Important Quotations Explained
1 Ay
me, for aught that I could ever read,
Could
ever hear by tale or history,
The course of
true love never did run smooth...
2. Through
Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what
of that? Demetrius thinks not so.
He will
not know what all but he do know.
And as he
errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring
of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding
no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and
dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but
with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid
painted blind.
3. Lord,
what fools these mortals be!
4. 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 t’expound
this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what. Methought
I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if he will
offer to say what methought I had. 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. I will get
Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called
‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom.
5. If
we shadows have offended,
Think but this,
and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered
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.
