in A Midsummer Night's Dream — Shakespeare, William
Metadata
Play
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Author
Shakespeare, William
Year (catalogued)
1600
First performance
1596
Decade
1600s
Genre
Comedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Lord Chamberlain's (Hunsdon's) Men
Speech prefix(es)
Ege. | Egeus. | Egeus,
Words
343
Characters
1932
Typicality
0.23 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A11989
BritDrama no.
1012
Cluster
Cluster 17 — Intriguers & schemers
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke. Full of vexation, come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. My noble Lord, This man hath my consent to marry her. And my gracious Duke, This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child. Thou, thou Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchanged love tokens with my child: Thou hast, by moonlight, at her window sung, With feigning voice, verses of feigning love, And stolen the impression of her fantasy: With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawdes, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweet meats (messengers Of strong preuailement in unhardened youth) With cunning hast thou filched my daughters heart, Turned her obedience (which is endue to me) To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke, Be it so, she will not here, before your Grace, Consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens: As she is mine, I may dispose of her: Which shall be, either to this gentleman, Or to her death; according to our law, Immediately provided, in that case. With duty desire, we follow you. Exeunt. Enough, enough my Lord: you have enough. I beg the law, the law, upon his head: They would have stolen away, they would, Demetrius, Thereby to have defeated you and me: You of your wife, and me, of my consent: Of my consent, that she should be your wife. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love: And what is mine, my love shall render him. And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius. My Lord, this my daughter here a sleep, And this Lysander, this Demetrius is, This Helena, old Nedars Helena. I wonder of their being here together. It is, my Lord. I will overbear your will: For in the Temple, by and by, with us, These couples shall eternally be knit. And, for the morning now is something worn, Our purposed hunting shall be set aside. Away, with us, to Athens. Three and three, Weel hold a feast, in great solemnity. Come Hyppolita.
Plot summary
Plot — A Midsummer Night's Dream
: Theseus has conquered Hippolyta and is soon to marry her. Hermia loves Lysander, but her father Egeus wishes her to marry Demetrius, who has jilted Helena for her. Egeus invokes an Athenian law which allows him to have her executed for disobedience — though Theseus points to the additional option of lifelong — chastity in a nunnery. Lysander proposes fleeing with Hermia beyond Athenian jurisdiction, | and they confide their plans to Helena - who tells Demetrius in the hope of winning his favour. He pursues Lysander and Hermia into the woods, and Helena follows him. Marital strife between Oberon and Titania over a changeling boy has. led to chaos in the natural environment. Oberon sends Robin Goodfellow to fetch a magic flower whose juice can compel love. Seeing Demetrius reject Helena, Oberon sends Robin to use some of the juice on him, while he himself uses some on Titania. On the lookout for Athenian clothing, Robin comes upon Lysander and Hermia sleeping, and anoints his eyes. Helena discovers Lysander, and wakes him; he falls in love with her and pursues her, leaving Hermiaalone. — - A group of artisans, planning to perform Pyramus and Thisbe at Theseus’ wedding, meet for a rehearsal in the woods. They begin to adapt the play to avoid scaring the ladies in the audience, and to make it possible to represent the moon and a wall on stage. During the rehearsal, Robin metamorphoses Bottom, putting an ass’s head on him, and scares off the other artisans. Titania wakes, sees him, and falls in love. Oberon and Robin observe as Demetrius pursues Hermia, who assumes that he has murdered Lysander. Oberon sends Robin to fetch Helena while he anoints Demetrius’ eyes. Helena arrives, pursued by Lysander, and wakes Demetrius to find that both young men now love her; she infers that she is the object of a practical joke. Demetrius and Lysander prepare to fight each other, but Robin spreads darkness across the sky and leads them away from one another. Having got all four lovers asleep, he administers the antidote to Lysander. ; , Titania hands over the changeling boy to Oberon, has fun with the monstrous Bottom, and sleeps with him. Oberon applies the antidote, and they are reconciled. The sleeping lovers are found by Theseus, out hunting in the forest. Demetrius no longer wants Hermia, but Egeus insists. Theseus overrules him and the courtly characters have a triple wedding. Bottom takes his experience to have been a dream, and joins his fellow artisans, who are…