ACT III. SCENE IS. The Same. The Queen of Fairies lying asleep. Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. BOT. Are we all met? QUIN. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous * convenient place for our rehearsal: This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tyring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the duke. Bor. Peter Quince, QUIN. What say'st thou, bully Bottom? Bor. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby, that will never please. First, Pyramus * Quarto F. marvels. employs either, and other similar words, as monosyllables. So, in King Henry IV. P. II. : "Either from the king, or in the present time." Again, in King Henry V.: "Either past, or not arriv'd to pith and puissance." Again, in Julius Cæsar : "Either led or driven, as we point the way." Again, in King Richard III.: "Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance-." Again, in Othello: "Either in discourse of thought, or actual deed." So also, Marlowe in his Edward II. 1598 : "Either banish him that was the cause thereof -." The modern editors read-Or death or you, &c. MALONE. 5 In the time of Shakspeare there were many companies of players, sometimes five at the same time, contending for the favour of the publick. Of these some were undoubtedly very unskilful and very poor, and it is probable that the design of this scene was to ridicule their ignorance, and the odd expedients to which they might be driven by the want of proper decorations. Bottom was perhaps the head of a rival house, and is therefore honoured with an ass's head. JOHNSON. Enter QUINCE, &c.] The two quartos 1600, and the folio, read only, Enter the Clowns. STEEVENS. 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 3. 8 Bor. 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. Bor. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves to bring in, God shield us! a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a 7 BY'RLAKIN, a PARLOUS fear.] By our as ifakins is a corruption of by my faith. Preston's Cambyses: ladykin, or little lady, The former is used in "The clock hath stricken vive, ich think, by laken.” Again, in Magnificence, an interlude, written by Skelton, and printed by Rastell: By our lakin, syr, not by my will." Parlous is a word corrupted from perilous, i. e. dangerous. So, Phaer and Twyne translate the following passage in the Eneid, lib. vii. 302: 66 Quid Syrtes, aut Scylla mihi? quid vasta Charybdis "Profuit? "What good did Scylla me? What could prevail Charybdis wood? "Or Sirtes parlous sands?" STEEVENS. 8 -in eight and six.] i. e. in alternate verses of eight and six syllables. MALONE. 9 — God shield us! alion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing.] There is an odd coincidence between what our author has here 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. Bor. 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'. written for Bottom, and a real occurrence at the Scottish court in the year 1594. Prince Henry the eldest son of James the First was christened in August in that year. While the king and queen, &c. were at dinner, a triumphal chariot (the frame of which, we are told, was ten feet long and seven broad) with several allegorical personages on it, was drawn in by "a black-moore. This chariot should have been drawne in by a lyon, but because his presence might have brought some feare to the nearest, or that the sight of the lighted torches might have commoved his tameness, it was thought meete that the Moore should supply that room." A true account of the most triumphal and royal accomplishment of the baptism of the most excellent, right high, and mighty prince, Henry Frederick, &c. as it was solemnized the 30th day of August, 1594. 8vo. 1603. MALONE. 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.] There are probably many temporary allusions to particular incidents and characters scattered through our author's plays, which gave a poignancy to certain passages, while the events were recent, and the persons pointed at yet living.In the speech now before us, I think it not improbable that he meant to allude to a fact which happened in his time, at an entertainment exhibited before Queen Elizabeth. It is recorded in a manuscript collection of anecdotes, stories, &c. entitled, Merry Passages and Jeasts, MS. Harl. 6395: "There was a spectacle presented to Queen Elizabeth upon the water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to repre 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? Bor. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanack; find out moon-shine, find out moon-shine. QUIN. Yes, it doth shine that night. Bor. 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. Aye; 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? Bor. 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 sent Arion upon the dolphin's backe; but finding his voice to be verye hoarse and unpleasant, when he came to perform it, he tears off his disguise, and swears he was none of Arion, not he, but even honest Harry Goldingham; which blunt discoverie pleased the queene better than if it had gone through in the right way-yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well." The collector of these Merry Passages appears to have been nephew to Sir Roger L'Estrange. MALONE. your speech, enter into that brake2; 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? QUIN. Speak, Pyramus:-Thisby, stand forth. PYR. odours savours sweet: So hath thy breath3, my dearest Thisby dear.— But, hark, a voice! stay thou but here a while*, And by and by I will to thee appear. [Exit. 2- that BRAKE ;] Brake, in the present instance, signifies a thicket or furze-bush. So, in the ancient copy of the Notbrowne Mayde, 1521: for, dry or wete "Ye must lodge on the playne: "And us abofe none other rofe "But a brake bush, or twayne." Again, in Milton's Masque at Ludlow Castle: "Run to your shrowds within these brakes and trees." STEVENS. Brake in the west of England is used to express a large extent of ground overgrown with furze, and appears both here and in the next scene to convey the same idea. HENLey. 3 SO HATH thy breath,] The old copies concur in reading : "So hath thy breath," Mr. Pope made the alteration of hath into doth, which seems to be necessary. STEEVENS. 4 - stay thou but here a WHILE,] nately in rhyme: but sweet in the while in the third, will not do for doubtless, gave it: The verses should be alterclose of the first line, and this purpose. The author, 66 - stay thou but here a whit," i. e. a little while: for so it signifies, as also any thing of no price or consideration; a trifle: in which sense it is very frequent with our author. THEOBald. Nothing, I think, is got by either change. I suspect two lines |
