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Lovers' lives are complicated by city law, feuding faerie royalty, and... love.
Lysander: The course of true love never did run smooth.
Bottom the Weaver: Since lion vile hath here deflowered my dear... Peter Quince: DEVOURED.
Titania: Out of this wood do not desire to go!
[repeated line] Helena: Oh, spite, oh hell.
[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. / Give me your hands, if we be friends, / And Robin shall restore amends.
Helena: I am your spaniel. And Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me - but as your spaniel. Spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me, but give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you.
Puck: Up and down, up and down, / I will lead them up and down. / I am feared in field and town. / Goblin lead them up and down.
Bottom the Weaver: Hark! I see a voice!
Tom Snout: [Puck has turned Bottom into a donkey] Bottom, thou art changed. What do I see on thee? Bottom the Weaver: What do you see? What; do you see an ass' head of your own, do you? Peter Quince: [backing away] Bless me. Thou art translated. [all run off, leaving Bottom alone on the stage] Bottom the Weaver: Why do they run away? I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of me.
Titania: Come, my lord, and in our flight / Tell me how it came this night / That I sleeping here was found / With these mortals on the ground.
Theseus: The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve: Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. Oberon: Now, until the break of day / Through this house each fairy stray. / To the best bride-bed will we, / Which by us shall blessed be; / So shall all the couples three / Ever true in loving be; / And the owner of it blest / Ever shall in safety rest. / Trip awa; make no stay; / Meet me all by break of day.
Bottom the Weaver: The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; Man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was.
Theseus: Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief? That is hot ice and wonderous strange snow.
Bottom the Weaver: I have had a most rare vision / I have had a dream / Past the wit of man to say what dream it was. / Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. / Methought I was... / There's no man can tell what. / Methought I was... / Methought I had... / Man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what I had.
Theseus: No epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse, for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed.
Francis Flute: Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove?
Theseus: [Reveiewing possible plays to be presented] "Battle with the Centaurs," to be sung by an Athenian eunuch to the harp. We'll none of that.