- Hermia, in Love with Lysander: [to Helena] How low am I, you painted maypole? Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach into your eyes!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: [Puck is leading Demetrius astray through a fog] Lysander! Speak again! You runaway. You coward. Are you fled?
- Puck: You coward! Are you bragging to the stars? Telling the bushes that you look for wars, and wilt not come?
- Bottom: I must to the barber's, monsieur; for I feel I'm marvellous hairy about the face - and I'm such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.
- Bottom: I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream; past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Methought I was - -man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was - -and methought I had - -man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say
- [chuckling]
- Bottom: what methought I was and what methought I had.
- [He breaks into uncontrollable laughter and suddenly brays like a jackass]
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Where are Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I'll slay; the other slayeth me.
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: "I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb."
- Quince, the Carpenter: Ninny's?
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: Ninny's.
- Quince, the Carpenter: Ninny's.
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: Ninny's.
- Quince, the Carpenter: "Ninus' tomb", man!
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: [Flute begins to repeat Quince's words and gestures] Ninus' tomb, man!
- Quince, the Carpenter: But you must not speak that yet!
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: But you must not speak that yet!
- Quince, the Carpenter: Ohhh...
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: Ohhh...
- Quince, the Carpenter: That you answer to Pyramus!
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: That you answer to Pyramus!
- Quince, the Carpenter: You speak all your part at once, cues and all!
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: You speak all your part at once, cues... I won't play anymore.
- Lysander: Helena, I love you, by my life I do!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: I say I love you more than he can do!
- Lysander: If you say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Come!
- Lysander: Come!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Quick!
- Lysander: Quick!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Come quick!
- Lysander: Quick, come!
- [They draw swords]
- Starveling - the Tailor: [Precariously gets up onto a chair, holding up a lantern to speak as the moon, and a thorn bush tied to a dog's collar in his other hand; all cheer as he manages to stand on the chair] This lanthorn doth the horned moon present; Myself the man...
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: He should have worn horns on his head.
- Starveling - the Tailor: This lanthorn doth the horned moon present; Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be. This do...
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lantern.
- Starveling - the Tailor: This lan...
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: How is it else the man i' the moon?
- Starveling - the Tailor: This lantern doth...
- Hippolyta - Queen of the Amazons - Betrothed to Theseus: I am so weary of this moon: would he would change!
- Starveling - the Tailor: [gurning] This lantern...
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Proceed, Moon.
- Starveling - the Tailor: [sighs, then speaks very quickly] All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
- [first lines]
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: Hippolyta, I wooed you with my sword and won your love, doing thee injuries. But, I will wed you in another key: with pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments. Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth. Turn melancholy forth to funerals: the pale companion is not for our pomp.
- Egeus - Father to Hermia: Stand for, Lysander. With cunning did you steal my daughter's heart. Turned her obedience due to me, to stubborn harshness.
- Lysander: I am, my lord, beloved of beauteous Hermia!
- Egeus - Father to Hermia: But, she is mine! I may dispose of her, which may be either to Demetrius or to death!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Lysander, yield your crazed title of my certain right.
- Lysander: You have her father's love, Demetrius. Let me have hers. You marry him!
- Egeus - Father to Hermia: True and full, Lysander! True! He has my love and what is mine my love shall give to him. And she is mine. And all my right of her I hereby grant unto Demetrius!
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace. Four happy days bring in another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow this old moon wanes! She lingers my desires.
- Hippolyta - Queen of the Amazons - Betrothed to Theseus: Four days will quickly steep themselves in night. Four nights will quickly dream away the time. And then the moon, like to a silver bow, new-bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities.
- Hermia, in Love with Lysander: We must starve our sight from lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
- Quince, the Carpenter: Nick Bottom, the weaver.
- Bottom: Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
- Quince, the Carpenter: Nick Bottom you are set down for - Pyramus.
- Bottom: I play Pyramus. I play Pyramus. I play Pyramus! What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?
- Quince, the Carpenter: A lover - that kills himself most gallantly for love. A lover.
- Bottom: A lover. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms.
- Quince, the Carpenter: Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: Thisby? What is Thisby? A wandering knight?
- Quince, the Carpenter: A wandering knight! It is the lady that Pyramus must love. A lady!
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: Nay, faith, let me not play a woman.
- Quince, the Carpenter: Flute!
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: Nay, I have a beard coming.
- Quince, the Carpenter: That's all one: you shall play it in a mask and you may speak as small as you will.
- [high pitched voice]
- Quince, the Carpenter: Pyramus.
- [regular voice]
- Quince, the Carpenter: As small as you will.
- Bottom: If I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too,
- Quince, the Carpenter: No.
- Bottom: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice.
- Quince, the Carpenter: No.
- Bottom: Listen. Listen.
- [high pitched voice]
- Bottom: 'Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear!
- Quince, the Carpenter: No.
- Bottom: 'Thy Thisby dear and lady dear!'
- Quince, the Carpenter: No, no!
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: No.
- Quince, the Carpenter: You must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby!
- Bottom: Well, proceed.
- Quince, the Carpenter: Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I hope, here is a play fitted.
- Snug - the Joiner: Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
- Quince, the Carpenter: You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
- Bottom: Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me! I will roar and I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again! Let him roar again!'
- Quince, the Carpenter: If you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.
- Bottom: But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale!
- Quince, the Carpenter: You can play no part but Pyramus!
- Bottom: Pyramus!
- Quince, the Carpenter: For Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
- Bottom: Well, I will undertake it.
- Fairie - Attending Titania: Are not you that frights the maidens of the villager?
- Puck: Thou speak'st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night.
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: You told me they were stol'n into this wood. And here am I, like wood within this wood.
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
- Helena - In Love with Demetrius: And even for that do I love you the more.
- Helena - In Love with Demetrius: You do me mischief. We cannot fight for love as men may do. We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.
- Hermia, in Love with Lysander: Lysander, find you out a bed; for I upon this bank will rest my head.
- Lysander: One turf shall serve as pillow for us both. One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.
- Hermia, in Love with Lysander: Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear, lie further off yet. Do not lie so near.
- Lysander: O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence! Then by your side no bed-room me deny; For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
- Hermia, in Love with Lysander: [awakening] Help me, Lysander! Do your best to pluck this crawling serpent from my breast! Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here! Lysander, look how I do shake with fear: I thought a serpent ate my heart away.
- Hermia, in Love with Lysander: [chasing through the woods] Lysander!
- Puck: [mockingly] Lysander!
- Hermia, in Love with Lysander: Lysander!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Hermia!
- Helena - In Love with Demetrius: Demetrius!
- Puck: [mockingly] Demetrius!
- Lysander: Helena! Helena!
- Puck: [mockingly] Helena! Lysander!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Hermia! Hermia!
- Puck: [mockingly] Hermia!
- Helena - In Love with Demetrius: Demetrius!
- Lysander: Helena! Helena!
- Bottom: Why do they run away? I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me! To fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they will. I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.
- [sings]
- Bottom: The ousel cock so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, The throstle with his note so true...
- Titania - Queen of the Fairies: The moon - methinks looks with a watery eye. And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, lamenting some enforced chastity.
- Titania - Queen of the Fairies: Tie up my love's tongue bring him silently. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: O Helen! Goddess. Nymph! Perfect, divine. To what, my love, shall I compare your eyne? Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show your lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
- Lysander: Helena, I love you by my life, I do!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: I say I love you more than he can do!
- Lysander: If you say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Come!
- Lysander: Come!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Quick!
- Lysander: Quick!
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: Come! Quick!
- Lysander: Quick! Come!
- Titania - Queen of the Fairies: My Oberon! What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
- Oberon, King of the Fairies: There lies your love.
- Bottom: I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: methought I was, - and methought I had - Man is but an ass.
- Lysander: These things seem small and undistinguishable, like far off mountains turned into clouds.
- Demetrius, in Love with Hermia: It seems to me that, yet we sleep, we dream!
- Hippolyta - Queen of the Amazons - Betrothed to Theseus: 'Tis strange my Theseus, what these lovers speak of.
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such wild imaginings, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact.
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: Come now; what masques? What dances shall we have? Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand?
- Quince, the Carpenter: The actors are at hand and by their show you shall know all that you are like to know.
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: [performing as Thisby] O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans. Moans, moans, moans, moans. For parting my fair Pyramus and me! My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones. Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
- Bottom: [performing as Pyramus] Kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
- Flute, the Bellows-Mender: [performing as Thisby] I kiss the wall. Not your lips at all.
- Theseus - Duke of Athens: The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve: Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn, As much as we this night have overwatch'd. Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity, In nightly revels and new jollity.
- [last lines]
- Puck: If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended: that you have but slumber'd here, while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream! Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend! Else, the Puck a liar call. So, good night unto you all! Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
- Quince, the Carpenter: Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. And we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke. Pyramus, you begin.
- Bottom: Well, I begin. Oh, Thisny!
- Quince, the Carpenter: And when you have spoken your speech...
- Bottom: Then I stop.
- Quince, the Carpenter: No, no.
- Bottom: Well, then I go on.
- Quince, the Carpenter: No, no! Then you enter into that brake; and so everyone according to his cue. Thisby! Stand forth. Speak, Pyramus.
- Bottom: Oh, Thisny, the flowers -...
- Quince, the Carpenter: "Oh, Thisby."
- Bottom: This-nee.
- Quince, the Carpenter: This-bee!
- Bottom: Nay!
- Quince, the Carpenter: Ay!
- Bottom: Nay!
- Quince, the Carpenter: Ay!
- Bottom: This
- [he pulls his copy of the script from his waist]
- Bottom: ... This
- [he reads the scroll and scowls]
- Bottom: ... This... neebay. "The flowers of odious - -"
- Quince, the Carpenter: Odorous, odorous!
- Bottom: Odorous, odorous. The flowers odi - - the flowers odorous savors sweet. "Oh, Thisby, the flowers of odorous savors sweet; so have thy breath...
- [He gets a whiff of Flute's breath and recoils]
- Bottom: Oh, Thisby, my dearest Thisby dear. But hark!"
- [Flute erupts into a coughing fit. Bottom throws down his scroll, storms off, and is led back by Quince. He points accusatively at Flute]
- Bottom: Thisny!
- Quince, the Carpenter: [handing back Bottom's scroll] Thisby.
- Bottom: "But hark, a voice! Stay you but here a while, and by and by I will to you appear."
- [He exits the wrong way]
- Quince, the Carpenter: Into that brake!