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Result number
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Work
The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets
are treated as single work with 154 parts.
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Character
Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet,
the character name is "Poet."
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Line
Shows where the line falls within the work.
The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of
collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not
restart for each scene.
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Text
The line's full text, with keywords highlighted
within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.
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1 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Theseus |
2 |
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,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man revenue.
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2 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Hippolyta |
8 |
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.
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3 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Theseus |
50 |
What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:
To you your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax
By him imprinted and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
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4 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Hermia |
63 |
I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty,
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
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5 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Theseus |
70 |
Either to die the death or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.
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6 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Theseus |
116 |
I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up—
Which by no means we may extenuate—
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?
Demetrius and Egeus, go along:
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
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7 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Lysander |
147 |
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
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8 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Hermia |
156 |
If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
It stands as an edict in destiny:
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.
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9 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Lysander |
162 |
A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia.
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child:
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues;
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee.
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10 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Hermia |
210 |
Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
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11 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Lysander |
216 |
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.
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12 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 1] |
Helena |
237 |
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 not know what all but he do know:
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities:
Things base and vile, folding no quantity,
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 is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured every where:
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths that he was 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 fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow 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.
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13 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Bottom |
272 |
First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats
on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow
to a point.
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14 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Bottom |
277 |
A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a
merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your
actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
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15 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Bottom |
283 |
What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?
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16 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Quince |
284 |
A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
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17 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Bottom |
285 |
That will ask some tears in the true performing of
it: if I do it, let the audience look to their
eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some
measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a
tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to
tear a cat in, to make all split.
The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.
This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is
more condoling.
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18 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Flute |
305 |
What is Thisby? a wandering knight?
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19 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Flute |
307 |
Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.
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20 |
Midsummer Night's Dream
[I, 2] |
Quince |
308 |
That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and
you may speak as small as you will.
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