in the play, oberon, king of fairies, quarrels3 with his queen, titania. oberon tells his servant, puck, to put a magic liquid on titania’s eyes to make her fall in love with the first person she sees. at the same time, two young men and two young women are lost. puck puts the liquid on the men’s eyes, and they both end up falling in love with one of the women.
puck then sees an actor4 named bottom. for fun, puck decides to turn bottom’s headsintosa donkey’s. soon after, titania sees bottom and falls in love with him.
to be continued ...
翻译
莎士比亚的喜剧《仲夏夜之梦》发生在夏至，这一天一直被认为是一个神奇的时刻。这出戏就遵循着这个传统精神，将场景摆在众多精灵出没的幽暗森林当中。在剧中，精灵王奥伯龙与王后泰坦尼娅起了争执，奥伯龙就叫他的仆人帕克在泰坦尼娅的眼睛上点了一种魔液，使她会对(醒来后)所见的第一个人一见钟情。与此同时，有两对年轻男女(在森林中)迷路了。帕克将魔液点在两个男子的眼睛上，结果他们俩都同时爱上了其中一个女孩。之后帕克看到一个叫巴腾的演员，他一时兴起，决定把巴腾的头变成驴头。没过多久，泰坦尼娅看到巴腾就爱上了他。
(二)
unhappy with the mess,1 oberon orders puck to change bottom’s head back, and lifts the spell from titania. he turns the four confused loverssintostwo happy couples. everyone feels that the night’s strange events2 were just a dream.
at the end, puck tells the audience3 that if they did not like the play, they should consider it as just that: a dream. in fact, many people have said that when the play ended, they were not sure whether what they saw was real, or whether they had shared the same dream.
“a midsummer night’s dream”has stood the test of time. and likewise,4 there are people who still celebrate5 midsummer. if you find yourself lost in a forest, lost in love, or lost in confusion on this day, perhaps midsummer fairies will come to set things right for you, too.
翻译
奥伯龙对这混乱的局面感到很不高兴，就命令帕克把巴腾的头变回原状，再解除泰坦尼娅的魔咒。他又把四个意乱情迷的情人变成两对快乐的佳偶，每个人都认为这夜的奇遇只是一场梦。剧末，帕克告诉观众，如果他们不喜欢这出戏，就把它当成是一场梦。事实上，很多人都说，当剧终的时候，他们并不能确定自己所见的是事实，还是他们都做了同样的一场梦。《仲夏夜之梦》这出戏经住了时间的考验。同样，(至今)仍有人在庆祝仲夏。如果你在这天发现自己迷失于森林中，被爱冲昏了头，或是感到困惑不已，也许仲夏精灵会来帮你把事情理顺噢。
