A Midsummer Night’s Dream
By William Shakespeare
Edited by Emmet Temple
Characters in the Play
PUCK//EGEUS
HERMIA//QUINCE
LYSANDER//STARVELLING
HELENA//SNUG
DEMETRIUS//SNOUT
THESEUS//BOTTOM//OBERON
HIPPOLYTA//TITANIA//FLUTE
Scene 1
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta
THESEUS
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in Another moon.
But, O, methinks how slow This old moon wanes!
She lingers my desires Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
HIPPOLYTA
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
THESEUS
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword
And won thy love doing thee injuries,
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.
Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius
EGEUS
Happy be Theseus, our renownèd duke!
THESEUS
Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?
EGEUS
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.--
Stand forth, Demetrius.—My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.--
Stand forth, Lysander.—And, my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child.--
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats—messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth.
With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,
Turned her obedience (which is due to me)
To stubborn harshness.—And, my gracious duke,
Be it so she will not here before your
Grace Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
As she is mine, I may dispose of her,
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.
To you, your father should be as a god,
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA
So is Lysander.
THESEUS In himself he is,
But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA
I would my father looked but with my eyes.
THESEUS
Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA
I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
But I beseech your Grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS
Either to die the death or to abjure
Forever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether (if you yield not to your father’s choice)
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
HERMIA
So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his Lordship whose unwishèd yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
DEMETRIUS
Relent, sweet Hermia, and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazèd title to my certain right.
LYSANDER
You have her father’s love, Demetrius.
Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.
EGEUS
Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him.
And she is mine, and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER
I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
As well possessed. My love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly ranked
(If not with vantage) as Demetrius’;
And (which is more than all these boasts can be)
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS
I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being overfull of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come,
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me.
I have some private schooling for you both.--
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father’s will,
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death or to a vow of single life.--
Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?--
Demetrius and Egeus, go along.
EGEUS
With duty and desire we follow you.
All but Hermia and Lysander exit
LYSANDER
How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA
Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER
Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
But either it was different in blood--
HERMIA
O cross! Too high to be enthralled to low.
LYSANDER
Or else misgraffèd in respect of years--
HERMIA
O spite! Too old to be engaged to young.
LYSANDER
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends--
HERMIA
O hell, to choose love by another’s eyes!
LYSANDER
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth,
And, ere a man hath power to say “Behold!”
The jaws of darkness do devour it up.
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA
If then true lovers have been ever crossed,
It stands as an edict in destiny.
Then let us teach our trial patience
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
LYSANDER
A good persuasion. Therefore, hear me, Hermia:
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me, then
Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night,
And in the wood a league without the town
(Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May),
There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA My good Lysander,
I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
By all the vows that ever men have broke
(In number more than ever women spoke),
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER
Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Enter Helena
HERMIA
Godspeed, fair Helena. Whither away?
HELENA
Call you me “fair”? That “fair” again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
Sickness is catching. O, were favor so!
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go.
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye;
My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
O, teach me how you look and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!
HERMIA
I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA
O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA
I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA
O, that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA
The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA
The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA
None but your beauty. Would that fault were mine!
HERMIA
Take comfort: he no more shall see my face.
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
LYSANDER
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold.
Tomorrow night when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
(A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal),
Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.
HERMIA
And in the wood where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius.--
Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight
From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER
I will, my Hermia.
Hermia exits
LYSANDER
Helena, adieu.
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
Lysander exits
HELENA
How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.
He will not know what all but he do know.
And, as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste.
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
For, ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and show’rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her. And, for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.
Helena Exits
Scene 2
Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling
QUINCE Is all our company here?
BOTTOM You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.
QUINCE Here is the scroll of every man’s name which
is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding day at night.
BOTTOM First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point.
QUINCE Marry, our play is “The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.”
BOTTOM A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
QUINCE Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOTTOM Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUINCE You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM What is Pyramus—a lover or a tyrant?
QUINCE A lover that kills himself most gallant for love.
BOTTOM That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest.—Yet my chief humor is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split:
The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates.
And Phibbus’ car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein. A lover is more condoling.
QUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLUTE Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
FLUTE What is Thisbe—a wand’ring knight?
QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE Nay, faith, let not me play a woman. I have a beard coming.
QUINCE That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.
BOTTOM An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too. I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: “Thisne, Thisne!”—“Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy Thisbe dear and lady dear!”
QUINCE No, no, you must play Pyramus—and, Flute, you Thisbe.
BOTTOM Well, proceed.
QUINCE Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STARVELING Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother.—Tom Snout, the tinker.
SNOUT Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE You, Pyramus’ father.—Myself, Thisbe’s father.—Snug the joiner, you the lion’s part.--And I hope here is a play fitted.
SNUG Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say “Let him roar again. Let him roar again!”
QUINCE An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies that they would shriek.
BOTTOM I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to execute us. But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.
QUINCE You can play no part but Pyramus, for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man, a proper man as one
shall see in a summer’s day, a most lovely gentlemanlike man. Therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
BOTTOM Well, I will undertake it.
QUINCE But, masters, here are your parts, giving out the parts, and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you to con them by tomorrow night and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight. There will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not.
BOTTOM We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains. Be perfit. Adieu.
They exit
Scene 3
Enter a Fairy at one door and Puck at another
PUCK
How now, spirit? Whither wander you?
FAIRY
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire;
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere.
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits. I’ll be gone.
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
PUCK
The King doth keep his revels here tonight.
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight.
FAIRY
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
Are not you he?
PUCK Thou speakest aright.
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
But room, fairy. Here comes Oberon.
FAIRY
And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter Oberon, and Titania
OBERON
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence.
I have forsworn his bed and company.
Puck and Fairy exit
OBERON
Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?
TITANIA
Then I must be thy lady. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskined mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity?
OBERON
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy;
And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By pavèd fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beachèd margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
The human mortals want their winter here.
No night is now with hymn or carol blessed.
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazèd world
By their increase now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON
Do you amend it, then. It lies in you.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.
TITANIA Set your heart at rest:
The Fairyland buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot’ress of my order,
Full often hath she gossiped by my side
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die,
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON
How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA
Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding day.
If you will patiently dance in our round
And see our moonlight revels, go with us.
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON
Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
TITANIA
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
Titania exits
OBERON
Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.--
My gentle Puck, come hither.
Thou rememb’rest “love-in-idleness,” the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK
I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth In forty minutes.
Puck exits
OBERON Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she, waking, looks upon
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight
(As I can take it with another herb),
I’ll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible,
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter Demetrius pursued by Helena
DEMETRIUS
I love thee not; therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I’ll stay; the other stayeth me.
Thou told’st me they were stol’n unto this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant!
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
DEMETRIUS
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
Or rather do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
HELENA
And even for that do I love you the more.
DEMETRIUS
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA
And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS
You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not.
HELENA
Your virtue is my privilege. For that
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night.
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then, how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS
I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will. Bootless speed
When cowardice pursues and valor flies!
DEMETRIUS
I will not stay thy questions. Let me go,
Or if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
Demetrius exits
HELENA
Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell
To die upon the hand I love so well.
Helena exits
OBERON
Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Enter Puck
OBERON
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK
Ay, there it is.
OBERON I pray thee give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove.
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes,
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love.
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
PUCK
Fear not, my lord. Your servant shall do so.
They exit
Enter Titania, with Fairies
TITANIA
Come, now Sing me now asleep. Then to your offices and let me rest.
FAIRY (song)
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong,
Come not near our Fairy Queen.
O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you
Weaving spiders, come not here.
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence.
Beetles black, approach not near.
Worm nor snail, do no offence.
O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you
FAIRY
Hence, away! Now all is well. One aloof stand sentinel.
Fairy exits
Titania lies down
Enter Oberon, who anoints Titania’s eyelids with the nectar
OBERON
What thou seest when thou dost wake
Do it for thy true love take.
Love and languish for his sake.
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near.
Oberon exits
Scene 4
Lysander and Hermia enter
LYSANDER
Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood.
And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way.
We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
HERMIA
Be it so, Lysander. Find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
LYSANDER
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
HERMIA
Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet. Do not lie so near.
LYSANDER
O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
So that but one heart we can make of it;
Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath--
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
HERMIA
Lysander riddles very prettily.
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy,
Lie further off in human modesty.
Such separation, as may well be said,
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.
So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.
Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
LYSANDER
“Amen, amen” to that fair prayer, say I,
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed. Sleep give thee all his rest!
HERMIA
With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be pressed!
Lysander and Hermia lie down to sleep
Enter Puck
PUCK
Through the forest have I gone,
But Athenian found I none
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower’s force in stirring love.
Night and silence! Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear.
This is he my master said
Despisèd the Athenian maid.
And here the maiden, sleeping sound
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul, she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.--
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wak’st, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
So, awake when I am gone,
For I must now to Oberon.
Puck anoints Lysander's eyes and then exits
Demetrius enters pursued by Helena
HELENA
Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
DEMETRIUS
I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
HELENA
O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
DEMETRIUS
Stay, on thy peril. I alone will go.
Demetrius exits
HELENA
O, I am out of breath in this fond chase.
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies,
For she hath blessèd and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears.
If so, my eyes are oftener washed than hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
For beasts that meet me run away for fear.
But who is here? Lysander, on the ground!
Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.--
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
LYSANDER (waking)
And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
HELENA
Do not say so. Lysander, say not so.
What though he love your Hermia?
Lord, what though? Yet Hermia still loves you.
Then be content.
LYSANDER
Content with Hermia? No, I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
The will of man is by his reason swayed,
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season;
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason.
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will
And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook
Love’s stories written in love’s richest book.
HELENA
Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is ’t not enough, is ’t not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare you well. Perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
O, that a lady of one man refused
Should of another therefore be abused!
Helena exits
LYSANDER
She sees not Hermia.—Hermia, sleep thou there,
And never mayst thou come Lysander near.
Now, all my powers, address your love and might
To honor Helen and to be her knight.
Lysander exits
HERMIA (waking)
Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
Methought a serpent ate my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
Lysander! What, removed? Lysander, lord!
What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear.
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.--
No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
Either death or you I’ll find immediately.
Hermia exits.
Scene 5
With Titania still asleep onstage, enter Bottom, Quince, Snout, Starveling, Snug, and Flute.
BOTTOM Are we all met?
QUINCE Pat, pat. And here’s a marvels convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house, and we will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke.
BOTTOM Peter Quince?
QUINCE What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself, which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
SNOUT By ’r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.
BOTTOM Not a whit! I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords and that Pyramus is not killed indeed. And, for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.
QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue, and it shall be written in eight and six.
BOTTOM No, make it two more. Let it be written in eight and eight.
SNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
STARVELING I fear it, I promise you.
BOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourself, to bring in (God shield us!) a lion among ladies is a
most dreadful thing. For there is not a more fearful wildfowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to ’t.
SNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
BOTTOM Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect: “Ladies,” or “Fair ladies, I would wish you,” or “I would request you,” or “I would entreat you not to fear, not to tremble! My life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such thing. I am a man as other men are.” And there indeed let him name his name and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
QUINCE Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things: that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber, for you know Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.
SNOUT Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
QUINCE Yes, it doth shine that night.
BOTTOM Why, then, may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.
QUINCE Ay, or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber, for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.
SNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
BOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall. And let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some roughcast about him to signify wall, or let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper.
QUINCE If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake, and so everyone according to his cue.
Enter Puck invisible to those onstage
PUCK
What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here
So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?
What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor--
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
QUINCE Speak, Pyramus.—Thisbe, stand forth.
BOTTOM
Thisbe, the flowers of odious savors sweet--
QUINCE Odors, odors!
BOTTOM ...odors savors sweet.
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.--
But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
And by and by I will to thee appear.
PUCK
A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here.
Bottom exits and Puck follows
FLUTE Must I speak now?
QUINCE Ay, marry, must you, for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard and is to come again. FLUTE
Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of color like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.
QUINCE “Ninus’ tomb,” man! Why, you must not speak that yet. That you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues and all.—Pyramus, enter. Your cue is past. It is “never tire.”
FLUTE O!
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
Enter Puck, and Bottom with an ass-head
BOTTOM
If I were fair, fair Thisbe, I were only thine.
QUINCE O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters, fly, masters! Help!
Quince, Flute, Snout, Snug, and Starveling exit
PUCK
I’ll follow you. I’ll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier.
Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire,
And neigh and bark and grunt and roar and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
BOTTOM Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard.
Enter Snout
SNOUT O Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on thee?
BOTTOM What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?
Snout screams and exits
Enter Quince
QUINCE Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated!
Quince screams and exits
BOTTOM I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of me, to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can. I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.
The ouzel cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill--
TITANIA
What angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed?
BOTTOM
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plainsong cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark
And dares not answer “nay”--
for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? Who would give a bird the lie though he cry “cuckoo” never so?
TITANIA
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamored of thy note,
So is mine eye enthrallèd to thy shape,
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
TITANIA
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM Not so neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
TITANIA
Out of this wood do not desire to go.
Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate.
The summer still doth tend upon my state,
And I do love thee. Therefore go with me.
They exit
Scene 6
Enter Oberon
OBERON
I wonder if Titania be awaked;
Then what it was that next came in her eye,
Which she must dote on in extremity.
Enter Puck.
OBERON
Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit?
What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
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 thick-skin 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 noll I fixèd on his head.
Anon his Thisbe must be answerèd,
And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
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.
OBERON
This falls out better than I could devise.
But hast thou yet latched the Athenian’s eyes
With the love juice, as I did bid thee do?
PUCK
I took him sleeping—that is finished, too--
And the Athenian woman by his side,
That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.
Enter Demetrius and Hermia
OBERON
Stand close. This is the same Athenian.
PUCK
This is the woman, but not this the man.
DEMETRIUS
O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe!
HERMIA
Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,
For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o’er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep
And kill me too.
The sun was not so true unto the day
As he to me. Would he have stolen away
From sleeping Hermia?
It cannot be but thou hast murdered him.
So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.
DEMETRIUS
So should the murdered look, and so should I,
Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty.
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
HERMIA
What’s this to my Lysander? Where is he?
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
DEMETRIUS
I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
HERMIA
Out, dog! Out, cur! Thou driv’st me past the bounds
Of maiden’s patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
Henceforth be never numbered among men.
O, once tell true! Tell true, even for my sake!
Durst thou have looked upon him, being awake?
And hast thou killed him sleeping? O brave touch!
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
DEMETRIUS
You spend your passion on a misprised mood.
I am not guilty of Lysander’s blood,
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
HERMIA
I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
DEMETRIUS
An if I could, what should I get therefor?
HERMIA
A privilege never to see me more.
And from thy hated presence part I so.
See me no more, whether he be dead or no.
Hermia exits
DEMETRIUS
There is no following her in this fierce vein.
Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.
Demetrius lies down to sleep
OBERON
What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite
And laid the love juice on some true-love’s sight.
Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
Some true-love turned, and not a false turned true.
About the wood go swifter than the wind,
And Helena of Athens look thou find.
All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer
I’ll charm his eyes against she do appear.
PUCK I go, I go, look how I go.
Puck exits
OBERON
Flower of this purple dye, Hit with Cupid’s archery,
Sink in apple of his eye. When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously As the Venus of the sky.--
Oberon anoints Demetrius' eyes
Enter Puck
PUCK
Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover’s fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
OBERON
Stand aside. The noise they make
Will cause Demetrius to awake.
PUCK
Then will two at once woo one.
That must needs be sport alone.
And those things do best please me
That befall prepost’rously.
Enter Lysander and Helena
LYSANDER
Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
Scorn and derision never come in tears.
Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
In their nativity all truth appears.
How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
Bearing the badge of faith to prove them true?
HELENA
You do advance your cunning more and more.
When truth kills truth, O devilish holy fray!
These vows are Hermia’s. Will you give her o’er?
LYSANDER
I had no judgment when to her I swore.
HELENA
Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o’er.
LYSANDER
Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
DEMETRIUS, (waking)
O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
HELENA
O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment.
If you were civil and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show,
You would not use a gentle lady so,
To vow and swear and superpraise my parts,
When, I am sure, you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals and love Hermia,
And now both rivals to mock Helena.
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
With your derision! None of noble sort
Would so offend a maiden and extort
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.
LYSANDER
You are unkind, Demetrius. Be not so,
For you love Hermia; this you know I know.
And here with all goodwill, with all my heart,
In Hermia’s love I yield you up my part.
And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
Whom I do love and will do till my death.
HELENA
Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
DEMETRIUS
Lysander, keep thy Hermia. I will none.
If e’er I loved her, all that love is gone.
My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourned,
And now to Helen is it home returned, There to remain.
LYSANDER Helen, it is not so.
DEMETRIUS
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
Lest to thy peril thou aby it dear.
Look where thy love comes. Yonder is thy dear.
Enter Hermia
HERMIA
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
LYSANDER
Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
HERMIA
What love could press Lysander from my side?
LYSANDER
Lysander’s love, that would not let him bide,
Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
Why seek’st thou me? Could not this make thee know
The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?
HERMIA
You speak not as you think. It cannot be.
HELENA
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoined all three
To fashion this false sport in spite of me.--
Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid,
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived,
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—O, is all forgot?
All schooldays’ friendship, childhood innocence?
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly; ’tis not maidenly.
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.
HERMIA
I am amazèd at your words.
I scorn you not. It seems that you scorn me.
HELENA
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
To follow me and praise my eyes and face,
And made your other love, Demetrius,
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love (so rich within his soul)
And tender me, forsooth, affection,
But by your setting on, by your consent?
HERMIA
I understand not what you mean by this.
HELENA
Ay, do. Persever, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
Wink each at other, hold the sweet jest up.
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.
But fare you well. ’Tis partly my own fault,
Which death or absence soon shall remedy.
LYSANDER
Stay, gentle Helena. Hear my excuse,
My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena.
HELENA
O excellent!
HERMIA
Sweet, do not scorn her so.
DEMETRIUS
If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
LYSANDER
Thou canst compel no more than she entreat.
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.--
Helen, I love thee. By my life, I do.
I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
To prove him false that says I love thee not.
DEMETRIUS
I say I love thee more than he can do.
LYSANDER
If thou say so, withdraw and prove it too.
DEMETRIUS Quick, come.
HERMIA Lysander, whereto tends all this?
LYSANDER
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose,
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.
HERMIA
Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,
Sweet love?
LYSANDER Thy love?
Out, loathèd med’cine! O, hated potion, hence!
HERMIA
Do you not jest?
HELENA Yes, sooth, and so do you.
LYSANDER
Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
DEMETRIUS
I would I had your bond. For I perceive
A weak bond holds you. I’ll not trust your word.
LYSANDER
What? Should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.
HERMIA
What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me? Wherefore? O me, what news, my love?
Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me.
Why, then, you left me—O, the gods forbid!--
In earnest, shall I say?
LYSANDER Ay, by my life,
And never did desire to see thee more.
Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt.
Be certain, nothing truer, ’tis no jest
That I do hate thee and love Helena.
HERMIA
O me! You juggler, you cankerblossom,
You thief of love! What, have you come by night
And stol’n my love’s heart from him?
HELENA Fine, i’ faith.
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!
HERMIA
“Puppet”? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urged her height,
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole?
Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
HELENA
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness.
I am a right maid for my cowardice.
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.
HERMIA “Lower”? Hark, again!
HELENA
Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,
Did ever keep your counsels, never wronged you--
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
He followed you; for love, I followed him.
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back
And follow you no further. Let me go.
You see how simple and how fond I am.
HERMIA
Why, get you gone. Who is ’t that hinders you?
HELENA
A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
HERMIA
What, with Lysander?
HELENA With Demetrius.
LYSANDER
Be not afraid. She shall not harm thee, Helena.
DEMETRIUS
No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
HELENA
O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd.
She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
HERMIA
“Little” again? Nothing but “low” and “little”?
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.
LYSANDER Get you gone, you dwarf,
You minimus of hind’ring knotgrass made,
You bead, you acorn--
DEMETRIUS You are too officious
In her behalf that scorns your services.
Let her alone. Speak not of Helena.
Take not her part. For if thou dost intend
Never so little show of love to her,
Thou shalt aby it.
LYSANDER Now she holds me not.
Now follow, if thou dar’st, to try whose right,
Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
DEMETRIUS
“Follow”? Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl.
Demetrius and Lysander exit
HERMIA
You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.
Nay, go not back.
HELENA I will not trust you, I,
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray.
My legs are longer though, to run away.
Helena exits
HERMIA
I am amazed and know not what to say.
Hermia exits
OBERON
This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak’st,
Or else committ’st thy knaveries willfully.
PUCK
Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me I should know the man
By the Athenian garments he had on?
OBERON
Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.
Hie at once overcast the night;
But notwithstanding, haste! Make no delay.
We may effect this business yet ere day.
PUCK
Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down.
I am feared in field and town.
Goblin, lead them up and down.
Here comes one.
Lysander enters
LYSANDER
Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.
PUCK
Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?
LYSANDER I will be with thee straight.
PUCK Follow me then, to plainer ground.
Lysander exits
Enter Demetrius
DEMETRIUS Lysander, speak again.
Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
PUCK
Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant! Come, thou child!
I’ll whip thee with a rod. He is defiled
That draws a sword on thee.
DEMETRIUS Yea, art thou there?
PUCK
Follow my voice. We’ll try no manhood here.
Exit Demetrius
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. Come, thou gentle day,
For if but once thou show me thy gray light,
I’ll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.
Lysander lies down to sleep
Enter Demetrius
PUCK
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?
PUCK 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.
By day’s approach look to be visited.
Demetrius lies down to sleep
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 awhile from mine own company.
Helena lies down to sleep
PUCK
Yet but three? Come one more.
Here she comes, curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad
Thus to make poor females mad.
Enter Hermia.
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.
Heavens shield Lysander if they mean a fray!
Hermia lies down to sleep
PUCK
On the ground
Sleep sound.
I’ll apply
To your eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.
When thou wak’st,
Thou tak’st
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lover's eye.
Jack shall have Jill;
Naught shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
Puck anoints Lysander's eyes and then exits
Scene 7
Titania, and Bottom enter
TITANIA
Come, sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick muskroses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
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. 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, begone, and be all ways away.
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!
Bottom and Titania sleep
Enter Puck and Oberon
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 favors for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her.
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 transformèd 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.
Be as thou wast wont to be.
See as thou wast wont to see.
Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
TITANIA
My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamored 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
Come, my queen, take hands with me,
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
TITANIA
Come, my lord, and in our flight
Tell me how it came this night
That I sleeping here was found
Titania and Oberon dance.
With these mortals on the ground.
Oberon, Puck, and Titania exit
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus
THESEUS
—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
But speak, Egeus. Is not this the day
That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS It is, my lord.
THESEUS
Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.
Begin these woodbirds but to couple now?
Demetrius, Helena, Hermia, and Lysander awake and kneel
LYSANDER Pardon, my lord.
THESEUS I pray you all, stand up.
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
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
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,
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 saw Hermia.
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.--
Away with us to Athens. Three and three,
We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.
Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus, exit
DEMETRIUS
These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turnèd 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 Are you sure
That we are awake? 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.
BOTTOM, (waking) When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.” Hey-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 to 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.
He exits
Scene 8
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 handicraftman 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
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 five bucks a day during his life. He could not have scaped
five bucks a day. An the Duke had not given him five bucks a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be damned. He would have deserved it. Five bucks 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 not 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. 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!
They exit
Scene 9
(this scene entirely Pyramus and Thisbe, the play within the play)
Enter Quince as Prologue
QUINCE
If we offend, it is with our goodwill.
That you should think we come not to offend,
But with goodwill. 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.
Enter Pyramus (Bottom), and Thisbe (Flute), and Wall (Snout), and Moonshine (Starveling), and Lion (Snug)
QUINCE,
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 grisly 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.
Lion, Thisbe, Moonshine, and Prologue exit
SNOUT
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.
BOTTOM
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.
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!
Enter Thisbe (Flute)
FLUTE
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
I see a voice! Now will I to the chink
To spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face.
Thisbe?
FLUTE
My love! Thou art my love, I think.
BOTTOM
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace,
And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
FLUTE
And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
BOTTOM
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
FLUTE
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
BOTTOM
O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
FLUTE
I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
BOTTOM
Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
FLUTE
’Tide life, ’tide death, I come without delay.
Bottom and Flute exit
SNOUT
Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
Snout exits
Enter Lion (Snug) and Moonshine (Starveling)
SNUG
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.
STARVELING
All that I have to say is to tellyou that the lanthorn is the moon, I the man i’ th’moon, this thornbush my thornbush, and this dog my dog.
Enter Thisbe (Flute)
FLUTE
This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?
SNUG O!
The Lion roars
Thisbe runs off, dropping her mantle
Lion worries the mantle then exits
Enter Pyramus (Bottom)
BOTTOM
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!
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.
Now am I dead;
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light!
Moon, take thy flight!
Now die, die, die, die, die.
Enter Thisbe (Flute)
FLUTE
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!
And farewell, friends. Thus Thisbe ends.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Players bow and exit
Enter Puck
PUCK
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
Else the Puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
Puck exits
End of Play
By William Shakespeare
Edited by Emmet Temple
Characters in the Play
PUCK//EGEUS
HERMIA//QUINCE
LYSANDER//STARVELLING
HELENA//SNUG
DEMETRIUS//SNOUT
THESEUS//BOTTOM//OBERON
HIPPOLYTA//TITANIA//FLUTE
Scene 1
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta
THESEUS
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in Another moon.
But, O, methinks how slow This old moon wanes!
She lingers my desires Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
HIPPOLYTA
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
THESEUS
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword
And won thy love doing thee injuries,
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.
Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius
EGEUS
Happy be Theseus, our renownèd duke!
THESEUS
Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?
EGEUS
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.--
Stand forth, Demetrius.—My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.--
Stand forth, Lysander.—And, my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child.--
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats—messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth.
With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,
Turned her obedience (which is due to me)
To stubborn harshness.—And, my gracious duke,
Be it so she will not here before your
Grace Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
As she is mine, I may dispose of her,
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.
To you, your father should be as a god,
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA
So is Lysander.
THESEUS In himself he is,
But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA
I would my father looked but with my eyes.
THESEUS
Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
HERMIA
I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
But I beseech your Grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS
Either to die the death or to abjure
Forever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether (if you yield not to your father’s choice)
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
HERMIA
So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his Lordship whose unwishèd yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
DEMETRIUS
Relent, sweet Hermia, and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazèd title to my certain right.
LYSANDER
You have her father’s love, Demetrius.
Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.
EGEUS
Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him.
And she is mine, and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER
I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
As well possessed. My love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly ranked
(If not with vantage) as Demetrius’;
And (which is more than all these boasts can be)
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS
I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being overfull of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come,
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me.
I have some private schooling for you both.--
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father’s will,
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death or to a vow of single life.--
Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?--
Demetrius and Egeus, go along.
EGEUS
With duty and desire we follow you.
All but Hermia and Lysander exit
LYSANDER
How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA
Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER
Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
But either it was different in blood--
HERMIA
O cross! Too high to be enthralled to low.
LYSANDER
Or else misgraffèd in respect of years--
HERMIA
O spite! Too old to be engaged to young.
LYSANDER
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends--
HERMIA
O hell, to choose love by another’s eyes!
LYSANDER
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth,
And, ere a man hath power to say “Behold!”
The jaws of darkness do devour it up.
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA
If then true lovers have been ever crossed,
It stands as an edict in destiny.
Then let us teach our trial patience
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
LYSANDER
A good persuasion. Therefore, hear me, Hermia:
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues,
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me, then
Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night,
And in the wood a league without the town
(Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May),
There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA My good Lysander,
I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
By all the vows that ever men have broke
(In number more than ever women spoke),
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER
Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Enter Helena
HERMIA
Godspeed, fair Helena. Whither away?
HELENA
Call you me “fair”? That “fair” again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
Sickness is catching. O, were favor so!
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go.
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye;
My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
O, teach me how you look and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!
HERMIA
I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA
O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA
I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA
O, that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA
The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA
The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA
None but your beauty. Would that fault were mine!
HERMIA
Take comfort: he no more shall see my face.
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
LYSANDER
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold.
Tomorrow night when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
(A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal),
Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.
HERMIA
And in the wood where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius.--
Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight
From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER
I will, my Hermia.
Hermia exits
LYSANDER
Helena, adieu.
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
Lysander exits
HELENA
How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.
He will not know what all but he do know.
And, as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste.
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
For, ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and show’rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her. And, for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.
Helena Exits
Scene 2
Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling
QUINCE Is all our company here?
BOTTOM You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.
QUINCE Here is the scroll of every man’s name which
is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding day at night.
BOTTOM First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point.
QUINCE Marry, our play is “The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.”
BOTTOM A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
QUINCE Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOTTOM Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUINCE You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM What is Pyramus—a lover or a tyrant?
QUINCE A lover that kills himself most gallant for love.
BOTTOM That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest.—Yet my chief humor is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split:
The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates.
And Phibbus’ car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein. A lover is more condoling.
QUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLUTE Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
FLUTE What is Thisbe—a wand’ring knight?
QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE Nay, faith, let not me play a woman. I have a beard coming.
QUINCE That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.
BOTTOM An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too. I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: “Thisne, Thisne!”—“Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy Thisbe dear and lady dear!”
QUINCE No, no, you must play Pyramus—and, Flute, you Thisbe.
BOTTOM Well, proceed.
QUINCE Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STARVELING Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother.—Tom Snout, the tinker.
SNOUT Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE You, Pyramus’ father.—Myself, Thisbe’s father.—Snug the joiner, you the lion’s part.--And I hope here is a play fitted.
SNUG Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say “Let him roar again. Let him roar again!”
QUINCE An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies that they would shriek.
BOTTOM I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to execute us. But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.
QUINCE You can play no part but Pyramus, for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man, a proper man as one
shall see in a summer’s day, a most lovely gentlemanlike man. Therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
BOTTOM Well, I will undertake it.
QUINCE But, masters, here are your parts, giving out the parts, and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you to con them by tomorrow night and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight. There will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not.
BOTTOM We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains. Be perfit. Adieu.
They exit
Scene 3
Enter a Fairy at one door and Puck at another
PUCK
How now, spirit? Whither wander you?
FAIRY
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire;
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere.
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits. I’ll be gone.
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
PUCK
The King doth keep his revels here tonight.
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight.
FAIRY
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
Are not you he?
PUCK Thou speakest aright.
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
But room, fairy. Here comes Oberon.
FAIRY
And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter Oberon, and Titania
OBERON
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence.
I have forsworn his bed and company.
Puck and Fairy exit
OBERON
Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?
TITANIA
Then I must be thy lady. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskined mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity?
OBERON
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy;
And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By pavèd fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beachèd margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
The human mortals want their winter here.
No night is now with hymn or carol blessed.
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazèd world
By their increase now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON
Do you amend it, then. It lies in you.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.
TITANIA Set your heart at rest:
The Fairyland buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot’ress of my order,
Full often hath she gossiped by my side
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die,
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON
How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA
Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding day.
If you will patiently dance in our round
And see our moonlight revels, go with us.
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON
Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
TITANIA
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
Titania exits
OBERON
Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.--
My gentle Puck, come hither.
Thou rememb’rest “love-in-idleness,” the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK
I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth In forty minutes.
Puck exits
OBERON Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she, waking, looks upon
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight
(As I can take it with another herb),
I’ll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible,
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter Demetrius pursued by Helena
DEMETRIUS
I love thee not; therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I’ll stay; the other stayeth me.
Thou told’st me they were stol’n unto this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant!
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
DEMETRIUS
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
Or rather do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
HELENA
And even for that do I love you the more.
DEMETRIUS
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA
And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS
You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not.
HELENA
Your virtue is my privilege. For that
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night.
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then, how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS
I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will. Bootless speed
When cowardice pursues and valor flies!
DEMETRIUS
I will not stay thy questions. Let me go,
Or if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
Demetrius exits
HELENA
Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell
To die upon the hand I love so well.
Helena exits
OBERON
Fare thee well, nymph. Ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Enter Puck
OBERON
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK
Ay, there it is.
OBERON I pray thee give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove.
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth. Anoint his eyes,
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love.
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
PUCK
Fear not, my lord. Your servant shall do so.
They exit
Enter Titania, with Fairies
TITANIA
Come, now Sing me now asleep. Then to your offices and let me rest.
FAIRY (song)
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong,
Come not near our Fairy Queen.
O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you
Weaving spiders, come not here.
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence.
Beetles black, approach not near.
Worm nor snail, do no offence.
O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you O Titania Titania
I won’t let the bugs get on you
FAIRY
Hence, away! Now all is well. One aloof stand sentinel.
Fairy exits
Titania lies down
Enter Oberon, who anoints Titania’s eyelids with the nectar
OBERON
What thou seest when thou dost wake
Do it for thy true love take.
Love and languish for his sake.
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near.
Oberon exits
Scene 4
Lysander and Hermia enter
LYSANDER
Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood.
And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way.
We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
HERMIA
Be it so, Lysander. Find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
LYSANDER
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
HERMIA
Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet. Do not lie so near.
LYSANDER
O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
So that but one heart we can make of it;
Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath--
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
HERMIA
Lysander riddles very prettily.
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy,
Lie further off in human modesty.
Such separation, as may well be said,
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.
So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.
Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
LYSANDER
“Amen, amen” to that fair prayer, say I,
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed. Sleep give thee all his rest!
HERMIA
With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be pressed!
Lysander and Hermia lie down to sleep
Enter Puck
PUCK
Through the forest have I gone,
But Athenian found I none
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower’s force in stirring love.
Night and silence! Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear.
This is he my master said
Despisèd the Athenian maid.
And here the maiden, sleeping sound
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul, she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.--
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wak’st, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
So, awake when I am gone,
For I must now to Oberon.
Puck anoints Lysander's eyes and then exits
Demetrius enters pursued by Helena
HELENA
Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
DEMETRIUS
I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
HELENA
O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
DEMETRIUS
Stay, on thy peril. I alone will go.
Demetrius exits
HELENA
O, I am out of breath in this fond chase.
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies,
For she hath blessèd and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears.
If so, my eyes are oftener washed than hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
For beasts that meet me run away for fear.
But who is here? Lysander, on the ground!
Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.--
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
LYSANDER (waking)
And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
HELENA
Do not say so. Lysander, say not so.
What though he love your Hermia?
Lord, what though? Yet Hermia still loves you.
Then be content.
LYSANDER
Content with Hermia? No, I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
The will of man is by his reason swayed,
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season;
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason.
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will
And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook
Love’s stories written in love’s richest book.
HELENA
Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is ’t not enough, is ’t not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare you well. Perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
O, that a lady of one man refused
Should of another therefore be abused!
Helena exits
LYSANDER
She sees not Hermia.—Hermia, sleep thou there,
And never mayst thou come Lysander near.
Now, all my powers, address your love and might
To honor Helen and to be her knight.
Lysander exits
HERMIA (waking)
Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
Methought a serpent ate my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
Lysander! What, removed? Lysander, lord!
What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear.
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.--
No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
Either death or you I’ll find immediately.
Hermia exits.
Scene 5
With Titania still asleep onstage, enter Bottom, Quince, Snout, Starveling, Snug, and Flute.
BOTTOM Are we all met?
QUINCE Pat, pat. And here’s a marvels convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house, and we will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke.
BOTTOM Peter Quince?
QUINCE What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself, which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
SNOUT By ’r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.
BOTTOM Not a whit! I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords and that Pyramus is not killed indeed. And, for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.
QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue, and it shall be written in eight and six.
BOTTOM No, make it two more. Let it be written in eight and eight.
SNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
STARVELING I fear it, I promise you.
BOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourself, to bring in (God shield us!) a lion among ladies is a
most dreadful thing. For there is not a more fearful wildfowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to ’t.
SNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
BOTTOM Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect: “Ladies,” or “Fair ladies, I would wish you,” or “I would request you,” or “I would entreat you not to fear, not to tremble! My life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such thing. I am a man as other men are.” And there indeed let him name his name and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
QUINCE Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things: that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber, for you know Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.
SNOUT Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
QUINCE Yes, it doth shine that night.
BOTTOM Why, then, may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.
QUINCE Ay, or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber, for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.
SNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
BOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall. And let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some roughcast about him to signify wall, or let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper.
QUINCE If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake, and so everyone according to his cue.
Enter Puck invisible to those onstage
PUCK
What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here
So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?
What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor--
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
QUINCE Speak, Pyramus.—Thisbe, stand forth.
BOTTOM
Thisbe, the flowers of odious savors sweet--
QUINCE Odors, odors!
BOTTOM ...odors savors sweet.
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.--
But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
And by and by I will to thee appear.
PUCK
A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here.
Bottom exits and Puck follows
FLUTE Must I speak now?
QUINCE Ay, marry, must you, for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard and is to come again. FLUTE
Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of color like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.
QUINCE “Ninus’ tomb,” man! Why, you must not speak that yet. That you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues and all.—Pyramus, enter. Your cue is past. It is “never tire.”
FLUTE O!
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
Enter Puck, and Bottom with an ass-head
BOTTOM
If I were fair, fair Thisbe, I were only thine.
QUINCE O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters, fly, masters! Help!
Quince, Flute, Snout, Snug, and Starveling exit
PUCK
I’ll follow you. I’ll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier.
Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire,
And neigh and bark and grunt and roar and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
BOTTOM Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard.
Enter Snout
SNOUT O Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on thee?
BOTTOM What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?
Snout screams and exits
Enter Quince
QUINCE Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated!
Quince screams and exits
BOTTOM I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of me, to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can. I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.
The ouzel cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill--
TITANIA
What angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed?
BOTTOM
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plainsong cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark
And dares not answer “nay”--
for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? Who would give a bird the lie though he cry “cuckoo” never so?
TITANIA
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamored of thy note,
So is mine eye enthrallèd to thy shape,
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
TITANIA
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM Not so neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
TITANIA
Out of this wood do not desire to go.
Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate.
The summer still doth tend upon my state,
And I do love thee. Therefore go with me.
They exit
Scene 6
Enter Oberon
OBERON
I wonder if Titania be awaked;
Then what it was that next came in her eye,
Which she must dote on in extremity.
Enter Puck.
OBERON
Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit?
What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
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 thick-skin 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 noll I fixèd on his head.
Anon his Thisbe must be answerèd,
And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
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.
OBERON
This falls out better than I could devise.
But hast thou yet latched the Athenian’s eyes
With the love juice, as I did bid thee do?
PUCK
I took him sleeping—that is finished, too--
And the Athenian woman by his side,
That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed.
Enter Demetrius and Hermia
OBERON
Stand close. This is the same Athenian.
PUCK
This is the woman, but not this the man.
DEMETRIUS
O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe!
HERMIA
Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,
For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o’er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep
And kill me too.
The sun was not so true unto the day
As he to me. Would he have stolen away
From sleeping Hermia?
It cannot be but thou hast murdered him.
So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.
DEMETRIUS
So should the murdered look, and so should I,
Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty.
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
HERMIA
What’s this to my Lysander? Where is he?
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
DEMETRIUS
I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
HERMIA
Out, dog! Out, cur! Thou driv’st me past the bounds
Of maiden’s patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
Henceforth be never numbered among men.
O, once tell true! Tell true, even for my sake!
Durst thou have looked upon him, being awake?
And hast thou killed him sleeping? O brave touch!
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
DEMETRIUS
You spend your passion on a misprised mood.
I am not guilty of Lysander’s blood,
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
HERMIA
I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
DEMETRIUS
An if I could, what should I get therefor?
HERMIA
A privilege never to see me more.
And from thy hated presence part I so.
See me no more, whether he be dead or no.
Hermia exits
DEMETRIUS
There is no following her in this fierce vein.
Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.
Demetrius lies down to sleep
OBERON
What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite
And laid the love juice on some true-love’s sight.
Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
Some true-love turned, and not a false turned true.
About the wood go swifter than the wind,
And Helena of Athens look thou find.
All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer
I’ll charm his eyes against she do appear.
PUCK I go, I go, look how I go.
Puck exits
OBERON
Flower of this purple dye, Hit with Cupid’s archery,
Sink in apple of his eye. When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously As the Venus of the sky.--
Oberon anoints Demetrius' eyes
Enter Puck
PUCK
Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover’s fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
OBERON
Stand aside. The noise they make
Will cause Demetrius to awake.
PUCK
Then will two at once woo one.
That must needs be sport alone.
And those things do best please me
That befall prepost’rously.
Enter Lysander and Helena
LYSANDER
Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
Scorn and derision never come in tears.
Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
In their nativity all truth appears.
How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
Bearing the badge of faith to prove them true?
HELENA
You do advance your cunning more and more.
When truth kills truth, O devilish holy fray!
These vows are Hermia’s. Will you give her o’er?
LYSANDER
I had no judgment when to her I swore.
HELENA
Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o’er.
LYSANDER
Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
DEMETRIUS, (waking)
O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
HELENA
O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment.
If you were civil and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show,
You would not use a gentle lady so,
To vow and swear and superpraise my parts,
When, I am sure, you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals and love Hermia,
And now both rivals to mock Helena.
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
With your derision! None of noble sort
Would so offend a maiden and extort
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.
LYSANDER
You are unkind, Demetrius. Be not so,
For you love Hermia; this you know I know.
And here with all goodwill, with all my heart,
In Hermia’s love I yield you up my part.
And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
Whom I do love and will do till my death.
HELENA
Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
DEMETRIUS
Lysander, keep thy Hermia. I will none.
If e’er I loved her, all that love is gone.
My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourned,
And now to Helen is it home returned, There to remain.
LYSANDER Helen, it is not so.
DEMETRIUS
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
Lest to thy peril thou aby it dear.
Look where thy love comes. Yonder is thy dear.
Enter Hermia
HERMIA
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
LYSANDER
Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
HERMIA
What love could press Lysander from my side?
LYSANDER
Lysander’s love, that would not let him bide,
Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
Why seek’st thou me? Could not this make thee know
The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?
HERMIA
You speak not as you think. It cannot be.
HELENA
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoined all three
To fashion this false sport in spite of me.--
Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid,
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived,
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—O, is all forgot?
All schooldays’ friendship, childhood innocence?
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly; ’tis not maidenly.
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.
HERMIA
I am amazèd at your words.
I scorn you not. It seems that you scorn me.
HELENA
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
To follow me and praise my eyes and face,
And made your other love, Demetrius,
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love (so rich within his soul)
And tender me, forsooth, affection,
But by your setting on, by your consent?
HERMIA
I understand not what you mean by this.
HELENA
Ay, do. Persever, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
Wink each at other, hold the sweet jest up.
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.
But fare you well. ’Tis partly my own fault,
Which death or absence soon shall remedy.
LYSANDER
Stay, gentle Helena. Hear my excuse,
My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena.
HELENA
O excellent!
HERMIA
Sweet, do not scorn her so.
DEMETRIUS
If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
LYSANDER
Thou canst compel no more than she entreat.
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.--
Helen, I love thee. By my life, I do.
I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
To prove him false that says I love thee not.
DEMETRIUS
I say I love thee more than he can do.
LYSANDER
If thou say so, withdraw and prove it too.
DEMETRIUS Quick, come.
HERMIA Lysander, whereto tends all this?
LYSANDER
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose,
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.
HERMIA
Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,
Sweet love?
LYSANDER Thy love?
Out, loathèd med’cine! O, hated potion, hence!
HERMIA
Do you not jest?
HELENA Yes, sooth, and so do you.
LYSANDER
Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
DEMETRIUS
I would I had your bond. For I perceive
A weak bond holds you. I’ll not trust your word.
LYSANDER
What? Should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.
HERMIA
What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me? Wherefore? O me, what news, my love?
Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me.
Why, then, you left me—O, the gods forbid!--
In earnest, shall I say?
LYSANDER Ay, by my life,
And never did desire to see thee more.
Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt.
Be certain, nothing truer, ’tis no jest
That I do hate thee and love Helena.
HERMIA
O me! You juggler, you cankerblossom,
You thief of love! What, have you come by night
And stol’n my love’s heart from him?
HELENA Fine, i’ faith.
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!
HERMIA
“Puppet”? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urged her height,
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole?
Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
HELENA
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness.
I am a right maid for my cowardice.
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.
HERMIA “Lower”? Hark, again!
HELENA
Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,
Did ever keep your counsels, never wronged you--
Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
He followed you; for love, I followed him.
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens will I bear my folly back
And follow you no further. Let me go.
You see how simple and how fond I am.
HERMIA
Why, get you gone. Who is ’t that hinders you?
HELENA
A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
HERMIA
What, with Lysander?
HELENA With Demetrius.
LYSANDER
Be not afraid. She shall not harm thee, Helena.
DEMETRIUS
No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
HELENA
O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd.
She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
HERMIA
“Little” again? Nothing but “low” and “little”?
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her.
LYSANDER Get you gone, you dwarf,
You minimus of hind’ring knotgrass made,
You bead, you acorn--
DEMETRIUS You are too officious
In her behalf that scorns your services.
Let her alone. Speak not of Helena.
Take not her part. For if thou dost intend
Never so little show of love to her,
Thou shalt aby it.
LYSANDER Now she holds me not.
Now follow, if thou dar’st, to try whose right,
Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
DEMETRIUS
“Follow”? Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl.
Demetrius and Lysander exit
HERMIA
You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.
Nay, go not back.
HELENA I will not trust you, I,
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray.
My legs are longer though, to run away.
Helena exits
HERMIA
I am amazed and know not what to say.
Hermia exits
OBERON
This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak’st,
Or else committ’st thy knaveries willfully.
PUCK
Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me I should know the man
By the Athenian garments he had on?
OBERON
Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.
Hie at once overcast the night;
But notwithstanding, haste! Make no delay.
We may effect this business yet ere day.
PUCK
Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down.
I am feared in field and town.
Goblin, lead them up and down.
Here comes one.
Lysander enters
LYSANDER
Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.
PUCK
Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?
LYSANDER I will be with thee straight.
PUCK Follow me then, to plainer ground.
Lysander exits
Enter Demetrius
DEMETRIUS Lysander, speak again.
Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
PUCK
Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant! Come, thou child!
I’ll whip thee with a rod. He is defiled
That draws a sword on thee.
DEMETRIUS Yea, art thou there?
PUCK
Follow my voice. We’ll try no manhood here.
Exit Demetrius
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. Come, thou gentle day,
For if but once thou show me thy gray light,
I’ll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.
Lysander lies down to sleep
Enter Demetrius
PUCK
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?
PUCK 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.
By day’s approach look to be visited.
Demetrius lies down to sleep
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 awhile from mine own company.
Helena lies down to sleep
PUCK
Yet but three? Come one more.
Here she comes, curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad
Thus to make poor females mad.
Enter Hermia.
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.
Heavens shield Lysander if they mean a fray!
Hermia lies down to sleep
PUCK
On the ground
Sleep sound.
I’ll apply
To your eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.
When thou wak’st,
Thou tak’st
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lover's eye.
Jack shall have Jill;
Naught shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
Puck anoints Lysander's eyes and then exits
Scene 7
Titania, and Bottom enter
TITANIA
Come, sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick muskroses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
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. 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, begone, and be all ways away.
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!
Bottom and Titania sleep
Enter Puck and Oberon
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 favors for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her.
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 transformèd 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.
Be as thou wast wont to be.
See as thou wast wont to see.
Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
TITANIA
My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamored 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
Come, my queen, take hands with me,
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
TITANIA
Come, my lord, and in our flight
Tell me how it came this night
That I sleeping here was found
Titania and Oberon dance.
With these mortals on the ground.
Oberon, Puck, and Titania exit
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus
THESEUS
—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
But speak, Egeus. Is not this the day
That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS It is, my lord.
THESEUS
Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.
Begin these woodbirds but to couple now?
Demetrius, Helena, Hermia, and Lysander awake and kneel
LYSANDER Pardon, my lord.
THESEUS I pray you all, stand up.
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
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
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,
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 saw Hermia.
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.--
Away with us to Athens. Three and three,
We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.
Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus, exit
DEMETRIUS
These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turnèd 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 Are you sure
That we are awake? 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.
BOTTOM, (waking) When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.” Hey-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 to 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.
He exits
Scene 8
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 handicraftman 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
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 five bucks a day during his life. He could not have scaped
five bucks a day. An the Duke had not given him five bucks a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be damned. He would have deserved it. Five bucks 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 not 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. 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!
They exit
Scene 9
(this scene entirely Pyramus and Thisbe, the play within the play)
Enter Quince as Prologue
QUINCE
If we offend, it is with our goodwill.
That you should think we come not to offend,
But with goodwill. 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.
Enter Pyramus (Bottom), and Thisbe (Flute), and Wall (Snout), and Moonshine (Starveling), and Lion (Snug)
QUINCE,
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 grisly 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.
Lion, Thisbe, Moonshine, and Prologue exit
SNOUT
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.
BOTTOM
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.
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!
Enter Thisbe (Flute)
FLUTE
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
I see a voice! Now will I to the chink
To spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face.
Thisbe?
FLUTE
My love! Thou art my love, I think.
BOTTOM
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace,
And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
FLUTE
And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
BOTTOM
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
FLUTE
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
BOTTOM
O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
FLUTE
I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
BOTTOM
Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
FLUTE
’Tide life, ’tide death, I come without delay.
Bottom and Flute exit
SNOUT
Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
Snout exits
Enter Lion (Snug) and Moonshine (Starveling)
SNUG
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.
STARVELING
All that I have to say is to tellyou that the lanthorn is the moon, I the man i’ th’moon, this thornbush my thornbush, and this dog my dog.
Enter Thisbe (Flute)
FLUTE
This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?
SNUG O!
The Lion roars
Thisbe runs off, dropping her mantle
Lion worries the mantle then exits
Enter Pyramus (Bottom)
BOTTOM
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!
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.
Now am I dead;
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light!
Moon, take thy flight!
Now die, die, die, die, die.
Enter Thisbe (Flute)
FLUTE
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!
And farewell, friends. Thus Thisbe ends.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Players bow and exit
Enter Puck
PUCK
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
Else the Puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
Puck exits
End of Play