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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
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A monologue from Act III, Scene ii
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by: William Shakespeare
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NOTE: A Midsummer Night's Dream is believed to have been written for a wedding sometime between 1591 and 1598. It is now a public domain work and may be performed without royalties. |
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- 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 thickskin of that barren sort,
- Who Pyramus presented in their sport,
- Forsook his scene and entered in a brake.
- When I did him at this advantage take,
- An ass's nole I fixèd on his head.
- Anon his Thisby must be answerèd,
- 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.
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