A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, written around 1594 to 1596. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and with the fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest.

The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.

Excerpt:

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.

DEMETRIUS Relent, sweet Hermia;--and, Lysander, yield Thy crazed 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 deriv'd as he, As well possess'd; my love is more than his; My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd, If not with vantage, as Demetrius's; And, which is more than all...