The Nexus Archive
Drama · Play
A Midsummer Night's Dream
by Shakespeare · The Stage of the Soul · Elizabethan and Jacobean England, 1564-1616
Four lovers, a fairy quarrel, and amateur actors meet in a forest where desire changes shape.
- Intermediate
- ~1 hr 15 min read
- 2 chapter guides
- Public domain
Start reading · Read the SCENE II. Another part of the wood guide free
Before the text
Editor's Prelude
Law by Day, Desire by Moonlight
A wedding is approaching, but the promise of happiness comes with threats. Theseus recalls winning Hippolyta by the sword; Egeus asks the law to enforce his daughter’s marriage. Beyond Athens lies a wood where desire has other rulers, and certainty about whom one loves can become dangerously easy to disturb.
The flower’s love-juice does not create disorder from nothing; it exaggerates the volatility already present in vows, jealousy, rank, and imagination.
The lovers, the quarrelling fairy court and a company of working men preparing a play bring different languages into the same night. Grand declarations rub against songs, household jokes and an actor’s eagerness to play every part. The comedy’s lightness has room for humiliation and tenderness, and for the question of how much love owes to what the mind makes of what it sees.
The opening pages
Dramatis Personæ
THESEUS, Duke of Athens
HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus
EGEUS, Father to Hermia
HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander
HELENA, in love with Demetrius
LYSANDER, in love with Hermia
DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia
PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus
QUINCE, the Carpenter
SNUG, the Joiner
BOTTOM, the Weaver
FLUTE, the Bellows-mender
SNOUT, the Tinker
STARVELING, the Tailor
OBERON, King of the Fairies
TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies
PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW, a Fairy
PEASEBLOSSOM, Fairy
COBWEB, Fairy
MOTH, Fairy
MUSTARDSEED, Fairy
PYRAMUS, THISBE, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION;
Characters in the Interlude performed by the Clowns
Other Fairies attending their King and Queen
Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta
SCENE: Athens, and a wood not far from it
ACT I, SCENE I. Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus
ACT I
SCENE I. Athens. A room in the Palace of Theseus
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate and Attendants.
THESEUS.Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon; but oh, 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.
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.
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 woo’d
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, Hermia, 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 bewitch’d the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang’d love-tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats (messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden’d youth)
With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart,
Turn’d 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.
Chapter guides · 2
SCENE II. Another part of the wood
Desire under another’s power
Athens’s marriage dispute enters a forest where a fairy quarrel and a mistaken enchantment unsettle the lovers’ choices.
A choice the law refuses
Egeus demands that Hermia marry Demetrius, and Theseus gives her the alternatives of death or lifelong chastity. She and Lysander plan to escape beyond Athenian law. Helena reveals their flight to Demetrius in the hope of gaining his attention, although she knows the pursuit will deepen her pain. Love already changes the value of places, promises and self-respect before any flower touches an eyelid. Meanwhile Quince’s company of workmen cast their play of Pyramus and Thisbe for the Duke’s wedding and agree to rehearse it in the wood.
A quarrel with consequences
Titania attributes the disordered seasons to her conflict with Oberon. She refuses to surrender the Indian boy because of her attachment to his dead mother; Oberon plans to torment her with an imposed infatuation until she yields. His wish to help the rejected Helena uses the same power to redirect desire.
Mistaken certainty
Puck takes Lysander for the disdainful Athenian Oberon described. The distance between the sleeping lovers, requested by Hermia out of modesty, looks to him like rejection. When Helena wakes Lysander, the charm turns his love toward her; he calls the change a judgment of reason. Helena hears mockery, while Hermia wakes from a frightening dream to find him gone. Each explains what is happening with confidence or fear, without knowing the cause that the audience has seen.
ACT V, SCENE I. Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus
Weddings and a dream
The forest quarrels give way to marriages, a tragedy played for laughs and Puck’s farewell.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read A Midsummer Night's Dream?
- About 1 hr 15 min in total.
- How difficult is A Midsummer Night's Dream?
- Intermediate. A mid-length play; about an hour of reading.
- Which edition is this?
- The original English text, first published in 1600. The text follows Project Gutenberg ebook #1514: A Midsummer Night's Dream (2025).
- Can I read A Midsummer Night's Dream for free?
- A Midsummer Night's Dream is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and one chapter guide on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- 2 chapter guides, written by the Nexus editors. One opens in full here; the rest show their opening line.
About Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was the central playwright of the English stage, writing tragedies, comedies, histories, and poems that became part of the world's shared dramatic language. His plays survive because they make private thought and public action move together.
“What happens when the inner life becomes impossible to hide?”
Shakespeare gives Nexus drama at maximum human range: kings, fools, lovers, ghosts, soldiers, daughters, murderers, and minds arguing with themselves.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. A Midsummer Night's Dream is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.