Ein St.-Johannis-Nachts-Traum
1600
Ein St.-Johannis-Nachts-Traum
1600
Translated by Christoph Martin Wieland
In an enchanted forest outside Athens, reality dissolves into something far more interesting. Four young lovers flee the city under cover of darkness, each one tangled in a knot of unrequited longing: Hermia loves Lysander, but her father demands she marry Demetrius, who himself is pursued by the desperate Helena. Into this romantic chaos steps Oberon, King of the Fairies, and his mischievous servant Puck, whose magical flower potion has the power to make anyone fall in love with the first creature they see. What follows is a night of bewildering transformations, mistaken identities, and desires hijacked by magic. Meanwhile, a group of amateur actors rehearsing in the woods become the victims of Puck's cruelest joke, with one unfortunate weaver gifted a donkey's head and the love of the Fairy Queen herself. By morning, everything should resolve neatly but the play has little interest in neatness. Instead, it asks whether love is a rational thing or a magical delusion, and whether the difference even matters.
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“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd 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 beguil'd.””
— William Shakespeare
“Though she be but little, she is fierce!””
— William Shakespeare
“The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low. Or else misgraffed in respect of years, O spite! too old to be engag’d to young. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,O hell! to choose love by another’s eye.””
— William Shakespeare
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!””
— William Shakespeare
“And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.””
— William Shakespeare
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.””
— William Shakespeare
“My soul is in the sky.””
— William Shakespeare
“If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumbered hereWhile 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:And, as I am an honest Puck,If we have unearned luckNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,We will make amends ere long;Else the Puck a liar call;So, good night unto you all.Give me your hands, if we be friends,And Robin shall restore amends.””
— William Shakespeare
“Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream””
— William Shakespeare
