

What would you like me to do?

Nothing, good sir, except to help Sir Cobweb scratch my head. I should go to the barber’s, monsieur, because I think I’m getting really hairy around the face. And I’m such a sensitive ass that if my hair even tickles me a little, I need to scratch.

Would you like to hear some music, my sweet love?

I have a pretty good ear for music. Let’s hear someone play the triangle and the sticks.

Or tell me, my sweet love, what you’d like to eat.

Actually, I’d like a few pounds of grass. I’d like to munch on some good dry oats. Or maybe I’ve got a hankering for a bundle of hay. There’s nothing like good hay, really sweet hay.

I have an adventurous fairy who’ll go seek out the squirrel’s secret stash and get you some fresh nuts.

I’d rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But please don’t let any of your people wake me up. I really want to sleep now.

Go to sleep, and I will wrap my arms around you. Fairies, go away. Run off in all directions.

I’m putting my arms around you just like the woodbine tendril gently twists itself around the sweet honeysuckle, and like the female ivy curls itself around the branches of the elm tree. Oh, how I love you! I’m so crazy about you!

Welcome, good Robin. Do you see this sweet sight? Now I’m starting to pity Titania for being so infatuated. I ran into her recently at the edge of the forest, looking for sweet presents for this hateful idiot, and I scolded her and argued with her. She had put a wreath of fresh, fragrant flowers around his hairy forehead, and the drops of dew that lay in the center of the flowers made the flowers look like they were crying with shame to be decorating the head of that ugly jackass. When I had taunted her as much as I wanted to, and she begged me very nicely to leave her alone, I asked her for the stolen Indian child. She said yes right away, and sent a fairy to bring him to my home in Fairyland. And now that I have the boy, I’ll undo the spell that makes her vision so disgustingly wrong. And, gentle Puck, take this transformed ass’ head off of the head of that Athenian man, so that when he wakes up at the same time as the rest of them do, they can all go back to Athens. They’ll only remember the events of tonight as a very unpleasant dream. But first I’ll release the fairy queen from the spell.

Be like you used to be, and see like you used to see. This bud belongs to Diana, the goddess of virginity, and it has the power to undo the effects of Cupid’s flower. Now, Titania, wake up, my sweet queen.

(waking up) Oberon, I’ve had such a strange dream! I dreamed I was in love with an ass.

There’s your boyfriend, sleeping right over there.

How did this happen? Oh, I hate looking at his face now!

Be quiet for a while.—Robin, take off his donkey head.—Titania, get the fairies to play some music, and make these five people sleep more soundly than humans have ever slept before.

Music! Play the kind of music that puts people to sleep.

(removing the ass’ head from BOTTOM) When you wake up, see things with your own foolish eyes again.

Play the music.—Take my hands, my queen, and we’ll lull these people to sleep with our soft dancing. (he dances with TITANIA) Now that you and I are friends again, we can dance for Duke Theseus tomorrow at midnight, and bless his marriage and his marriage bed. These other lovers will get married alongside him, and they’ll all be in high spirits.

Listen, Fairy King. I can hear the lark singing. Morning’s here.

In that case, my queen, let’s travel silently and solemnly across the globe to where it’s still night, circling the earth faster than the moon does.

While we’re walking, you can tell me how I ended up sleeping on the ground with these humans last night.

One of you go find the forest ranger. Since we’re done with the May Day rites and it’s still so early in the morning, my love will have a chance to hear the beautiful music of my hunting dogs barking as they chase their prey. Unleash the dogs in the western valley. Let them go. Now go find the forest ranger.

My beautiful queen, we’ll go up the mountain and listen to the hounds as their barking echoes in the cliffs and sounds like music.

I was with the heroes Hercules and Cadmus once, when their Spartan hunting dogs cornered a bear. I’d never heard such impressive barking before. The forests, the skies, the mountains, everything around us seemed to echo the barks of the hounds. I’d never heard such raucous music, such pleasant thunder.

My dogs are bred from Spartan hounds. They have the same folds of flesh around their mouths, the same sandy-colored fur, and hanging ears that brush the morning dew off the grass. They have crooked knees and folds of skin under their necks, just like the Spartan hounds. They’re not very fast in the chase, but their barking sounds like bells ringing. Each bark is perfectly in tune with the others, like notes on a scale. No one, anywhere, has ever gone hunting with a more musical pack of dogs. Judge for yourself when you hear them. (he sees the four lovers sleeping) But wait a minute! Who are these women?

My lord, that’s my daughter asleep on the ground over there, and this is Lysander here, and this is Demetrius, and this is Helena, old Nedar’s daughter. I don’t understand why they’re all here together.

They probably woke up early to celebrate May Day and came here for my celebration when they heard I’d be here. But tell me, Egeus. Isn’t today the day when Hermia has to tell us her decision about whether she’ll marry Demetrius?

It is, my lord.

Go tell the hunters to blow their horns and wake them up.

Good morning, my friends. Valentine’s Day is over. Are you lovebirds only starting to pair up now?

Forgive us, my lord.

Please, all of you, stand up.

(to LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS) I know you two are enemies. Has the world really become so gentle and peaceful that people who hate each other have started to trust each other and sleep beside each other without being afraid?

My lord, what I say may be a little confused, since I’m half asleep and half awake. I swear, at the moment I really couldn’t tell you how I ended up here. But I think—I want to tell you the truth, and now that I think about it, I think this is true—I came here with Hermia. We were planning to leave Athens to escape the Athenian law and—

(to THESEUS) Enough, enough, my lord. You’ve heard enough evidence! I insist that the law punish him—They were going to run away, Demetrius, they were running away to defeat us, robbing you of your wife and me of my fatherly right to decide who my son-in-law will be.

(to THESEUS) My lord, the beautiful Helena told me about their secret plan to escape into this forest. I was furious and followed them here, and the lovely Helena was so in love with me that she followed me. I’m not sure how it happened—but somehow, something made my love for Hermia melt away like snow. My past love for Hermia now seems like a memory of some cheap toy I used to love as a child. Now the only person I love, and believe in, and want to look at, is Helena. I was engaged to her before I ever met Hermia. Then I hated her for a time, as a sick person hates the food he usually loves. But now I have my natural taste back, like a sick person when he recovers. Now I want Helena, I love her, I long for her, and I will always be true to her.

You pretty lovers are lucky you met me here. We’ll talk more about this later.—Egeus, I’m overriding your wishes. These couples will be married along with me and Hippolyta in the temple later today.—And now, since the morning is almost over, we’ll give up on the idea of hunting. Come with us to Athens. We three couples will celebrate with a sumptuous feast. Come, Hippolyta.

What exactly just happened? The events of last night seem small and hard to see clearly, like far-off mountains that look like clouds in the distance.

Yes, it’s like my eyes are out of focus, and I’m seeing everything double.

Me too. I won Demetrius so easily, as if he were a precious diamond I just found lying around. It’s mine because I found it, but I feel like someone else could easily come and claim it was hers.

Are you sure we’re awake? It seems to me like we’re still sleeping, still dreaming. Do you remember seeing the duke here? Did he tell us to follow him?

Yes, he did. And my father was here too.

And Hippolyta.

And he told us to follow him to the temple.

Well, then, we’re awake. Let’s follow him. We can tell one another our dreams along the way.

(waking up) Tell me when my cue comes, and I’ll say my line. My next cue is “Most handsome Pyramus.” Hey! Peter Quince? Flute the bellows-repairman? Snout the handyman? Starveling? My God, they’ve all run away and left me sleeping here? What a weird dream I had.—You can’t even describe such a weird dream. You’d be an ass if you even tried to explain it. I thought I was—no, nobody can even describe what I was. I thought I was, I thought I had—but a person would be an idiot to try to say what I thought I had. No eye has ever heard, no ear has ever seen, no hand has tasted, or tongue felt, or heart described what my dream was like. I’ll get Peter Quince to write this dream down as a ballad. I’ll call it “Bottom’s Dream” because it’s so deep that it has no bottom. And I’ll sing it for the duke in the intermission of a play. Or maybe, to make it even more lovely, I’ll sing it when the heroine dies.