William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the 'Bard of Avon' (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 37 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. Scholars believe that he died on his fifty-second birthday, coinciding with St George’s Day.
At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608. He was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century.
The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare. In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.
This collection features the following works: THE PLAYS A Midsummer Night’s Dream All’s Well that Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Julius Caesar King Henry the Eighth King Henry the Fifth King Henry the Fourth, the First Part King Henry the Fourth, the Second Part King Henry the Sixth, the First Part King Henry the Sixth, the Second Part King Henry the Sixth, the Third Part King John King Lear King Richard the Second King Richard the Third Love’s Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor Much Ado About Nothing Othello, the Moor of Venice Pericles, Prince of Tyre Romeo and Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night; or, What You Will The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale SONNETS AND POEMS The Sonnets A Lover’s Complaint The Passionate Pilgrim The Phoenix and the Turtle The Rape of Lucrece Venus and Adonis

THE PLAYS
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Dramatis Personae

THESEUS Duke of Athens
EGEUS father of Hermia
DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER in love with Hermia
PHILOSTRATE Theseus’ Master of the Revels
PETER QUINCE a carpenter
SNUG a joiner
NICK BOTTOM a weaver
FRANCIS FLUTE a bellows-mender
TOM SNOUT a tinker
ROBIN STARVELING a tailor
HELENA in love with Demetrius.
HYPPOLITA Queen of the Amazons
HERMIA in love with Lysander
OBERON King of Fairies
TITANIA Queen of Fairies
ROBIN GOODFELLOW a puck
PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED fairies serving Titania.
Other Fairies.
Theseus’ Lords and other Attendants.

Scene: Athens and a Wood Near It.

Act 1

Scene 1. The hall in the palace of Theseus, Duke of Athens.
Enter THESEUS and HIPPOLYTA, followed by PHILOSTRATE and ATTENDANTS.

THESEUS : 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’s revenue.

HIPPOLYTA : 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.

THESEUS : Go, Philostrate,
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.

[Exit Philostrate.

Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

Enter EGEUS and his daughter HERMIA, followed by LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS.

EGEUS : Happy be Theseus, our renownèd duke!

THESEUS : Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?

EGEUS : Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander. 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 faining love,
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats (messegers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth).
With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,
Turned her obedience (which is due 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.

THESEUS : 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.

HERMIA : So is Lysander.

THESEUS : In himself he is;
But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
The other must be held the worthier.

HERMIA : I would my father looked but with my eyes.

THESEUS : Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.

HERMIA : 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.

THESEUS : 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 mewed,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessèd they that master so their blood
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled,
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

HERMIA : So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship, whose unwishèd yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

THESEUS : Take time to pause, and by the next new moon –
The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
For everlasting bond of fellowship –
Upon that day either prepare to die
For disobedience to your father’s will,
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,
Or on Diana’s altar to protest,
For aye, austerity and single life.

DEMETR. : Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazèd title to my certain right.

LYSANDER : You have her father’s love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.

EGEUS : 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.

LYSANDER : I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
As well possessed; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly ranked
(If not with vantage) as Demetrius’;
And which is more than all these boasts can be –
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius – I’ll avouch it to his head –
Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she (sweet lady) dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THESEUS : 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 ad Egeus, go along:
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial, and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

EGEUS : With duty and desire we follow you.

[Exeunt all except Hermia and Lysander.

LYSANDER : How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIA : Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

LYSANDER : Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But either it was different in blood –

HERMIA : O cross! Too high to be enthralled to low.

LYSANDER : Or else misgraffèd in respect of years –

HERMIA : O spite! Too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDER : Or else it stood upon the choice of friends –

HERMIA : O hell! To choose love by another’s eyes!

LYSANDER : 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.

HERMIA : It then true lovers have been ever crossed,
It stands as an edíct 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.

LYSANDER : A good persuasion: therefore hear me, Hermia:
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revénue, 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 lov’st me, then,
Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow 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.

HERMIA : My good Lysander,
I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head,
By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burned the Carthage queen,
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever me have broke
(In number more than ever women spoke),
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.

LYSANDER : Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter HELENA.

HERMIA : God speed, fair Helena: whither away?

HELENA : Call you me fair? That ‘fair’ again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars, and your tongue’s sweet air
More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear,
Sickness is catching: O, were favour so!
Your words I catch, fair Hermia; ere I go,
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye;
My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I’d give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.

HERMIA : I frown upon him; yet he loves me still.

HELENA : O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

HERMIA : I give him curses; yet he gives me love.

HELENA : O that my prayers could such affection move!

HERMIA : The more I hate, the more he follows me.

HELENA : The more I love, the more he hateth me.

HERMIA : His folly, Helen, is no fault of mine.

HELENA : None but your beauty; would that fault were mine!

HERMIA : Take comfort: he no more shall see my face:
Lysader and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seemed Athens as a paradise to me:
O then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turned a heaven unto a hell!

LYSANDER : Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass –
A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal –
Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

HERMIA : And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet,
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.

LYSANDER : I will, my Hermia. [Exit Hermia.] Helena, adieu:
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

[Exit Lysander.

HELENA : 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, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind:
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment 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 looked on Hermia’s eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine.
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and show’rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he tomorrow 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.

[Exit.