The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated)

by William Shakespeare

  As the earth gets a hole drilled through it and the moon

  May through the centre creep and so displease

  Passes through the hole, disturbing

  Her brother's noontide with Antipodes.

  The tides at noon with its pull from a place opposite where it usually is.

  It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him;

  The only answer is that you murdered him;

  So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.

  You look like a murderer anyway, so pale and ugly.

  DEMETRIUS

  So should the murder'd look, and so should I,

  A murdered person looks like that too, which is who I really am,

  Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:

  Since you pierced my heart with your meanness.

  Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,

  And all the while you, the true murderer, look as beautiful

  As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.

  As the planet Venus there in the sky, glimmering.

  HERMIA

  What's this to my Lysander? where is he?

  Why should I care about this as much as I care about Lysander? Where is he?

  Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?

  Good Demetrius, please, will you give him to me?

  DEMETRIUS

  I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.

  I’d rather give his dead body to my dogs.

  HERMIA

  Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds

  Get away from me you dog! You push me past the limits

  Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?

  Of any woman’s patience. Have you killed him?

  Henceforth be never number'd among men!

  From now on I will never consider you a man!

  O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake!

  For once, tell me the truth, for my sake!

  Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,

  Would you dare to even look at him while he was awake,

  And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!

  And then you killed him when he fell asleep? O, you are so brave!

  Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?

  Even a worm or a snake could do that.

  An adder did it; for with doubler tongue

  And actually a snake did do it: for you have a more forked tongue

  Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.

  Than any snake, and are more a snake than an actual snake.

  DEMETRIUS

  You spend your passion on a misprised mood:

  You are getting too passionate on something you have misunderstood:

  I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;

  I am not guilty of killing Lysander –

  Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.

  In fact, for all I know he isn’t even dead.

  HERMIA

  I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.

  Please then, tell me he is alright.

  DEMETRIUS

  An if I could, what should I get therefore?

  And if I could, what would that get me?

  HERMIA

  A privilege never to see me more.

  The privilege of never seeing me again.

  And from thy hated presence part I so:

  I am leaving your presence which I hate so much:

  See me no more, whether he be dead or no.

  Do not see me again, whether he is dead or not.

  Exit

  DEMETRIUS

  There is no following her in this fierce vein:

  I should not follow her while she is this angry,

  Here therefore for a while I will remain.

  So I will stay here for a little.

  So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow

  The weight of sorrow grows even heavier

  For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe:

  When one is behind on sleep.

  Which now in some slight measure it will pay,

  Now I’ll get a little bit of that sleep back,

  If for his tender here I make some stay.

  And sleep here to stave off the heaviness of sorrow.

  Lies down and sleeps

  OBERON

  What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite

  What have you done, Puck? You have mistakenly

  And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight:

  Put the love potion on someone who has true love.

  Of thy misprision must perforce ensue

  Of your mistakes now what has happened

  Some true love turn'd and not a false turn'd true.

  Is the changing of some true love, and not a false love made true.

  PUCK

  Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,

  Then it must be fate that made it so one man who is truly in love

  A million fail, confounding oath on oath.

  fails his oaths like the millions of others who naturally break these oaths.

  OBERON

  About the wood go swifter than the wind,

  Go faster than the wind through the forest

  And Helena of Athens look thou find:

  And find Helena of Athens.

  All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,

  She will look sick from unrequited love, pale, and joyless,

  With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear:

  Sighing from her pain, which makes her pale.

  By some illusion see thou bring her here:

  Trick her into coming here

  I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.

  And I will enchant him with the potion for when she gets here.

  PUCK

  I go, I go; look how I go,

  I go, I go, look how quickly I go,

  Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.

  Faster than an arrow shot by a Tartar.

  Exit

  OBERON

  Flower of this purple dye,

  Purple flower,

  Hit with Cupid's archery,

  Hit by an arrow of Cupid,

  Sink in apple of his eye.

  Sink into his eyes.

  When his love he doth espy,

  When he sees his love,

  Let her shine as gloriously

  Let her be as beautiful

  As the Venus of the sky.

  As the planet Venus up in the sky.

  When thou wakest, if she be by,

  When you wake, if she is nearby,

  Beg of her for remedy.

  Beg her to love you and cure the coming lovesickness.

  Re-enter PUCK

  PUCK

  Captain of our fairy band,

  Captain of the fairies,

  Helena is here at hand;

  Helena is right here

  And the youth, mistook by me,

  And the boy I mistook is here as well

  Pleading for a lover's fee.

  Pleading for her love.

  Shall we their fond pageant see?

  Shall we watch what they do?

  Lord, what fools these mortals be!

  Oh these humans are so foolish!

  OBERON

  Stand aside: the noise they make

  Stand here, the noise they make

  Will cause Demetrius to awake.

  Will wake up Demetrius.

  PUCK

  Then will two at once woo one;

  Then two of them at once will be after one:

  That must needs be sport alone;

  That is sport enough to watch.

  And those things do best please me

  These mishaps please me

  That befal preposterously.

  From how preposterous they are.

  Enter LYSANDER and HELENA

  LYSANDER

  Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?r />
  Why do you think I am mocking you when I woo you?

  Scorn and derision never come in tears:

  I wouldn’t cry if I were making fun of you:

  Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,

  Look how I cry as I pledge my love – pledges like this

  In their nativity all truth appears.

  Are born from honesty, and are thus true.

  How can these things in me seem scorn to you,

  How can you think that I am mocking you

  Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?

  When these things wear the badge of faith, my tears, to prove that they are real?

  HELENA

  You do advance your cunning more and more.

  You are becoming more and more cunning.

  When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!

  What a horrible thing it is when true vows run against opposite true vows!

  These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er?

  Your promises to Hermia – will you break them?

  Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:

  Two oaths on opposing scales will balance out and lead you to neither decision:

  Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,

  Your promises to her, and now to me,

  Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.

  Weigh evenly – and I think they are as empty as myths.

  LYSANDER

  I had no judgment when to her I swore.

  I was judging poorly when I swore my love to her.

  HELENA

  Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.

  And you have no judgment now, as you try to give her up.

  LYSANDER

  Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.

  Demetrius loves Hermia, anyway, he does not love you.

  DEMETRIUS

  [Awaking] O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!

  Oh Helena, goddess, fairy, perfect, divine!

  To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?

  What can I compare your beauty to?

  Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show

  Crystal is muddy. Oh your lips

  Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!

  so ripe, like two cherries touching each other, are so tempting!

  That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,

  The pure whiteness of a mountaintop’s snow

  Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow

  Blown by the eastern wind turns as black as a crow

  When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss

  When compared with your hand. Let me kiss

  This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!

  You, a princess of pure white, and seal my happiness!

  HELENA

  O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent

  Oh curses on both of you! You are both together

  To set against me for your merriment:

  Joined in mocking me for your own enjoyment.

  If you were civil and knew courtesy,

  If you were kind, and new common courtesy,

  You would not do me thus much injury.

  You wouldn’t hurt me this much.

  Can you not hate me, as I know you do,

  Can you just hate me, as I know you do,

  But you must join in souls to mock me too?

  Without joining together to make fun of me as well?

  If you were men, as men you are in show,

  If you were true men, as noble as you pretend to be

  You would not use a gentle lady so;

  You would not treat a gentle lady like this:

  To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,

  To promise and swear your love, to overemphasize my beauty,

  When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.

  When I know that really you hate me in your hearts.

  You both are rivals, and love Hermia;

  You are rivals in loving Hermia,

  And now both rivals, to mock Helena:

  And now you are rivals in mocking me:

  A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,

  A neat and manly goal,

  To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes

  To create tears to fall from a poor girl’s eyes

  With your derision! none of noble sort

  From your evilness! No truly noble man

  Would so offend a virgin, and extort

  Would cause such hurt in a young, chaste girl, none would test

  A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.

  A poor soul’s patience for his own fun.

  LYSANDER

  You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;

  You are mean, Demetrius, now stop.

  For you love Hermia; this you know I know:

  You love Hermia and you know that I know it,

  And here, with all good will, with all my heart,

  And right here, with the best of my intentions,

  In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;

  I give up my pursuit of Hermia.

  And yours of Helena to me bequeath,

  Now you give up your vows to Helena

  Whom I do love and will do till my death.

  Whom I love and will do so until I die.

  HELENA

  Never did mockers waste more idle breath.

  Jokers never wasted so much breath in speaking nonsense.

  DEMETRIUS

  Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none:

  Lysander, keep your Hermia because I will not.

  If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone.

  If I ever truly lover her, that love is now gone.

  My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,

  My heart journeyed to her, but did not stay,

  And now to Helen is it home return'd,

  And now it has come back to its home, Helena,

  There to remain.

  Where it will remain.

  LYSANDER

  Helen, it is not so.

  Helena, he is lying.

  DEMETRIUS

  Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,

  Don’t insult the love you do not know

  Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.

  Or else, to your harm, you will have to pay for your words.

  Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.

  Look, your love is coming from over there; there is your beloved.

  Re-enter HERMIA

  HERMIA

  Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,

  The night is so dark that it ruins the eye’s ability to see,

  The ear more quick of apprehension makes;

  But it makes the ear’s hearing stronger.

  Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,

  Though it hurts one’s sense of sight,

  It pays the hearing double recompense.

  It accounts for such harm by giving hearing twice as much perception.

  Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;

  I could not find you, Lysander, by my sight,

  Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound

  But I thank my ears that brought me to your voice –

  But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

  Why did you so abruptly leave my side?

  LYSANDER

  Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?

  Why should I have stayed, when love pressed me to go?

  HERMIA

  What love could press Lysander from my side?

  What love could possibly press you to go and outweigh your love for me?

  LYSANDER

  Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,

  My unabiding love for

  Fair Helena, who more engilds the night

  Beautiful Helena, who makes the night look more golden

  Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light. />
  Than do the stars above.

  Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know,

  Why did you look for me? Didn’t my leaving make it obvious

  The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?

  That I hate you, and that this hate made me leave?

  HERMIA

  You speak not as you think: it cannot be.

  You cannot be speaking what you really think.

  HELENA

  Lo, she is one of this confederacy!

  Hermia is part of this plan to mock me!

  Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three

  Now I see that all three have joined together

  To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.

  To play this mean joke at my expense.

  Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!

  Hurtful Hermia! You awful lady!

  Have you conspired, have you with these contrived

  Have you planned with these men

  To bait me with this foul derision?

  To trick me with this mean ploy?

  Is all the counsel that we two have shared,

  Remember all that we shared, the conversations

  The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,

  And the promises, the hours spent together,

  When we have chid the hasty-footed time

  We were even angry that we didn’t have more

  For parting us,--O, is it all forgot?

  Time together – and now is it all lost?

  All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?

  Our friendship at school and our young innocent friendship, lost?

  We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

  Hermia, we used to be like fake gods of our world,

  Have with our needles created both one flower,

  Sitting together and sewing the same flower

  Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,

  On the same sampler, sitting on the same cushion

  Both warbling of one song, both in one key,

  and singing together in the same key,

  As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,

  As if our hands and bodies, our voices and our minds

  Had been incorporate. So we grow together,

  Were fused together. We grew together

  Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,

  Like two cherries – seemingly apart,