Monologues for Children

ROMEO AND JULIET

A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

ROMEO: But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.
It is my lady; O, it is my love!
O that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
OTHELLO
A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

OTHELLO: Her father loved me, oft invited me;

Still questioned me the story of my life
From year to year -- the battles, sieges, fortunes
That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I spoke of most diastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hairbreadth scapes i' the' imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels' history;
Wherein of anters vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak -- such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline;

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever she could with haste dispatch,
She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse. Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively. I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs.
She swore, i' faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful.
She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished
That heaven had made her such a man. She thanked me;
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake.
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used.
Here comes the lady. Let her witness it.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

PUCK: My mistress with a monster is in love.

Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play,
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.
The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented in their sport,
Forsook his scene and entered in a brake.
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass's nole I fixd on his head.
Anon his Thisby must be answerd,
And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky;
So at his sight away his fellows fly,
And at our stamp here o'er and o'er one falls;
He murder cries and help from Athens calls.

Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,
Made senseless things begin to do them wrong,
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch:
Some, sleeves -- some, hats; from yielders all things catch.
I led them on in this distracted fear
And left sweet Pyramus translated there,
When in that moment (so it came to pass)
Titania waked, and straightway loved an ass.

Last updated Sept. 5, 2000

[Versin original]

Pedro Caldern de la Barca

(1600-1681)
From Life is a Dream
We live, while we see the sun,
Where life and dreams are as one;
And living has taught me this,
Man dreams the life that is his,
Until his living is done.
The king dreams he is king, and he lives
In the deceit of a king,
Commanding and governing;
And all the praise he receives
Is written in wind, and leaves
A little dust on the way
When death ends all with a breath.
Where then is the gain of a throne,
That shall perish and not be known
In the other dream that is death?
Dreams the rich man of riches and fears,
The fears that his riches breed;
The poor man dreams of his need,
And all his sorrows and tears;
Dreams he that prospers with years,
Dreams he that feigns and foregoes,
Dreams he that rails on his foes;
And in all the world, I see,
Man dreams whatever he be,
And his own dream no man knows.
And I too dream and behold,
I dream I am bound with chains,
And I dreamed that these present pains

Were fortunate ways of old.

What is life? a tale that is told;
What is life? a frenzy extreme,
A shadow of things that seem;
And the greatest good is but small,
That all life is a dream to all,
And that dreams themselves are a dream.
Arthur Symons (translator)
From: Hispanic Anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish by English and North
American Poets, collected and arranged by Thomas Walsh. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New
York, 1920.

The day finishes with Segismundo, once again in the tower, asking himself if it could all
have been a dream, and closes with the famous verses that give name to the play:
I dream that I am here
of these imprisonments charged,
and I dreamed that in another state
happier I saw myself.
What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
A shadow, a fiction,
And the greatest profit is small;
For all of life is a dream,
And dreams, are nothing but dreams.
Yo sueo que estoy aqu
destas prisiones cargado,
y so que en otro estado
ms lisonjero me vi.
Qu es la vida? Un frenes.
Qu es la vida? Una ilusin,
una sombra, una ficcin,
y el mayor bien es pequeo:
que toda la vida es sueo,
y los sueos, sueos son.
This soliloquy is to Spanish literature what Hamlet 's "To be or not to be" speech is to
English literature.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

There once was a girl named Hermia and she loved
a man Lysander but her father said she should marry
Demetrius but she did not want to. Her father said
she could marry Demetrius, be a nun, or die. So she
picked none of them. She and Lysander planned to
run away at dawn.
Then a young woman named Helena found out what
they were going to do. Also Demetrius loved Hermia
so Helena told Demetrius. They ran away. Helena
loved Demetrius.
After a while Nick Bottom and his gang were putting
on a play for the duke and his future wife. Farther
through the forest the queen of fairiesTitania was
arguing with her husband over a boy. Oberon was so
angry he sent Puck for a flower. When Puck arrived
he had the perfect flower.
So Oberon mixed the flower and gave some to Puck
to put in Demetrius' eyes. On Puck's way he saw
Nick Bottom practicing the play and he decided to do
a trick and he turned him into a donkey. Oberon
mixed some for himself and put it in Titania's eyes.
When she woke up, the first thing she saw was Nick
Bottom who Puck turned into a donkey.

Puck put the mix in Lysander's eyes which he was

not supposed to, when he woke up, the first thing he
saw was Helena. He fell desperately in love with her.
Now Lysander loved Helena and Demetrius loved
Hermia. Hermia was disappointed When she woke
up and Lysander was not there. Then
.

Oberon made Puck put everything back to normal

and it worked. Everything was back to normal.
THE END

MACBETH
OnedayMacbethhelpedwinthewar.Then
ashewaswalkingbackfromthewarhe
sawsomewitches.Theysaidhewasgoing
tobeking.Macbeththinksthathewantsto
beking,buthetriestogetridofthe
thought.ButhiswifemakeshimkillKing
Duncan.
ThenhebecomesKingbecauseDuncan's
sonsranawaybecausetheythinktheywill
gettheblame.Macbethhiresmurderersto
killBanquo.ThenwhenMacbethisata
feast,heseesBanquo'sghost.

LadyMacbethkillsherselfbecauseshe
goesmadwithhorror.Malcolmand
MacDuffattackKingMacbeth'scastle.
ThenthereisahugewarandMacbethdies.
Hamlet
ClaudiushaskilledHamlet'sfather,theKingofDenmark.
Hamlet'smothermarriedClaudiustwomonthslater
becauseshedidn'tknow.
TheguardsofthecastleseetheghostofHamlet'sfather.
AndtheghosttellsHamletthathisuncle,Claudiuskilled
him,soHamletwentcrazy.
TheKingandQueenthinkthatheisactingstrange
becauseheisinlovewithOphelia.Sotheyputhimina
roomwithOpheliatofindoutforsure.ButHamletwas
meantoher,sohisunclethinksHamletknowshekilled
hisfatherandthat'swhyhe'smad.
OpheliagoescrazybecauseHamletsayshedoesn'tlove
herandshedrownsherself.HerbrotherblamesHamlet
andchallengeshimtoaduel.
Attheduel,Claudiusputspoisoninaglassofwineandon
theswordsbecausehewantstokillHamlet.TheQueen
drinksthewinebymistakeanddies.HamletandOphelia's
brotherstaboneanotherwiththepoisonswordsandthey
bothdie,butHamletkillsthekingjustbeforehedies.

Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar came back from a war and won it.
Then he gets offered the throne three times, but
refuses expecting the people to say, YES CAESAR!
BE KING! BE KING! But they say, YEAH FOR
CAESAR! WE LIKE THINGS THE WAY THEY ARE!
Then some fortune teller came to Caesar and said
"Beware the Ides of March Caesar says back, What a
nuisance. Then the ides of March come and
Caesars wife dreams that something will happen.
Then she tries to stop him from going out. But
Caesar heard that he would get offered the throne
again.
So he goes out. Before he gets offered the throne,
his friends kill him. The last one to stab him was his
best friend Brutus. Then after awhile Caesars ghost
came back. Then Mark Antony makes a speech.
After that Brutus thinks he has done a bad thing, so
he gets someone to hold a dagger and runs into it.
Before Brutus dies, Marc Antony and Brutus have a
war. Brutus loses the war.

The End