The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 368

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 the d.u.c.h.ess 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 Thisby.'

BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I a.s.sure 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.

'The raging rocks And s.h.i.+vering shocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates;

And Phibbus' car Shall s.h.i.+ne from far, 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.

QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.

FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring 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. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.

I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'

[Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy Thisby 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 Thisby'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 d.u.c.h.ess 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-fac'd 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 bare-fac'd. 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 rehea.r.s.e; for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg'd 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 rehea.r.s.e 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

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ACT II. SCENE I.

A wood near Athens

Enter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another

PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?

FAIRY. Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander every where, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the Fairy Queen, To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours.

I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.

Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.

PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night; Take heed the Queen come not within his sight; For Oberon is pa.s.sing fell and wrath, Because that she as her attendant hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.

She never had so sweet a changeling; And jealous Oberon would have the child Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; But she perforce withholds the loved boy, Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.

And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, But they do square, that all their elves for fear Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he That frights the maidens of the villagery, Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn, And sometime make the drink to bear no barm, Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?

Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck.

Are not you he?

PUCK. Thou speakest 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 withered dewlap pour the ale.

The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her b.u.m, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.

FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and t.i.tANIA, at another, with hers

OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud t.i.tania.

t.i.tANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company.

OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?

t.i.tANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know When thou hast stolen away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day, Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the farthest steep of India, But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love, To Theseus must be wedded, and you come To give their bed joy and prosperity?

OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, t.i.tania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night From Perigouna, whom he ravished?

And make him with fair Aegles break his faith, With Ariadne and Antiopa?

t.i.tANIA. 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'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, Hath 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 murrion 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: h.o.a.ry-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 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.