A Midsummer Night's Dream. William Shakespeare

p>William Shakespeare’s

      A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

      A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

      ‘True love is never easy,’ says Lysander. The four young Athenians in this story – Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena – find this out. And so, looking for answers to their difficulties, they run away to the forest outside Athens.

      But Shakespeare’s forest is a place where wildly impossible things happen … The young people chase each other around the forest, but who is in love with whom, and why does love change so quickly? And they are not the only people in the forest that night. A group of workmen from the city are meeting to rehearse their play for the Duke of Athens. What extraordinary thing happens to one of the workmen? Why do his friends run from him in fear?

      Because on this midsummer night, there are also fairies in the forest, spirits of the night, unseen by human eyes. They are everywhere – watching, laughing, singing, dancing, arguing. Where there are fairies, there is magic. And where there is magic, anything can happen …

      Or perhaps everything that happens is just a dream – a wonderful, midsummer night’s dream …

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      PEOPLE IN THIS STORY

      THE ATHENIANS

      Theseus, Duke of Athens

      Hippolyta, soon to become Theseus’s wife and Duchess of Athens

      Egeus, an Athenian lord

      Hermia, Egeus’s daughter, in love with Lysander

      Lysander, in love with Hermia

      Demetrius, in love with Hermia

      Helena, in love with Demetrius

      THE ACTORS

      Peter Quince, who reads the Prologue

      Nick Bottom, who plays Pyramus

      Francis Flute, who plays Thisbe

      Tom Snout, who plays Wall

      Snug, who plays Lion

      Robin Starveling, who plays Moonshine

      THE FAIRIES

      Oberon, the fairy King

      Titania, the fairy Queen

      Puck, fairy servant to Oberon

      CHAPTER 1

      Young love

      Athens, on a summer night. The air is soft and warm. In the sky the moon shines, throwing its bright silvery light over the old city and the dark forest beyond. There are faces at a window in the great palace on top of the hill. It is Theseus, Duke of Athens, and the beautiful Hippolyta, looking up at the moon …

      ‘Hippolyta, my love,’ said the Duke, ‘our wedding day comes closer. In four happy days there will be a new moon.’ He took Hippolyta’s hand and pulled her towards him. ‘But how slow this old moon is!’ He sighed. ‘Why can’t it hurry away and bring our wedding day faster.’ He kissed Hippolyta’s hand, and she laughed.

      ‘Four days will quickly end in nights,’ she said softly, ‘and four nights will quickly pass in dreams. And then the new moon will shine on our celebrations.’