more, married: if our sport had gone forward we had all been made men.

FLU. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a-day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence aday, in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter BOTTOM.

BOT. Where are these lads? where are these hearts?

QUIN. Bottom!-O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

Bor. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you I am no true

Athenian. I will tell you everything, right* as it fell out.

QUIN. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

BOT. Not a word of me. All that I will tell

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

(*) First folio omits, right.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE,

Lords, and Attendants.

HIP. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

THE. More strange than true. I never may believe

These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold

That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear.

HIP. But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigur'd so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,
And grows to something of great constancy; a
But, howsoever, strange, and admirable.

Lys.
Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THE. Come now; what masks, what dances
shall we have,

To wear away this long age of three hours,
Between our after-supper (1) and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.b

PHILOST. Here, mighty Theseus.

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
Lys. The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.
THE. That is an old device, and it was play'd
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

Lys. The thrice three Muses mourning for the death

Of learning, late deceased in beggary.

THE. That is some satire, keen, and critical, Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

Lys. A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus, And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.

d

THE. Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?
That is, hot ice, and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
PHILOST. A play there is, my lord, some ten
words long;

Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long;
Which makes it tedious: for in all the play,
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which, when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
THE. What are they that do play it?
PHILOST. Hard-handed men, that work in
Athens here,

Which never labour'd in their minds till now;
And now have toil'd their unbreath'd memories
With this same play, against your nuptial.
THE. And we will hear it.

I will hear that play; For never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it. Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies. [Exit PHILOSTRATE. HIP. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing.

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

HIP. He says, they can do nothing in this kind. THE. The kinder we, to give them thanks for

nothing.

d That is, hot ice, and wondrous strange snow.] Strange is undoubtedly a corruption. It forms no antithesis where one certainly was intended. Upton's black snow comes nearest to the sense demanded; but strange could hardly have been a misprint for black. Perhaps we should read, swarthy snow. Swarte, as formerly spelt, is not so far removed from the word in the text as Upton's black, or Hanmer's scorching, or the old annotator's seething.

Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake:
And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
Takes it in might, not merit.

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty,

I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity,
In least, speak most, to my capacity.

Enter PHILOSTRATE.

PHILOST. So please your grace, the prologue is address'd.b

THE. Let him approach. [Flourish of trumpets.

Enter Prologue.

PROL. If we offend, it is with our good will.

That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. Consider then, we come but in despite.

We do not come, as minding to content you, Our true intent is. All for your delight,

We are not here. That you should here repent you,

The actors are at hand; and by their show,
You shall know all, that you are like to know. (2)

THE. This fellow doth not stand upon points. Lys. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows. not the stop. A good moral, my lord : it is not enough to speak, but to speak true.

HIP. Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in govern

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 by name Lion hight,
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 broach'd his boiling bloody breast; (3) And, Thisbe tarrying in mulberry shade,

His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest, Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain, At large discourse, while here they do remain.

[Exeunt PROLOGUE, THISBE, LION, and MOONSHINE.

THE. I wonder, if the lion be to speak. DEM. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.

WALL. In this same interlude, it doth befall,
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall:
And such a wall as I would have you think,
That had in it a cranny'd hole, or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,
Did whisper often very secretly.

This loam, this rough-cast, 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.

THE. Would you desire lime and hair to speak

better?

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

THE. Pyramus draws near the wall: silence.

PYR. O grim-look'd 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, Ot lovely wall,

That stand'st between her father's ground and mine,
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
[WALL holds up his fingers
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;
Curs'd be thy stones for thus deceiving me!

THE. The wall, methinks, being sensible, shoula curse again.

BOT. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me is Thisbe's cue: she is to enter now,‡ and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I told you:-yonder she comes.

(*) First folio omits, trusty. (†) First folio, thou sweet and. (1) First folio omits, now.

d Enter Pyramus, &c.] In the folio this stage direction is preceded by a direction, "Tawyer with a trumpet before them."

e Which by name Lion hight,-] The old text reads, "Lion hight by name." Theobald suggested the transposition, to make this line and the two next lines form a triplet.

THIS.
My love thou art my love, I think.
PYR. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;
And like Limander a am I trusty still.

THIS. And I like Helen, till the fates me kill.
PYR. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
THIS. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

PYR. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
THIS. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
PYR. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
THIS. "Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.
WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

[Exeunt WALL, PYRAMUS, and THISBE.

THE. Now is the mural* down between the two neighbours.

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

HIP. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard. THE. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them. HIP. It must be your imagination, then, and not theirs.

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

Enter LION and MOONSHINE.

LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
A lion fell, e nor else no lion's dam:

For if I should as lion come in strife
Into this place, 't were pity ont my life.

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

DEM. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.

Lys. This lion is a very fox for his valour. THE. True; and a goose for his discretion. DEM. Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his discretion; and the fox carries the goose. THE. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for the goose carries not the fox. It

is well leave it to his discretion, and let us hearken to the moon.

MOON. This lantern doth the horned moon present

DEM. He should have worn the horns on his head. THE. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference.

MOON. This lantern doth the horned moon present; Myself the man i' th' moon doth seem to be.(4)

THE. This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lantern: how is it else the man i' the moon?

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

HIP. I am aweary of this moon; would he would change.

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

d Already in snuff.] That is, in anger. See Note (°), p. 84. e By his small light of discretion,-] So, in "Love's Labour's Lost," Act V. Sc. 2:-"I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion." The expression was evidently familiar, though we have never met with any explanation of it.

f Thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,-] The old copies read, beams. We adopt the emendation suggested by Mr. Knight.