SCENE II.-The same. A Room in a Cottage. Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING. Quin. Is all our company here? Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. Quin. 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 duchess, on his wedding-day at night. Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and Bo grow to a point. Quin, Marry, our play is-The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. Bot. 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 your=selves. [weaver. Quin. Answer as I call you.-Nick Bottom, the Bot. Ready Name what part I am for, and proceed. [ramus. Quin. Yon, Nick Bottom, are set down for PyBot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love. Bot. 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 humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. "The raging rocks, "Of prison-gates: 64 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. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Fiu. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You must take Thisby on you. Fla. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Quin. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;--Thisne, Thisne-Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear! Quin. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and Flute, Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor. 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 strawcoloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced.-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-ight; 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. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I-A Wood near Athens. Enter a Fairy at one door and PUCK at another. Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander every where, In those freckles live their savours: Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night; Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy; mother.-Tom Snout, the tinker. Snout. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father:-Soug, the joiner, you the lion's part: and, I hope, here is a play fitted. Say. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. Bot. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me ; I will Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy: : Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that flobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, 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; And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And tailor cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe; And waxen 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! SCENE II.-Enter OBERON, at one door, with his Obe. Tarry, rash wanton; Am not I thy lord? Obe. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania, 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: 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, The 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; And on old Hyem's chin, and icy crown, An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer, The chilling autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world, Obe. Do you amend it then; it lies in you: 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 Would imitate; and sail upon the land, [squire, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandize. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And, for her sake, I do rear up the 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 kingdom. Fairies, away: We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exeunt Titania and her train. Obe. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this Till I torment thee for this injury.[grove. My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song: And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music. Puck. I remember. Obe. That very time I saw, (but thou could'st not.) Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon; In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: 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 over-hear their conference. |