Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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3.3 ⌈Enter Lysander⌉

LYSANDER

He goes before me, and still dares me on;

When I come where he calls, then he is gone.

The villain is much lighter heeled than I;

I followed fast, but faster he did fly,

That fallen am I in dark uneven way,

And here will rest me.

He lies down

Come, thou gentle day;

For if but once thou show me thy grey light,

I’ll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite. He sleeps

Enter Robin Goodfellow and Demetrius

ROBIN ⌈shifting place⌉

Ho, ho, ho, coward, why com’st thou not?

DEMETRIUS

Abide me if thou dar‘st, for well I wot

Thou runn’st before me, shifting every place,

And dar’st not stand nor look me in the face.

Where art thou now?

ROBIN ⌈shifting place⌉ Come hither, I am here.

DEMETRIUS

Nay, then thou mock’st me. Thou shalt buy this

dear

If ever I thy face by daylight see.

Now go thy way. Faintness constraineth me

To measure out my length on this cold bed.

He lies down

By day’s approach look to be visited. He sleeps

Enter Helena

HELENA

O weary night, O long and tedious night,

Abate thy hours; shine comforts from the east

That I may back to Athens by daylight

From these that my poor company detest;

And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye,

Steal me a while from mine own company.

She lies down and sleeps

ROBIN

Yet but three? Come one more,

Two of both kinds makes up four.

⌈Enter Hermia⌉

Here she comes, curst and sad.

Cupid is a knavish lad

Thus to make poor females mad.

HERMIA

Never so weary, never so in woe,

Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,

I can no further crawl, no further go.

My legs can keep no pace with my desires.

Here will I rest me till the break of day.

She lies down

Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray.

She sleeps

ROBIN On the ground sleep sound.

I’ll apply to your eye,

Gentle lover, remedy.

He drops the juice on Lysander’s eyelids

When thou wak‘st thou tak’st

True delight in the sight

Of thy former lady’s eye,

And the country proverb known,

That ‘every man should take his own’,

In your waking shall be shown.

Jack shall have Jill,

Naught shall go ill,

the man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well. Exit

4.1 Enter Titania, Queen of Fairies, and Bottom the clown with the ass-head, and fairies: Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed

TITANIA (to Bottom)

Come, sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,

And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

BOTTOM Where’s Peaseblossom?

PEASEBLOSSOM Ready.

BOTTOM Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s Monsieur Cobweb?

COBWEB Ready.

BOTTOM Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honeybag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honeybag break not. I would be loath to have you overflowen with a honeybag, signor. ⌈Exit Cobweb⌉ Where’s Monsieur Mustardseed?

MUSTARDSEED Ready.

BOTTOM Give me your neaf, Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur.

MUSTARDSEED What’s your will?

BOTTOM Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavaliery Peaseblossom to scratch. I must to the barber’s, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.

TITANIA

What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

BOTTOM I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and the bones.

⌈Rural music⌉

TITANIA

Or say, sweet love, what thou desir’st to eat.

BOTTOM Truly, a peck of provender. I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

TITANIA

I have a venturous fairy that shall seek

The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee off new nuts.

Bottom I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But I pray you, let none of your people stir me. I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

TITANIA

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.

Exeunt Fairies

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist; the female ivy so

Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.

O how I love thee, how I dote on thee!

They sleep.

Enter Robin Goodfellow ⌈and Oberon, meeting⌉

OBERON

Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?

Her dotage now I do begin to pity,

For meeting her of late behind the wood,

Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,

I did upbraid her and fall out with her,

For she his hairy temples then had rounded

With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers,

And that same dew which sometime on the buds

Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls

Stood now within the pretty flow’rets’ eyes,

Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.

When I had at my pleasure taunted her,

And she in mild terms begged my patience,

I then did ask of her her changeling child,

Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent

To bear him to my bower in fairyland.

And now I have the boy, I will undo

This hateful imperfection of her eyes.

And, gentle puck, take this transformed scalp

From off the head of this Athenian swain,

That he, awaking when the other do,

May all to Athens back again repair,

And think no more of this night’s accidents

But as the fierce vexation of a dream.

But first I will release the Fairy Queen.

He drops the juice on Titania’s eyelids

Be as thou wast wont to be,

See as thou wast wont to see.

Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower

Hath such force and blessed power.

Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.

TITANIA (awaking)

My Oberon, what visions have I seen!

Methought I was enamoured of an ass.

OBERON

There lies your love.

TITANIA How came these things to pass?

O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

OBERON Silence a while.—Robin, take off this head.—Titania, music call, and strike more dead Than common sleep of all these five the sense.

TITANIA

Music, ho—music such as charmeth sleep.

⌈Still musica⌉

ROBIN (taking the ass-head off Bottom)

Now when thou wak’st with thine own fool’s eyes peep.

OBERON

Sound music.

⌈The music changes⌉

Come, my queen, take hands with me,

And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

Oberon and Titania dance

Now thou and I are new in amity,

And will tomorrow midnight solemnly

Dance in Duke Theseus’ house, triumphantly,

And bless it to all fair prosperity.

There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be

Wedded with Theseus, all in jollity.

ROBIN

Fairy King, attend and mark.

I do hear the morning lark.

OBERON

Then, my queen, in silence sad

Trip we after nightës shade.

We the globe can compass soon,

Swifter than the wand’ring moon.

TITANIA

Come, my lord, and in our flight

Tell me how it came this night

That I sleeping here was found

With these mortals on the ground.

Exeunt Oberon, Titania, and Robin. The sleepers lie still Wind horns within. Enter Theseus with Egeus, Hippolyta, and all his train

THESEUS

Go, one of you, find out the forester,

For now our observation is performed;

And since we have the vanguard of the day,

My love shall hear the music of my hounds.

Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.

Dispatch, I say, and find the forester. Exit one

We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain’s top,

And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIPPOLYTA

I was with Hercules and Cadmus once

When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear

With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear

Such gallant chiding; for besides the groves,

The skies, the fountains, every region near

Seemed all one mutual cry. I never heard

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

THESEUS

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,

So flewed, so sanded; and their heads are hung

With ears that sweep away the morning dew,

Crook-kneed, and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls,

Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,

Each under each. A cry more tuneable

Was never holla’d to nor cheered with horn

In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.

Judge when you hear. But soft: what nymphs are

these?

EGEUS

My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,

And this Lysander; this Demetrius is;

This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena.

I wonder of their being here together.

THESEUS

No doubt they rose up early to observe

The rite of May, and, hearing our intent,

Came here in grace of our solemnity.

But speak, Egeus : is not this the day

That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

EGEUS It is, my lord.

THESEUS

Go bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

⌈Exit one⌉

Shout within: wind horns. The lovers all start up

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

LYSANDER

Pardon, my lord.

The lovers kneel

THESEUS I pray you all stand up.

The lovers stand

(To Demetrius and Lysander) I know you two are rival

enemies.

How comes this gentle concord in the world,

That hatred is so far from jealousy

To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?

LYSANDER

My lord, I shall reply amazèdly,

Half sleep, half waking. But as yet, I swear,

I cannot truly say how I came here,

But as I think—for truly would I speak,

And, now I do bethink me, so it is—

I came with Hermia hither. Our intent

Was to be gone from Athens where we might,

Without the peril of the Athenian law—

EGEUS (to Theseus)

Enough, enough, my lord, you have enough.

I beg the law, the law upon his head.—

They would have stol’n away, they would, Demetrius,

Thereby to have defeated you and me—

You of your wife, and me of my consent,

Of my consent that she should be your wife.

DEMETRIUS (to Theseus)

My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,

Of this their purpose hither to this wood,

And I in fury hither followed them,

Fair Helena in fancy following me.

But, my good lord, I wot not by what power—

But by some power it is—my love to Hermia,

Melted as the snow, seems to me now

As the remembrance of an idle gaud

Which in my childhood I did’dote upon,

And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,

The object and the pleasure of mine eye

Is only Helena. To her, my lord,

Was I betrothed ere I see Hermia.

But like in sickness did I loathe this food;

But, as in health come to my natural taste,

Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,

And will for evermore be true to it.

THESEUS

Fair lovers, you are fortunately met.

Of this discourse we more will hear anon.—

Egeus, I will overbear your will,

For in the temple by and by with us

These couples shall eternally be knit.—

And, for the morning now is something worn,

Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.

Away with us to Athens. Three and three,

We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.

Come, Hippolyta.

Exit Duke Theseus with Hippolyta, Egeus, and all his train

DEMETRIUS

These things seem small and undistinguishable,

Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.

HERMIA

Methinks I see these things with parted eye,

When everything seems double.

HELENA So methinks,

And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,

Mine own and not mine own.

DEMETRIUS It seems to me

That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think

The Duke was here and bid us follow him?

HERMIA

Yea, and my father.

HELENA And Hippolyta.

LYSANDER

And he did bid us follow to the temple.

DEMETRIUS

Why then, we are awake. Let’s follow him,

And by the way let us recount our dreams.

Exeunt the lovers

Bottom wakes

BOTTOM When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is ‘most fair Pyramus’. Heigh-ho. Peter Quince? Flute the bellows-mender? Snout the tinker? Starveling? God’s my life! Stolen hence, and left me asleep?—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, and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death. Exit

4.2 Enter Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling

QUINCE Have you sent to Bottom’s house? Is he come home yet?

STARVELING He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.

FLUTE If he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not forward. Doth it?

QUINCE It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.

FLUTE No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft-man in Athens.

QUINCE Yea, and the best person, too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

FLUTE You must say ‘paragon’. A paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught. Enter Snug the joiner

SNUG Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward we had all been made men.

FLUTE O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life. He could not have scaped sixpence a day. An the Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged. He would have deserved it. Sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing. Enter Bottom

BOTTOM Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?

QUINCE Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

BOTTOM Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what. For if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you everything right as it fell out.

QUINCE Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

BOTTOM Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is that the Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps. Meet presently at the palace; every man look o’er his part. For the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case let Thisbe have clean linen, and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion’s claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath, and I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words. Away, go, away! Exeunt

5.1 Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, ⌈Egeus⌉, and attendant lords

HIPPOLYTA

’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

THESEUS

More strange than true. I never may believe

These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to

heaven,

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination

That if it would but apprehend some joy

It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

Or in the night, imagining some fear,

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

HIPPOLYTA

But all the story of the night told over,

And all their minds transfigured so together,

More witnesseth than fancy’s images,

And grows to something of great constancy;

But howsoever, strange and admirable.

Enter the lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena

THESEUS

Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.

Joy, gentle friends—joy and fresh days of love

Accompany your hearts.

LYSANDER More than to us

Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed.

THESEUS

Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have

To wear away this long age of three hours

Between our after-supper and bed-time?

Where is our usual manager of mirth?

What revels are in hand? Is there no play

To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

Call Egeus.

⌈REGEUS⌉ Here, mighty Theseus.

THESEUS

Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?

What masque, what music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time if not with some delight?

⌈EGEUS⌉

There is a brief how many sports are ripe.

Make choice of which your highness will see first.

⌈LYSANDER⌉ (reads)

‘The battle with the centaurs, to be sung

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.’

THESEUS

We’ll none of that. That have I told my love

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

⌈LYSANDER⌉ (reads)

‘The riot of the tipsy bacchanals

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.’

THESEUS

That is an old device, and it was played

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

⌈LYSANDER⌉ (reads)

‘The thrice-three muses mourning for the death

Of learning, late deceased in beggary.’

THESEUS

That is some satire, keen and critical,

Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

⌈LYSANDER⌉ (reads)

‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

And his love Thisbe: very tragical mirth.’

THESEUS

‘Merry’ and ‘tragical’? ‘Tedious’ and ’brief?—

That is, hot ice and wondrous strange black snow.

How shall we find the concord of this discord?

⌈EGEUS⌉

A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,

Which is as ‘brief’ as I have known a play;

But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,

Which makes it ‘tedious’; for in all the play

There is not one word apt, one player fitted.

And ‘tragical’, my noble lord, it is,

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself;

Which when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,

Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears

The passion of loud laughter never shed.

THESEUS What are they that do play it?

⌈EGEUS⌉

Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,

Which never laboured in their minds till now,

And now have toiled their unbreathed memories

With this same play against your nuptial.

THESEUS

And we will hear it.

⌈EGEUS⌉ No, my noble lord,

It is not for you. I have heard it over,

And it is nothing, nothing in the world,

Unless you can find sport in their intents

Extremely stretched, and conned with cruel pain

To do you service.

THESEUS I will hear that play;

For never anything can be amiss

When simpleness and duty tender it.

Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.

Exit ⌈Egeus⌉

HIPPOLYTA

I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged,

And duty in his service perishing.

THESEUS

Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

HIPPOLYTA

He says they can do nothing in this kind.

THESEUS

The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.

Our sport shall be to take what they mistake,

And what poor duty cannot do,

Noble respect takes it in might, not merit.

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed

To greet me with premeditated welcomes,

Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,

Make periods in the midst of sentences,

Throttle their practised accent in their fears,

And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,

Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,

Out of this silence yet I picked a welcome,

And in the modesty of fearful duty

I read as much as from the rattling tongue

Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity

In least speak most, to my capacity.

Enter ⌈Egeus⌉

⌈EGEUS⌉

So please your grace, the Prologue is addressed.

THESEUS Let him approach.

⌈Flourish trumpets.⌉ Enter ⌈Quince as⌉ the Prologue

⌈QUINCE⌉ (as Prologue)

If we offend, it is with our good will.

That you should think: we come not to offend

But with good will. To show our simple skill,

That is the true beginning of our end.

Consider then we come but in despite.

We do not come as minding to content you,

Our true intent is. All for your delight

We are not here. That you should here repent you

The actors are at hand, and by their show

You shall know all that you are like to know.

THESEUS This fellow doth not stand upon points.

LYSANDER He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt: he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true.

HIPPOLYTA Indeed, he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder—a sound, but not in government.

THESEUS His speech was like a tangled chain—nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?

Enter ⌈with a trumpeter before them⌉ Bottom as Pyramus, Flute as Thisbe, Snout as Wall, Starveling as Moonshine, and Snug as Lion, for the dumb show

⌈QUINCE⌉ (as Prologue)

Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show,

But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.

This man is Pyramus, if you would know;

This beauteous lady Thisbe is, certain.

This man with lime and roughcast doth present

Wall, that vile wall which did these lovers sunder;

And through Wall’s chink, poor souls, they are content

To whisper; at the which let no man wonder.

This man, with lantern, dog, and bush of thorn,

Presenteth Moonshine. For if you will know,

By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn

To meet at Ninus’ tomb, there, there to woo.

This grizzly beast, which ’Lion’ hight by name,

The trusty Thisbe coming first by night

Did scare away, or rather did affright;

And as she fled, her mantle she did fall,

Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,

And finds his trusty Thisbe’s mantle slain;

Whereat with blade—with bloody, blameful blade—

He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast;

And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade,

His dagger drew and died. For all the rest,

Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain

At large discourse, while here they do remain.

⌈Exeunt all the clowns but Snout as Wall⌉

THESEUS I wonder if the lion be to speak.

DEMETRIUS No wonder, my lord—one lion may when many asses do.

⌈SNOUT⌉ (as Wall)

In this same interlude it doth befall

That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;

And such a wall as I would have you think

That had in it a crannied hole or chink,

Through which the lovers Pyramus and Thisbe

Did whisper often, very secretly.

This loam, this roughcast, and this stone doth show

That I am that same wall; the truth is so.

And this the cranny is, right and sinister,

Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.

THESEUS Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?

DEMETRIUS It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.

Enter Bottom as Pyramus

THESEUS Pyramus draws near the wall. Silence.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

O grim-looked night, O night with hue so black,

O night which ever art when day is not;

O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,

I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot.

And thou, O wall, O sweet O lovely wall,

That stand’st between her father’s ground and mine,

Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,

Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine

eyne.

Wall shows his chink

Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this.

But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.

O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,

Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me.

THESEUS The wall methinks, being sensible, should curse again.

BOTTOM (to Theseus) No, in truth, sir, he should not.

’Deceiving me’ is Thisbe’s cue. She is to enter now,

and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see,

it will fall pat as I told you.

Enter Flute as Thisbe

Yonder she comes.

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans

For parting my fair Pyramus and me.

My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones,

Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

I see a voice. Now will I to the chink

To spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face.

Thisbe?

FLUTE (as Thisbe) My love—thou art my love, I think.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace,

And like Lemander am I trusty still.

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

And I like Helen, till the fates me kill.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

Not Shaphalus to Procrus was so true.

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

As Shaphalus to Procrus, I to you.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.

Exeunt Bottom and Flute severally

SNOUT (as Wall)

Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;

And being done, thus Wall away doth go. Exit

THESEUS Now is the wall down between the two neighbours.

DEMETRIUS No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning.

HIPPOLYTA This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.

THESEUS The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse if imagination amend them.

HIPPOLYTA It must be your imagination, then, and not theirs.

THESEUS If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in: a man and a lion.

Enter Snug as Lion, and Starveling as Moonshine with a lantern, thorn bush, and dog

SNUG (as Lion)

You, ladies, you whose gentle hearts do fear

The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,

May now perchance both quake and tremble here

When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.

Then know that I as Snug the joiner am

A lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam.

For if I should as Lion come in strife

Into this place, ’twere pity on my life.

THESEUS A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.

DEMETRIUS The very best at a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.

LYSANDER This lion is a very fox for his valour.

THESEUS True, and a goose for his discretion.

DEMETRIUS Not so, my lord, for his valour cannot carry his discretion, and the fox carries the goose.

THESEUS His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour, for the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.

STARVELING (as Moonshine) This lantern doth the hornèd moon present.

DEMETRIUS He should have worn the horns on his head.

THESEUS He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference.

STARVELING (as Moonshine)

This lantern doth the hornèd moon present.

Myself the man i’th’ moon do seem to be.

THESEUS This is the greatest error of all the rest—the man should be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i’th’ moon?

DEMETRIUS He dares not come there for the candle; for you see it is already in snuff.

HIPPOLYTA I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change.

THESEUS It appears by his small light of discretion that he is in the wane; but yet in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time.

LYSANDER Proceed, Moon.

STARVELING All that I have to say is to tell you that the lantern is the moon, I the man i’th’ moon, this thorn bush my thorn bush, and this dog my dog.

DEMETRIUS Why, all these should be in the lantern, for all these are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisbe.

Enter Flute as Thisbe

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?

SNUG (as Lion) O.

Lion roars. Thisbe drops her mantle and runs off

DEMETRIUS Well roared, Lion.

THESEUS Well run, Thisbe.

HIPPOLYTA Well shone, Moon.—Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.

Lion worries Thisbe’s mantle

THESEUS Well moused, Lion.

DEMETRIUS And then came Pyramus.

⌈Enter Bottom as Pyramus⌉

LYSANDER And so the lion vanished. ⌈Exit Lion⌉

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams.

I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright;

For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams

I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.

But stay, O spite!

But mark, poor knight,

What dreadful dole is here?

Eyes, do you see?

How can it be?

O dainty duck, O dear!

Thy mantle good,

What, stained with blood?

Approach, ye furies fell.

O fates, come, come,

Cut thread and thrum,

Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.

THESEUS This passion—and the death of a dear friend—would go near to make a man look sad.

HIPPOLYTA Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

O wherefore, nature, didst thou lions frame,

Since lion vile hath here deflowered my dear?—

Which is—no, no, which was—the fairest dame

That lived, that loved, that liked, that looked, with

cheer.

Come tears, confound;

Out sword, and wound

The pap of Pyramus.

Ay, that left pap,

Where heart doth hop.

Thus die I: thus, thus, thus.

He stabs himself

Now am I dead,

Now am I fled,

My soul is in the sky.

Tongue, lose thy light;

Moon, take thy flight. ⌈Exit Moonshine⌉

Now die, die, die, die, die. He dies

DEMETRIUS No die but an ace for him; for he is but one.

LYSANDER Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.

THESEUS With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and prove an ass.

HIPPOLYTA How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover?

THESEUS She will find him by starlight.

⌈Enter Flute as Thisbe⌉

Here she comes, and her passion ends the play.

HIPPOLYTA Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus. I hope she will be brief.

DEMETRIUS A mote will turn the balance which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better—he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us.

LYSANDER She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.

DEMETRIUS And thus she means, videlicet:

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

Asleep, my love?

What, dead, my dove?

O Pyramus, arise.

Speak, speak. Quite dumb?

Dead, dead? A tomb

Must cover thy sweet eyes.

These lily lips,

This cherry nose,

These yellow cowslip cheeks

Are gone, are gone.

Lovers, make moan.

His eyes were green as leeks.

O sisters three,

Come, come to me

With hands as pale as milk.

Lay them in gore,

Since you have shore

With shears his thread of silk.

Tongue, not a word.

Come, trusty sword,

Come, blade, my breast imbrue.

She stabs herself

And farewell friends,

Thus Thisbe ends.

Adieu, adieu, adieu. She dies

THESEUS Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.

DEMETRIUS Ay, and Wall too.

⌈BOTTOM⌉ No, I assure you, the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue or to hear a bergamask dance between two of our company?

THESEUS No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe’s garter it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is, truly, and very notably discharged. But come, your bergamask. Let your epilogue alone.

⌈Bottom and Flute⌉ dance a bergamask, then exeunt

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn As much as we this night have overwatched. This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity In nightly revels and new jollity. Exeunt