Read Shakespeare’s ‘I Am That Merry Wanderer Of The Night’ soliloquy from A Midsummer Night’s Dream below with modern English translation and analysis, plus a video performance.
‘I Am That Merry Wanderer Of The Night’, Spoken by Puck, Act 2, Scene 1
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
‘I Am That Merry Wanderer Of The Night’ Soliloquy Translation
I that merry wanderer of the night. I jest for Oberon and make him laugh when I trick a fat, bean-fed horse by neighing in imitation of a filly. And I sometimes hide in an old woman’s bowl, disguised as an apple, and when she drinks I bob against her lips and the beer spills down her sagging cheeks. The wisest old aunt, telling the saddest story, sometimes mistakes me for a three legged stool; then I slip out from under her bum and down she topples, crying, ‘oh, my arse,’ and begins to cough, which makes everyone laugh and say they’ve never had such fun.
Watch ‘I Am That Merry Wanderer Of The Night’ Soliloquy Performed
Puck speaks his ‘I am that merry wanderer of the night’ soliloquy
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