And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured everywhere:
For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again. Exit.
Scene II
Athens. Quince’s house.
Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. | |
Quince | Is all our company here? |
Bottom | You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. |
Quince | 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. |
Bottom | First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point. |
Quince | Marry, our play is The Most Lamentable Comedy, and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe. |
Bottom | 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. |
Quince | Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. |
Bottom | Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. |
Quince | You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. |
Bottom | What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? |
Quince | A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. |
Bottom |
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.
This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein; a lover is more condoling. |
Quince | Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. |
Flute | Here, Peter Quince. |
Quince | Flute, you must take Thisby on you. |
Flute | What is Thisby? a wandering knight? |
Quince | It is the lady that Pyramus must love. |
Flute | Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. |
Quince | That’s all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. |
Bottom | And 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 Thisbe dear, and lady dear!” |
Quince | No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby. |
Bottom | Well, proceed. |
Quince | Robin Starveling, the tailor. |
Starveling | Here, Peter Quince. |
Quince | Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. |
Snout | Here, Peter Quince. |
Quince |
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. |
Quince | You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. |
Bottom | 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.” |
Quince | 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. |
Bottom | I grant you, friends, if 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. |
Quince | 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. |
Bottom | Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? |
Quince | Why, what you will. |
Bottom | I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. |
Quince | 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 tomorrow 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. |
Bottom | We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu. |
Quince | At the duke’s oak we meet. |
Bottom | Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings. Exeunt. |
Act II
Scene I
A wood near Athens.
Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck. | |
Puck | How now, spirit! whither wander you? |
Fairy |
Over hill, over dale, |