The Dramatic Works and Poems of William Shakespeare

roar, that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again, Let him roar again.

Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us every mother's son. Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang 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.

Quin. 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, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

Quin. Why, what you will.

Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.2

Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced.3 But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moon-light; there will we rehearse for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not. Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely, and courageously. Take pains; be perfect, adieu.

Quin. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bot. Enough; Hold, or cut bow-strings.

ACT II.

[Exeunt.

In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savors:
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear."
Farewell, thou lob1o of spirits, I'll be gone;
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-
night;

Take heed the queen come not within his sight.
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling: 11
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forest wild:
But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her
joy:

And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen,"
But they do square ;13 that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making

quite,

Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Good-fellow are you not he,
That fright the maidens of the villagery:
Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,'
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;15
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work ;16 and they shall have good luck.
Are not you he?
Puck.
Thou speak'st aright;

I am that merry wanderer of the night."
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:

And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;17
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,

SCENE I. A Wood near Athens. Enter a Fairy And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.

at one door; and PUCK at another.

The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you? Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,

Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough briar,"

Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire.
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs' upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

1 As if.

2 It seems to have been a custom to stain or dye the beard.

3 This allusion to the Corona Veneris, or baldness attendant upon a particular stage of, what was then termed, the French disease, is too frequent in Shakspeare, and is here explained once for all.

4 Articles required in performing a play. 5 To meet whether bowstrings hold or are cut is to meet in all events. But the origin of the phrase has not been satisfactorily explained.

6 So Drayton, in his Nymphidia, or Court of Fairy:
Thorough brake, thorough briar,
Thorough muck, thorough mire,
Thorough water, thorough fire.

7 The orbs here mentioned are those circles in the herbage commonly called fairy-rings, the cause of which is not yet certainly known.

And tailor cries, 18 and falls into a cough;

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe: And yexen19 in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But room, Faery, here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my mistress :-'Would that he were gone!

14 A quern was a handmill.

15 And if that the bowle of curds and creame were not duly set out for Robin Goodfellow, the frier, and Sisse the dairy-maid, why then either the pottage was burnt next day in the pot, or the cheeses would not curdle, or the butter would not come, or the ale in the fat never would have good head. But if a Peeterpenny, or an housle-egg were behind, or a patch of tythe unpaid, then ware of bull-beggars, spirits,' &c. 16 Milton refers to these traditions in L'Allegro. 17 Wild apple.

18 Dr. Johnson thought he remembered to have heard this ludicrous exclamation upon a person's seat slipping 8 The allusion is to Elizabeth's band of gentlemen from under him. He that slips from his chair falls as a pensioners, who were chosen from among the hand-tailor squats upon his board. Hanmer thought the passomest and tallest young men of family and fortune; sage corrupt, and proposed to read rails or cries.' they were dressed in habits richly garnished with gold Lace.

9 In the old comedy of Doctor Dodypoll, 1600, an enchanter says,

'Twas I that led you through the painted meads Where the light fairies danc'd upon the flowers, Hanging on every leaf an orient pearl.

10 Lubber or clown. Lob, lobcock, looby, and lubber, all denote inactivity of body and dulness of mind.

19 The old copy reads: And waren in their mirth, &c. Though a gliminering of sense may be extracted from this passage as it stands in the old copy, it seems most probable that we should read, as Dr. Farmer pro posed, yeren. To yer is to hiccup, and is so explained in all the old dictionaries. The meaning of the passage will then be, that the objects of Puck's waggery laughed till their laughter ended in a yer or hiccup. Puck is speaking with an affectation of ancient phraseology,

SCENE II. Enter OBERON, at one door, with his | And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
Train, and TITANIA, at another, with hers.
Obe. Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania.
Tita. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence;

I have forsworn his bed and company.

Obe. Tarry, rash wanton: Am not I thy lord?
Tita. Then I must be thy lady: But I know
When thou hast stol'n away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn; and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress, and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.

Obe. How, canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering

night

From Perigenia, whom he ravished?

And make him with fair Ægle break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa ??

Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer's spring,'
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents:5
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable:
The human mortals' want their winter here;"
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
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: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;

1 The shepherd boys of Chaucer's time had 'Many a floite and litling horne

And pipes made of grene corne?

2 See the Life of Theseus in North's Translation of Plutarch. Egle, Ariadne, and Antiopa were all at different times mistresses to Theseus. The name of Perigune is translated by North Perigouna.

3 Spring seems to be here used for beginning. The spring of day is used for the dawn of day in K. Henry IV. Part II.

4 A very common epithet with our old writers, to signify paltry; pulting appears to have been its original orthography.

5 i. e. borne down the banks which contain them. 6 A rural game, played by making holes in the ground In the angles and sides of a square, and placing stones or other things upon them, according to certain rules. These figures are called nine men's morris, or merrils, because each party playing has nine men; they were generally cut upon turf, and were consequently choked up with mud in rainy seasons.

7 Human mortals is a mere pleonasm; and is neither put in opposition to fairy mortals nor to human immortals, according to Steevens and Ritson. It is simply the language of a fairy speaking of men. See Mr. Douce's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 185.

8 Theobald proposed to read their winter cheer. 9 This singular image was probably suggested to the poet by Golding's translation of Ovid, B. ii.: And lastly quaking for the colde, stoode Winter all forlorne,

With rugged head as white as dove, and garments all to-torne,

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, 10 angry winter, change11
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,

By their increase, 12 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.

Obe. 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.13

Tita.

Set your heart at rest,

The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot'ress of my order:
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood;
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,
And grow big-bellied, with the wanton wind;
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following (her womb, then rich with my young
squire,)

Would imitate; and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And, for her sake, I do rear up her boy;
And, for her sake, I will not part with him.

Obe. How long within this wood intend you stay?
Tita. Perchance, till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moon-light revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. Tita. Not for thy fairy kingdom.-Fairies, away: we shall chide down-right, if I longer stay.

[Exeunt TITANIA and her Train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this

10 Autumn producing flowers unseasonably upon those of Summer.

11 The confusion of seasons here described is no more than a poetical account of the weather which happened in England about the time when the Midsummer-Night's Dream was written. The date of the piece may be de termined by Churchyard's description of the same kind of weather in his 'Charitie,' 1595. Shakspeare fanci fully ascribes this distemperature of seasons to a quarrel between the playful rulers of the fairy world; Churchyard, broken down by age and misfortunes, is seriously disposed to represent it as a judgment from the Almighty on the offences of mankind.

12 Produce. So in Shakspeare's 97th Sonnet;
The teeming Autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime.'
13 Page of honour.

14 It is well known that a compliment to Queen Ellzabeth was intended in this very beautiful passage, Warburton has attempted to show, that by the mermaid in the preceding lines, Mary Queen of Scots was intended. It is argued with his usual fanciful ingenuity, but will not bear the test of examination, and has been satisfactorily controverted. It appears to have been no uncommon practice to introduce a compliment to Elizabeth in the body of a play.

And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.'

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,-
Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it, love-in-idleness.2

Fetch me that flower: the herb I show'd thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids 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.
[Exit PUCK.
Obe.
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,
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,)
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm off from 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, HELENA following him.
Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander, and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me they were stol'n into this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood,
Because I cannot meet with Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant ;4
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart

you fair?

Is true as steel; Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
Dem. Do I entice you? Do I speak
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Tell you-I do not, nor I cannot love you?
Hel. And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

What worser place can I beg in your love,
(And yet a place of high respect with me,
Than to be used as you do your dog?

Then how can it be said, I am alone,
When all the world is here to look on me?
Dem. I'll run from thee, and hide me in the
brakes,

And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you. Run when you will, the story shall be chang'd; Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase; The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind Makes speed to catch the tiger. Bootless speed! When cowardice pursues, and valour flies.

Dem, 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.

Hel. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mischief. Fye, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex We cannot fight for love, as men may do We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo. I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.

[Exeunt DEM. and HEL Obe. Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,

Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.

Re-enter Puck.

Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. Puck. Ay, there it is.

Obc.

I pray thee, give it me. I know a bank whereon the wild thymne blows, Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania, some time of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamel'd skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: 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. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Another part of the Wood. Enter TITANIA, with her train.

Tita. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song;

Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;

spirit;

For I am sick, when I do look on thee.

Hel. And I am sick, when I look not on you.
Dem. You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city, and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not;
To trust the opportunity of night,
And the ill counsel of a desert place,
With the rich worth of your virginity.

Hel. 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:

1 Exempt from the power of love.

2 The tricolored violet, commonly called pansies, or heartsease, is here meant; one or two of its petals are of a purple colour. It has other fanciful and expressive names, such as-Cuddle me to you; Three faces under a hood; Herb trinity, &c.

3 Mad, raving.

4 There is now a dayes a kind of adamant which draweth unto it fleshe, and the same so strongly, that it hath power to knit and tie together two mouthes of contrary persons, and draw the heart of a man out of his bodie without offending any part of him.' Certaine Secrets Wonders of Nature, by Edward Fenton, 1509,

Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds; Some, war with rear-mice1o for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats; and some, keep

back

Hel. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.
Dem. Stay, on thy peril; I alone will go.
[Eart DEMETRIUS.
Hel. 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 blessed and attractive eyes.

How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:
If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;

For beasts that meet me, run away for fear:
Therefore, no marvel, though Demetrius
Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
But who is here ?-Lysander! on the ground!

Lys. Fair love, you faint with wandering in the Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound:

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.

Her. Be it so, Lysander; find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.

Lys. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth. Her. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear, Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.

Lys. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence;2
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 interchained 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.

Her. 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!

Lys. 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! Her. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd! [They 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,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.

1 The small tiger, or tiger-cat.

2 i. e. understand the meaning of my innocence, or my innocent meaning. Let no suspicion of ill enter thy mind. In the conversation of those who are assured of each other's kindness, not suspicion but love takes the meaning.

3 This word implies a sinister wish, and here means the same as if she had said, 'now ill befall my manners,' &c.

Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
Lys. And run through fire I will, for thy sweet
sake.
[Waking.
Transparent Helena; Nature shows her 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!

Hel. 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.

Lys. Content with Hernia? No: I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia, but Helena I love:

Who will not change a raven for a dove?
The will of man is by his reason sway'd;
And reason says you are the worthier majd.
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.

Hel. 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 refus'd,
Should of another, therefore be abus'd!
Lys. She sees not Hermia!-Hermia, sleep thou
there;

And never mayst thou come Lysander near!

For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings;
Or, as the heresies, that men do leave,
Are hated most of those they did deceive;
4 Possess.

5 So in Macbeth:

'Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid.'

[Exit.

6 i. e. the lesser my acceptableness, the favour I can gain.

7 The quartos have only-' Nature shews art.' The first folio Nature her shews art.' The second folio changes her to here. Malone thought we should read, "Nature shews her art.' 8 i. e do not ripen to it.

So thou, my surfeit, and my heresy,
Of all be hated; but the most of me!
And all my powers, address your love and might,
To honour Helen, and to be her knight!
Her. [starting.] Help me, Lysander, help me!
do thy best,

me,

[Exit.

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ah for pity!-what a dream was here?
Lysander, look, how I do quake with fear:
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey :-
Lysander! what, remov'd? 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. [Exit.

Bot. Peter Quince,

Quin. What say'st thou, bully Bottom?

Bot. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby, that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

Snout. By'rlakin, a parlous' fear.

Star. I believe, we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

Bot. 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.

Quin. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.4

Bot. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
Star. I fear it, I promise you.

Bot. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in, God shield us! a lion among adies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion, living; and we ought to look to it.

Snout. Therefore, another prologue must tell, he

is not a lion.

Bot. 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.

Quin. Well, it shall be so.

But there is two

hard things; that is, to bring the moon-light into a chamber: for you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moon-light.

Snug. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

Bot. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanack; find out moon-shine, find out moonshine. Quin. Yes, it doth shine that night.

Bot. Why, then you may leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement.

Quin. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and say, he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moon-shine. Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall." Snug. You never can bring in a wall.-What say you, Bottom?

Bot. Some man or other must present wall: and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; or let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

Quin. 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 every one according to his cue.

Enter PUCK behind.

Puck. What hempen home-spuns have we swag-
So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
gering here,
What, a play toward? I'll be an auditor;
An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.

Quin. Speak, Pyramus :-Thisby, stand forth.
Pyr. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,—
Quin. Odours, odours.

Pyr. odours savours sweet :

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.But, hark, a voice! stay thou but here a while, And by and by I will to thee appear. [Exit. Puck. A stanger Pyramus than e'er play'd here! [Aside.-Exit.

This. Must I speak now?

Quin. Ay, marry, must you: for you must understand, he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

This. Most radiant Pyramus,most lilly-white of hue,
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky Juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire,

Quin. 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.-Pyra-
mus, enter; your cue is past; it is, never tire.
Re-enter Puck, and Воттом with an ass's head.
This. O,-As true as truest horse, that yet would
never tire.

Pyr. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.Quin. O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters! fly, masters! help!

[Exeunt Clowns. Puck. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake,

through brier;

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The Dramatic Works and Poems of William Shakespeare, Volumen1