Her. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face; 210 221 Lysander and myself will fly this place. 230 239 250 To have his sight thither and back again. [Exit. SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE's house. Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, 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 the 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 so 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 yourselves. Quin. Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. 21 Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. Bot. That will ask some tears in the true per forming 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 40 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. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Quin. Flute, you must take Thisby on you. Flu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Flu. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. 50 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, you Thisby. Bot. Well, proceed. Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor. 60 Star. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. Quin. You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby'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. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. 71 Bot. 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.' 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. 91 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 strawcolor beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crowncolor beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. 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 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. Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most 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 from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck. Thorough bush, thorough brier, Thorough flood, thorough fire, green. In those freckles live their savors: 10 20 Take heed the queen come not within his sight; And now they never meet in grove or green, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; Puck. Thou speak'st aright; 50 I am that merry wanderer of the night. Fai. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone! : Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train 70 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 Egle break his faith, With Ariadne and Antiopa? 80 90 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 in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'dour 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, 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, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds 110 Is, as in mockery, set; the spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed 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. 100 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. 120 Tita. Set your heart at rest: The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a votaress 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, 131 Would imitate, and sail upon the land, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: 161 170 Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, 180 195 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 stolen unto this wood; And here am I and wode within this wood, Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. Hel. 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. 200 Dem. 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? He. 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 use your dog? 210 Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit, For I am sick when I do look on thee. Hel. And I am sick when I look not on you. Dem. You doimpeach 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. 220 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: 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. 231 Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you. Run when you will, the story shall be changed: 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 valor 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. Fie, 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. 240 Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence! Worm nor snail, do no offence. (Exit Dem. A Fairy. Hence, away! now all is well: I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, 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. Obe. I pray thee, give it me. I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, 250 Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell'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: One aloof stand sentinel. Enter OBERON, and squeezes the flower on 30 Obe. What thou seest when thou dost wake, Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA. Lys. Fair love, you faint with wandering 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. |