Chapter 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream is here in full — 193 sentences across 39 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
A keeper or guardian of historical records and memories.
Chapter IV
Chapter 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream is here in full — 193 sentences across 39 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
Peas. Pease-blossome Bot. Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house. I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now. I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seede Tita.
Chapter 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream is here in full — 193 sentences across 39 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
Reading 1/38 · 5 reading units · Lines 1–5
These definitions explain words found in the current reading and keep every example grounded in its original sentence.
Oxford-style entry order: headword, part of speech, US IPA, concise definition, contextual example, and audio.
personal knowledge or information about someone or something
From this reading “I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seede Tita.”
botfly larva; typically develops inside the body of a horse or sheep or human
From this reading “Pease-blossome Bot.”
lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted
From this reading “Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.”
an old word for “before”
From this reading “I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.”
similar in quality or character
From this reading “I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.”
any of several cruciferous plants of the genus Brassica
From this reading “Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.”
good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence
From this reading “Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.”
plural of “pea” — seed of a pea plant used for food
From this reading “Peas.”
Every word in these five lines is listed here, and every one of them can be played on its own.
Dictionary details are shown only when verified; these are not licensed Oxford entries.
used before a singular noun to mean one of a group, when it is not a particular one
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
personal knowledge or information about someone or something
From this reading I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seede Tita.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
botfly larva; typically develops inside the body of a horse or sheep or human
From this reading Pease-blossome Bot.
lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
the feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state
From this reading I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seede Tita.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
an old word for “before”
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
opinion or judgment
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
a man of refinement
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
having desirable or positive qualities especially those suitable for a thing specified
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
an old form of “has”
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
the person speaking or writing, as the subject of the verb
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
similar in quality or character
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
be cognizant or aware of a fact or a specific piece of information; possess knowledge or information about
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
produced by a manufacturing process
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by “as” or “too” or “so” or “that”; amounting to a large but indefinite number
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
an artist of consummate skill
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
(comparative of “much” used with mass nouns) a quantifier meaning greater in size or amount or extent or degree
From this reading I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seede Tita.
any of several cruciferous plants of the genus Brassica
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seede Tita.
belonging to the person speaking
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
in the historical present; at this point in the narration of a series of past events
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
belonging to, or connected with, somebody or something
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
plural of “pea” — seed of a pea plant used for food
From this reading Peas.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading Pease-blossome Bot.
make a promise or commitment
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
Identical; not different.
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
used to introduce what somebody said, thought, or felt
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading I desire you more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seede Tita.
binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colorless odorless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below 0 degrees centigrade and boils above 100 degrees centigrade; widely used as a solvent
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
(often used as a combining form) in a good or proper or satisfactory manner or to a high standard (“good” is a nonstandard dialectal variant for “well”)
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
the person or people being spoken to
From this reading I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.
belonging to the person or people being spoken to
From this reading Good master Mustard seede, I know your patience well: that same cowardly gyant-like Oxe beefe hath deuoured many a gentleman of your house.
Chapter 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare holds 193 sentences, grouped into 39 reading sections of at most 5 sentences. The text is the source edition, unabridged, and the chapter records which sentences cover which part of the work so that nothing is dropped. Every word can be tapped for its pronunciation and dictionary entry.
Chapter 4 holds 193 sentences of A Midsummer Night's Dream, unabridged, divided into 39 reading sections.
This page carries chapter 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare exactly as it stands in the source edition, without abridgement. It runs to 193 sentences, grouped into 39 sections of at most 5 sentences so that a reader can take the chapter in steady, finishable pieces. The chapter also stores a coverage record mapping every one of its sentences to a part of the work, which is how the edition demonstrates that no line was dropped.
Work through the 39 sections in order, replaying any sentence and tapping unfamiliar words for their entries.
Each of the 39 sections in this chapter is short enough to read once, hear once, and then re-read with the vocabulary in view. Tapping a word plays it alone and opens its dictionary entry with IPA, part of speech and meaning, so the reader is never forced to guess a pronunciation from spelling. Working section by section keeps a long chapter from becoming an undifferentiated wall of text, which is the usual reason a reader abandons a work of this period.
Yes — every sentence and every individual word in chapter 4 can be played aloud in United States English.
Audio covers the whole chapter: any sentence can be played, and any single word within it can be played on its own. The voice uses United States English. For a work of this period that matters, because spelling is an unreliable guide to pronunciation for vocabulary that has fallen out of daily use, and a learner who guesses wrong tends to keep the error. Hearing the word in its own sentence, and then alone, settles it.
Common questions about reading A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare on this page, its source edition and its audio.
Yes. All 1293 sentences of Project Gutenberg eBook #1113 are kept, with a record of which sentences cover which part.
Project Gutenberg eBook #1113, unabridged. The Project Gutenberg header, footer and licence are removed.
About 107 minutes of reading across 259 sections of 5 sentences each, at an unhurried pace.
How to work through A Midsummer Night's Dream section by section, using the audio and the tap-to-define vocabulary.
Choose one of the 7 chapters of A Midsummer Night's Dream to begin.
Each section holds 5 sentences; read it once through.
Play the section aloud, then tap any unfamiliar word for its entry.
Words and structures a reader meets early in A Midsummer Night's Dream, each tappable for pronunciation and meaning.
